Gospel of Karin

I talk to my dogs frequently and unabashedly. Once, an electrician working on my house overheard me talking with my two labs in the back yard. Later he said to me “Wow, I talk to my dogs, but not like you do!”

I wondered, why not? I’m convinced that these “conversations,” have resulted in my dogs being much more perceptive of me (and I of them) than they otherwise would have been.

I was equally curious when I found out recently that some novice sheep shearers are themselves sheepish about comforting nervous animals while shearing them. With a shortage of shearers in the American west, a growing number of folks, from ex marines to psychiatrists, are taking up the profession as a way to a more natural and sustainable way of life.

Many are sensitive as well to the emotions of the sheep. Good thing. For despite their reputation as virtual automatons who would follow their flock off a cliff, ethological studies have shown that sheep are actually reasonably intelligent. They have, for example, sophisticated memories and respond emotionally to familiar faces.

And yet some shearers in training are a bit shy about talking to sheep. Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article on the subject:

For some students, empathy was an issue, if mostly unspoken. Are the sheep stressed?…

Meagan Rathjen, 22, a ranch hand at a sheep spread near Missoula — she came west from small-town Iowa, interested in helping support sustainable agriculture — nicked her first sheep. It was nothing too serious, but enough to draw a small trickle of blood, which looked stark and red against the yearling’s white skin.

So quietly that almost no one else could hear, Ms. Rathjen bent down over the half-shorn animal, and apologized.

Why so quiet? I suspect it may have something to do with a fear that, despite the evidence of sheep intelligence and their obvious expression of certain feelings, such behavior may be criticized as inappropriately emotional. Like my electrician thinking I was a bit eccentric for speaking so enthusiastically to my dogs, it may seem slightly nutty to apologize to a frightened sheep.

A completely reasonable response suppressed. This may be partly due to a cultural suspicion of empathy for animals, handed down through scientific and religious traditions that view them as instinctual, instrumental, and soul-less.

Sources:
“Work as Every Bit Wild as It Is Wooly,” New York Times.
“The ‘intelligent’ side of sheep,” BBC News.
“Study Shows Sheep Have Keen Memory for Faces,” Scientific American.
“So who’s being wooly minded now?: Other animals could learn something from an intelligent flock,” New Scientist.

See also:
Finding the Way Back with Animals
Meeting God in Relationship with Animals