Donald McCaig is perhaps best known as the author of Rhett Butler's People, an official sequel to Gone with the Wind, but in addition to historical fiction, he writes about a pastime that enthusiasts consider a way of life--raising and trialing sheepdogs.
The eponymous Mr. and Mrs. Dog are a pair of border collies who trialed with him through burning heat, blinding rain and stinging sleet to qualify for the World Sheepdog Trials in Wales. Trialing is grueling work, requiring absolute concentration and self-discipline from both dog and handler as they attempt to demonstrate control over a flock of unfamiliar sheep on unfamiliar ground. Dogs who score well at trials become sought-after parents of a new, and hopefully further improved, generation of sheepdogs. McCaig relates his journey with June, "a foxy lady in a slinky black-and-white peignoir," and Luke, a dog who is at once "powerful," "the best shedder" of sheep McCaig has owned and "a Blockhead."
Through a combination of hard work and occasional blind luck, the trio score the necessary points to compete on the world level, but McCaig knows his dogs' flaws as well as their talents. Wondering if perhaps trainers from the pet and sporting dog spheres might have some insight he and his fellow herding enthusiasts lack, McCaig interviews and observes leading dog trainers of methods both new and time-honored, from positive reinforcement to e-collars to traditional dominance and correction-based training.
While McCaig ultimately adopts none of these methods, he offers an intelligent and nonjudgmental investigation of what is arguably the dog enthusiast's biggest hot-button issue: How should we train our dogs? Which method gets results, and which is most humane? How is the quality of humaneness to be defined, by human emotional standards or by the needs of dogs?
Woven between these observations, McCaig details the life of a sheepdog man, from the joy of working in perfect sync with a dog to the frustration when the dog's overconfidence leads it to ignore instruction from the same handler it desperately wants to please--as well as the inexplicable yet undeniable connection between the souls of man and dog.
McCaig's wry, down-to-earth tone expresses a kind of clear-eyed devotion. While he loves his dogs, readers will not find any cloying or precious sentiments here, but rather an interesting primer on dog training and sheepdog trials studded with shrewd philosophical insights into humankind's relationship with our oldest friend. --Jaclyn Fulwood
Shelf Talker: An informative and thought-provoking memoir about a trainer and his two border collies making their way to the world's championship for sheepdogs.