Wilder Forever

The pasture is a great ocean. The chickens and the sheep, in their schooners built of electric netting, float around for fish of forbs, grass, and legume. And the lost treasure of the deep sea. For the chickens, that is bugs and small critters – anything that fits in their beak, basically. For the sheep, it’s the sweetest bite of a dandelion leaf followed by a nap in the sun. When they are done lazing, the young wethers practice head butting each other and dance in circles ‘round the fence line. Sea chanties, if you listen just right. Lambs play – in some ways they are much like puppies.

I happen to have a few puppies on this farm – one of them being a ten-year-old Aussie named Wilder. He’s as much a puppy as he was when we got him at eight weeks old. In fact, he’s only gotten better at it. Wilder still has tons of juice, but he gets sore and sometimes an old leg injury flairs up when we push it too hard on the trails. Other than that, he lives up to his name: wily and smashmouth, he just needs a few more naps these days. When this farm had Romney ewes, I worked hard to keep Wilder and Pip (our other, more somber Aussie – though still a sweet, sensitive boy) away from them, as Wilder would bark and whine and nip at the gate, desperate for a lick at their wool, or maybe some deep herding instinct driving him mad. With these new sheepy boys around, and with Wilder being a bit more chill as he's aged, I’ve decided to let him sniff around the sheep and figure out a way we can all co-exist.

The sheep and chickens are protected by the electric netting from those large and mythical creatures of the Something Wild Sea – the bear sharks, the bobcat fish, the foxtopuses (foxtopi?). It’s highly visible fence that emits around 4000 volts to any curious nose, hand, paw, or foot. Go ahead, try it. There’s no amperage, it’s not dangerous. I’ve tested the fence many times by bare hand. Zap! You pull your hand back. You’re fine, you realize. And there’s a tingly sensation in your elbow, maybe your shoulder. Then it’s gone. If you were a black bear, you’d lumber away, muttering ursine obscenities. But you’re a curious human and you kinda want to touch it again….

Pip has been zapped once or twice over the years, usually caught sniffing too close to the chicken pen. He likes their feed – he also likes their poop. I’ve heard him yelp enough that I think he’s learned his lesson. These days he only pursues the feed that spills ‘round the grain bucket in the barn. And I’m okay with that – less food for rodents. Wilder, on the other hand, is fluffy as a marshmallow, and insulated as well. He’s pressed into the fence so many times and been nonchalant about it, I’ve questioned whether it was on at all.

Sometimes I forget that Wilder doesn’t fear the fence – and I’ve gotten away with it until now.

I love when the dogs follow me around for chores. I can seed pots, harvest raspberries and green beans, feed the chickens, fill the waters, and Pip and Wilder will burrow under the lilac bush or go scratch in the compost to dig up some old egg shell. In the great wide expanse of the pasture ocean, they are dolphins (dogphins?) jumping merrily above the waves – then back under, dashing along and poking out somewhere unexpected, a big dopey grin on their faces, and a few burdock thistles in their fluff. They’re not working dogs and they need exercise, so it warms my soul to let them tromp around the farm while I can get work done – something I wasn’t able to do with the last flock of sheep and chickens.

The sheep were set up closer to the house than usual – right under the back porch, why weed whack the jewelweed when the sheep can eat it? – in the main line of the dogs’ path to the pasture. Karley and the kids were out as well and there was lots of activity and fun and play happening in the field. Wilder followed me down the hill. I looked back and watched him sniff through the fence. Big Mike, the largest of the three sheep, sniffed back. Are you a sheep? I imagined him asking Wilder. Are you a doggy? I imagined Wilder’s retort. Unfortunately for both of them, the answer was no. But logic does not prevail with critters and soon Wilder’s silent questioning was a loud, vociferous play bark. He ran back and forth along the fence barking, and Pip followed along. I called him over to chill him out, but the moment I turned my back, he returned to the fence line and ran up and down, up and down, bark bark bark!, up and down again. Play with meeeeee! he bellowed at the three sheep. They stared back, incredulous.

