Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men Quotes

“The trainer Tony Illey has said, “The most difficult thing I ever saw a dog do was bring a ewe who’d just lost her lamb through a field full of lambing ewes.”
Let me offer a gloss: Ewes with new lambs are extremely protective of their lambs and often charge a dog. When they lose sight of their lamb, they assume the dog has killed it, and despite his teeth will try determinedly to trample him. A ewe who’s lost her lamb will rush back and forth seeking it, bleating to other newborn lambs trying to collect one. The other mothers are confused by this, and when the dog gets near them they, too, go on the attack.
Unlike Tony Illey, I don’t think what this dog did was difficult. It was impossible. Knowing that the dog can read sheep better than any man and can react much quicker than any man, what commands would you give him?
Correct answer: his name.”
― Donald McCaig, Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: Searching Through Scotland For A Border Collie

“It is not the job of the dog trainer to summon the dog’s generics, not to impose man’s will over dog’s. It may be worth noting that many Scottish hill dogs never know the weight”
― Donald McCaig, Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: Searching Through Scotland For A Border Collie

“I have a writer’s concentration: intense, but flickering.”
― Donald McCaig, Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: Searching Through Scotland For A Border Collie