We have had Border Collies on our sheep farm since 1993 when a student gifted me with his 9-month-old Border Collie, Doyle, who was not going to transition well to an apartment when he moved up to Houghton. When Doyle moved in we tried to be careful to keep him contained until he was trained to come on command. That didn’t work out for us. Doyle noticed the sheep on day two and was off like a flash. He had never seen a sheep in his life, but his brain and body knew what to do with them. He quickly had them rounded up and into the corral. We could not have stopped him and I am pretty sure he could not have stopped himself – it was instinct.

This summer, due to 8 coyote kills on our farm that the donkey and llamas were not able to prevent, we bought a couple of Great Pyrenees puppies. They were 6 months old when we got them in June. We call them Bonnie and Clyde. After a few weeks around the house penned with the bottle lambs to get to know sheep, they were moved into the pasture to rotate with the ewe and lamb flock. The first time the Border Collies were used to move the sheep being guarded by Bonnie and Clyde was quite an event. The instinct of the Pyrenees is to protect the sheep from an intruder. They saw the Border Collies as intruders and did everything to interfere with the job the collies were trying to do. Pyrenees are gentle giants, so they generally don’t bite, they just trample. The collies were running at the sheep to move them and the Pyrenees were running over the collies to stop them. All dogs were doing what their instincts told them to do, this time in opposition. Bonnie and Clyde have since figured out that the Border Collies are not intruders when they are with a human. However, they have successfully kept the coyotes out of the ewe flock. Not a single ewe or lamb has been lost to coyotes while guarded by the Pyrenees pups. I wish I could say the same for the flocks being guarded by the donkey and llamas.

Do humans have instincts? Can instincts be trained out of a person, or dog, or anything? I wonder these things.

Little children seem to have the instinct to be inquisitive. They are into everything not because they are bad, but because their instincts make them explorers. What happens then, why are some adults curious while others are not? I think it is because it is trained out of some kids in the name of education. I see this problem most in my developmental students. It is like they just don’t know how to be curious anymore. I wonder if it is due to the extreme difficulty that some children have learning the basics, let alone what’s below the surface. All of their time is spent learning these skills and there is no time left to explore their world. They begin to feel stupid and that makes learning more difficult. It’s a vicious cycle.

I have a granddaughter, Janna, who struggles to learn. Her brain does not make connections. It seems like her brain does not transfer knowledge from short term memory to long term memory without a tremendous effort. School is incredibly difficult and frustrating for her. We adults in her life who teach her, have to make sure we see her progress and celebrate it with her. But more importantly, we have to find her strengths and help her to see them and to be proud of them. Her strengths are outside of the classroom and if we are not careful, she will lose them. If I expect my Border Collies to protect the sheep, I will be very disappointed. They are hard-wired to herd the sheep and without a shepherd to guide them, they may end up killing sheep. Border Collies are not guardians. If I expect Bonnie and Clyde to herd the sheep I will also be disappointed. They are guardians, their brain would never consider chasing the sheep from one location to another. It is my responsibility to find what Janna is wired to do and help her to grow in that area rather than force her into my view of education. A child’s academic education is very important, but not more important than the child herself. If we lose the child in the name of education, education has failed her.