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Finding new careers in a sheepless society

Dr. Nicholas Carter not only "rescues" unwanted border collies across the country, he finds new ways they can be useful.

By GARY KIRKLAND
Sun staff writer

Border collies are born with a strong herding instinct. Dr. Nicholas Carter compares their behavior to little wolves, stalking the herd silently but controlling movement by intimidation, not by force. Years of domestic breeding have taken away the killer instinct. "They have a one-track mind and focus to the nth degree," Carter said. Photos by PATRICK LEONARD

Look through the help wanted ads and it's unlikely you'll find many employers in need of good hard-working shepherds - which is bad news for border collies.

For hundreds of years these intelligent, high-energy dogs have been bred for one thing, herding sheep and other animals. And as opportunities have been shrinking, the surplus of unwanted dogs has been growing.

Dr. Nicholas Carter knows the problem well. He runs Border Collie Rescue, Inc. near Putnam Hall, and has topped off at a capacity of about 70 dogs that will all bark a welcome to a visitor.

"We turn down people left and right wanting to give up their dogs," he said.

So, in addition to finding new homes for unwanted pets, Carter is always on the lookout for new border collie opportunities, and there have been a few that have come along in the last several years. Many golf courses in the Northeast now use border collies to chase away the Canadian geese that like to congregate by the thousands on the fairways. Blueberry farmers and fish farmers use them to keep birds from eating up their profits.

But a couple of years ago, Carter was watching a news special on the problem many airports experience with birds living along the runways. Birds getting sucked into jet engines or crashing through windshields during takeoffs and landings present a very real safety hazard. Sitting back and watching the TV report, Carter figured he might have a four-legged solution at his facility. But it wouldn't be easy.

The shepherd's whistle, which comes in many shapes and colors, provides the language to talk to the dogs in the field. Its piercing pitch can carry up to a mile and by varying the pitch, volume and tone, can communicate dozens of commands. Photos by PATRICK LEONARD

"Putting a dog on a golf course is not a big deal, but putting a dog at an airport is a different matter," Carter said. "There's no room for error on an air field. You have to be perfect."

Carter made a presentation to a group of public and military airport officials, touting his "bird-strike dog" idea. He got lots of welcoming nods, but only one airport - Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers - decided to give it a try.

Part of the challenge is that every airport is different. A field in Florida may also have alligators or marshland to deal with, while in Canada it's snow and ice.

Teaching a dog to scatter a flock of birds works counter to the instinct to gather the herd. Also, not all of the dogs show an interest in birds. Carter figures only about 5 percent of the dogs he encounters have the potential for the demanding job.

The dogs are trained first to respond to vocal commands, then to a shepherd's whistle, a wafer-thin device that an experienced person can use to produce dozens of different sounds and an inexperienced person can use to silently spit on himself.

"This is our language to talk to the dogs," Carter said, offering a demonstration of varying trills and tones.

Following whistled directions from Carter, Monty herds a small group of sheep. Photos by PATRICK LEONARD

And training the dog is only half the job.

"The biggest problem is training the people," he said.

He equated handling the dogs to windsurfing, "It looks really simple until you try to stand up all by yourself." The handlers may know a lot about airports and planes, but have little experience with dogs and birds.

He trains the dogs in two different techniques. "Free thinkers" obey the whistle commands to come, go and stop, but when it comes to hunting the birds, they are on their own. "Direct control" dogs follow the handler's commands and directions.

"It's like a living remote-control dog," he said.

These pets are not for the faint of heart By GARY KIRKLAND Sun staff writer Dr. Nicholas Carter has owned border collies since he was a kid, and it would be hard to find anyone with a higher opinion of the breed. But he'll also be the first to tell you a border collie isn't the pet for everyone. He knows that for a fact, since every day at Border Collie Rescue the phone rings with another owner hoping Carter will take his dog. He already has 70, and that's about all he can handle. "There are probably a thousand border collies right now we could take in from across the country," he said. Intelligence is one of the chief selling points on the breed, but it is also one of the drawbacks, Carter explained. They can learn tricks like fetching the paper, sitting up or catching a Frisbee very quickly. They can also learn the bad things, like how to get out of the gate, how to open a door, how to get into a cupboard, just as quickly. Waging intellectual warfare with a dog isn't something most owners relish. "Keeping a border collie confined to an area when it doesn't want to be confined there is almost an impossible task," he said. Border collies are touted as being good with children, but Carter said that's a fallacy. When a child tries to run away, years and years of breeding tell the dog to bring it back to the fold. In the case of a wayward sheep, if intimidation fails, they'll grab it and drag it back. "That's all right if it's a sheep," Carter said. "It's not all right if it's a 4-year-old kid." Nearly half the people who call wanting to give up their dogs have the same reason: "They're too much to handle." "These are high-drive intense working animals," he said. A mile jog with an owner is merely a stretching exercise for an animal bred to run 30 to 40 miles a day in the field. One hour of playing catch the Frisbee is just a warm-up. And the dogs don't like days off, even if it's raining outside. "Most people want a dog on demand, but these are demanding dogs," Carter said. He said some owners eventually buy sheep as "dog toys" so their pets can burn off energy moving the sheep around the pasture. It's just those reasons that finding new homes for border collies is such a challenge. "It's really easy to get dogs," he said. "It's a rare home that's capable of living with a border collie."

In a pasture out back he takes his two demo dogs, Monty and Shadow, to show the difference with a herd of sheep he keeps on hand for training. Shadow, a free-thinker, quickly rounds up the sheep and begins heading them back toward Carter. Monty, on the other hand, follows Carter's whistle directions to park the group wherever Carter wants them in the field. He moves as if he was attached to a joystick.

"If you want them two feet over to the left," Carter said giving a soft warble of the whistle, "I can get them two feet to the left."

Whether it's working sheep or birds, the dogs give the work their total attention. Carter says they are so focused he could put a fat juicy steak at their feet and they'd ignore it.

"They're obsessive-compulsive workaholics. They don't like days off," he said. "The hardest thing to do is to get them to stop."

Carter's first pupil, Jet, went to work in Fort Myers in February. In 1998, the airport had 13 incidents of birds and planes colliding. Through October of this year, that's dropped to two.

Gil Forgays, an airport operations agent in Fort Myers, said he can see a visible difference in the number of birds and the variety living along the runways.

"He's very easy to work with, very eager, very responsive," Forgays said of Jet. "He's very popular down here at the airport. He's also real popular in the community."

In September, two more of Carter's bird-strike grads, Sky and Fleet, went to work at the airport in Vancouver, and more airports and dogs will be paired up soon. Carter's business as a border collie employment agency is picking up momentum, and the dogs are his best salesmen.

"You don't have to believe me anymore, you just have to call Fort Myers," Carter said.

Write to University & Main, P.O. Box 147147, Gainesville, 32614-7147; or call 338-3104; or e-mail

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