Extreme Shepherding

As I suspected, nobody had a problem identifying the gang of critters in the previous post, with whom I shared my sunrise during last week’s 18-mile trail run:

Herds of grazing sheep are a longtime fixture of Fort Ord, employed primarily to prevent the grasslands from growing out of control. They roam various sections of the 7500-acre open space at different times, at the discretion of a shepherd who lives in a trailer and parks atop whatever hillside the sheep are currently assigned to.

(On a strange note - since Fort Ord formally belongs to the Bureau of Land Management under the United States Department of the Interior – this shepherd and his sheep have to be about the most unorthodox federal employees you’ll ever encounter. But that’s neither here nor there in relation to this story.)

Running the trails in the dark of early mornings, we frequently hear (or, more unpleasantly, smell) the sheep before we see them. The companion sheepdogs are usually alerted to our presence far earlier than we are aware of theirs - and if they perceive the approaching runners to be any sort of threat, they bark out a warning to ensure safe custody of their charges.

Every now and then, however, it’s possible to catch the herd off-guard – and if I’m by myself when this happens, sometimes I’ll pause to say a friendly how-do-you-do. I’m never sure who is more surprised by these chance encounters: the sheep, because of the stranger trampling through their herd, or me, for somehow getting myself entangled in a mob of mutton.

The puzzled moment doesn’t last very long, however, as the loyal sheepdog inevitably comes out to chase me away. He barks and jumps and makes all kinds of commotion just so everybody knows exactly who’s in charge.


Fortunately, this guy’s not too menacing. In fact, if you ask nicely, he’ll even sit and pose for you to take his picture.

Occasionally, after the sun comes up, we can spot the sheep across a valley from us, grazing on the opposite slope of whatever trail we’re traversing. If the sheep are collectively wandering around, their movements look like splotches of color spilling across the green hillside, and can become somewhat hypnotic if you stare at them for long enough.

One day a couple of weeks ago, two of my training partners were talking about how cool it would be if someone could organize the sheep to coordinate their movements, in the same manner that a college marching band spells out words or depicts shapes during a halftime show. We all had a good laugh about the notion and then dismissed it as too far-fetched to ever happen. After all, we’re talking about sheep … and they’re certainly not the most trainable animals around.

Imagine my shock last week, then, when one of those runners e-mailed me a video featuring shepherds doing exactly what we were joking about. Check that – they weren’t just doing performance art with sheep, but doing it in a way that was about 100 times more clever and impressive than anything we’d ever imagined.

The video is by a group of Welsh sheepherders* who call themselves the Baa-Studs (great name, isn’t it?), and it’s embedded below. It’s also ample proof of two things I’ve always suspected – the first of which is, the world can never have too many creative people. As strange as it sounds, just knowing that there are people out there who come up with ridiculously amazing stunts like this gives me enormous confidence in the human race.

The second point should be blatantly obvious after watching: namely, that some shepherds have WAY too much time on their hands.

In an ideal world, our group of runners would figure out a way to convince the Bureau of Land Management to get these guys on the US government payroll and station them at Fort Ord for our permanent enjoyment; in the meantime, we’ll just have to be take our entertainment from what you see below:

* "sheepherder" and "shepherd" are interchangeable, right? I'm pretty sure that's right.