The netting was situated along some tall tomato plants behind a stone wall on a hill, and I knew if Wilder dipped into them, it would get ugly. I dropped what I was doing and called him back again, using my “big dog” voice. In his fit of delusional doggy playtime splendor madness, he launched himself off a rock through the tomato vines, crashing straight into the electric netting. Three panels collapsed as he fell onto them. He tried to get up and escape, but tangled in the netting. Paws and legs twisted with wire and voltage. Wilder began yelping for his life. Zap! Zap! Zap! Shocking him all over.

I hopped over the collapsed fence and raced to the energizer on the far side of the paddock. I simultaneously had to consider Wilder’s well-being and the containment of the sheep, who have never escaped. And I have never felt interested in finding out how docile they really are when they taste freedom. I also knew I couldn’t untangle him if the fence was hot. I hurdled the far side of the fence and tripped. My shoe caught in the netting and I fell. The voltage pulsed through my leg a few times while I fumbled for the button to shut the energizer off, Wilder wailing in the distance. I’ve been zapped so many times I don’t really notice anymore. Finally, I killed the power to the fence. I untangled myself and took a deep breath, readying myself to go liberate Wilder. I imagined him choking and twisted up in ways dogs aren’t meant to be shaped. His old leg injury came straight to my mind and I feared he’d be injured again. I looked up and, lo!, he was up and free, jauntily hopping over to Karley with the devilish grin of the merry riff raffer. I quickly fixed the sheep fence – the three boys are as docile as sheep can be; they know not freedom and never will – and I felt a dark mood settle over me.

I called the dogs to me and we got into the house. I sat down with Wilder on the kitchen floor and put my hands deep into his fluff and stared into his bright blue eyes (which he gets from me, if you’ve ever wondered). And I began crying. Tears just gushed out of me. His stupid, loyal, loving gaze pulled them from deep within.

I sat on the porch with a glass of water and let the tears dry on my cheeks. Karley’s boys came to check in on me and I let them see my wipe my eyes. Wilder is starting to show his age – he’s starting to get old – and dammit, I don’t want him to leave us by getting choked out on an electric net. He’s got so much vigor for an old man doggo – he’s got a few good years left. I think a lot about his personality, and his name.* His name is right. It’s perfect, actually. He only gets wilder as he ages. And he teaches me a lot about how I want to age – wilder forever. I turned forty this past spring, and Wilder turned ten a few days later. It’s amazing how long we get to have our best friends, and how little we really savor that.

The electric fence didn’t get me, his blue eyes tell me, and it never will.

He’s still the same puppy I fell in love with one quarter of my life ago. A few nights later, I lie on the couch and doze with my feet up on the arm of the couch. Wilder squishes between my legs and rests his chin contentedly on my ankle. He’s done this as long as I’ve had him. It’s our default position. We look like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly. I scratch his butt. Good.

His eyes closed, his little puppy dream smile, his soft breath. Being a dolphin. Counting sheep.

*Wilder is named after the 20th century writer and political thinker Rose Wilder Lane, who is known more famously for ghost writing her mother Laura Ingall Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series, which are mostly true stories from their life living on the periphery of civilized America. Rose wrote some bangers herself, including the novella Young Pioneers (1932) and the political pamphlet Give Me Liberty (1936). Her finest work is The Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle against Authority (1943), which was a powerful thing to publish in the throes of the US's early involvement in WWII. She travelled the world after being raised on a farm in South Dakota, told it like it is, was a feminist before that was a word, and was an all-around badass. On Something Wild Farm, we have an access road between the logging road and the back pasture called Wilder Lane.

If you're wondering, Pip is named after a rabbit from Richard Adams's novel Watership Down. The smallest rabbit in the warren was named Pipkin. A pipkin is an earthenware pot. On Something Wild Farm, we have a small hill with a flat rock on top that looks out to the Sandwich Range we call Mt. Pipkin. Someday soon I'll build a writer's cabin upon it, overlooking the farm and Mt. Whiteface.