Best Actress in Leading Role: Tess wins sheep dog honor - Agri News

We'd finished up the first day of the herding clinic in a bit of a mess. Husband Ralph, herding dog in training Tess and I were fried. It had been a long day, and mostly good, but that bit about Tess getting tied up to the fence by the trainer in front of everyone for her vocalizing kind of sent us over the edge.

The next afternoon, on their fourth and final runs in the pen with the sheep, nearly all the dogs had progressed and it was really neat to see. One awed us all by the way he'd polished his natural talents over the two-day period. He was a textbook model: "Don't talk too much; just let him do his thing" was, as I recall, the trainer's main advice. Another seemed to never quite catch on to the actual herding concept and appeared destined for devoted pet-hood. Another, shy and inexperienced, was getting the hang of it!

And then there was Tess … Either due to exhaustion or some perverse sado-masochistic tendency (aimed at what, we will never know), her final run had about it that inimitably unpredictable dramatic flair that we had come to know, love and dread.

She proceeded around the pen in start-and-stop fashion, having to be verbally prodded at nearly every step, with what can only be described as a "deer-in-the-headlights" look out at us, virtually ignoring the sheep (as if she had never seen one before in her life) and stopping in front where I sat outside the pen. I tried to look away and pretend it wasn't happening, muttering "keep going" under my breath. But like a train wreck; you couldn't not look.

Though I feel I shouldn't assign human interpretation to this, I don't know when in my life I have ever before seen what so clearly seemed to be such a touching communication of: "What the bleep am I doing here? What are those creatures?? Get me out. Now! MOM!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!"

Was it performance anxiety? Fatigue? Rebellion? Her inner stand-up comic? Part of me was filled with the kinds of mixed emotions that I imagine any "parent" might feel. Disappointment that the dreams you had for your child will never materialize. Shock that you actually had those dreams. Horror at how pathetically your child did, anyway. Embarrassment about what the other parents will think. Concern that you might have shown your mortification. Delusion that maybe no one else noticed. Guilt about how you actually contributed to their feeling of failure. Worry that you might just have set up years of therapy for PTSD. Denial about how it didn't matter anyway. Indignation and defensiveness that there's actually nothing wrong with your child. AT ALL. Annoyance: "Toughen up, dammit."

Part of me was over-protectedly focusing on the glass half-full, not half-empty, like, "it's OK sweetie — you did so well on the traveling, but maybe you're just not meant to be a hard-core herding dog — maybe we need to take more trips. You're such a good little traveler, aren't you, sweet pea?"

And part of me was, quite simply, awestruck by her finely-honed and subtly perfected comedic debut. The bumblingly graceful physicality, the knowing self-deprecation, the impeccable timing, the clever wit, the humorous pathos, the endearing beauty, the charismatic stage presence, the connection with her audience. It was nothing less than a brilliant masterpiece — a rivetingly original improvisational riff on working dogdom. It was, in a word, stupendous.

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