Better Farming - November 2016

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28 FarmNews First > Better Farming November 2016
how she has been juggling employ-
ment as an administrator and the
farm for the past 10 years.
Castonguay and some dog-owning
friends purchased sheep and first
rented space on the outskirts of
Toronto where they could work the
animals.
“Then I said, ‘Right . . . I’m going
to have to come and live in the
country.’”
Two dogs — Ross, nine years of
age, and Deacon, three — both herd,
although Ross is beginning to show
his age, and Deacon still needs some
training. When the work ends, both
animals move in with their owner.
“My dogs come out with me; they
work the sheep. But when they come
home, they actually come in the
house and they lie around and look at
me like ‘Why are we just lying here?
Why aren’t we doing something?’”
Castonguay also has two Marem-
mas to guard sheep against coyotes.
These dogs, bred and born in the
barn, have no household privileges.
“I have to be able to handle them
so I can give them their shots or clip
their nails or whatever, but they’re not
pets,” she said. “I try not to relate to
them as pets.”
For farm dogs, the distinction
between working animals and
personal pets can be fine. The late
James Herriot, once a Yorkshire
veterinarian and author of All
Creatures Great and Small, wrote
about the theme in a short story
about a working dog named Gyp.
“I still stick to my theory: most
farm dogs are pets and they are there
mainly because the farmer just likes
to have them around,” Herriot wrote.
He described the idyllic life of a farm
dog.
“They don’t have to beg for walks,
they are out all day long, and in the
company of their master,” he said. “If
I want to find a man on a farm I look
for his dog, knowing the man won’t
be far away.”
Carolyn Muir Helfenstein, a
retired Teeswater-area dairy farmer
and former weekly newspaper
publisher, believes dogs on a farm
draw together all its elements: land,
livestock, wildlife and humans. “Our
Farm Dog,” her autobiographical
story about a long-gone-but-not-for-
gotten Australian shepherd called
Bruce, appeared in Our Family Farm:
Stories from Bruce & Grey. The book
commemorates the International Year
of Family Farming.
FARMDOGS
Teresa Castonguay is a director of the Ontario Border Collie Club.
She is also a shepherd and owner of both border collies and
Maremma guardian dogs on her farm near Warkworth.