Quotes from Donald McCaig

bob Brennan went on to become a fair dog handler, and he and Shep won several open trials, but he never forgot the slight woman working his dog, better than he could, out in the middle of nowhere; woman, dog, sheep moving with great precision, and she never repeated a request (Bob Brennan couldn't call them commands), and she spoke so soft - just Penny and Shep and the sky, stretching from Canada to Mexico, lighter blue at the rim than in the bowl overhead. She never forgot it either.

Bob Brennan went on to become a fair dog handler, and he and Shep won several open trials, but he never forgot the slight woman working his dog, better than he could, out in the middle of nowhere; woman, dog, sheep moving with great precision, and she never repeated a request (Bob Brennan couldn't call them commands), and she spoke so soft - just Penny and Shep and the sky, stretching from Canada to Mexico, lighter blue at the rim than in the bowl overhead. Shep never forgot it either.

Dogs are notorious for hope. Dogs believe that this morning, this very morning, may begin a day of fascination, easily grander than any day in the past. Perhaps the work did go badly yesterday, perhaps the humans are wild with sulks and rages, but this morning can yet be saved: don't humans understand anything? Every morning, in dog pounds all over America, hundreds of dogs awake to their last day with gladness in their hearts.

Press. And especially my beloved Anne, whose courage never flagged.

Most Mistress no more free do what they want than I is or Pork is or ary colored.

So they can talk dogs when ladies are present southern bird dog men call their females gyps. Since modern, vulgar misuses of bitch demean all femininity, gyp is more courteous.

The sheepdog trial is a contest of farm and ranch dogs doing the same work they do every day at home. It's a simple test: dog runs out, gathers sheep, and fetches them to his shepherd. Dog drives the sheep through obstacles. Then dog and man sort the sheep and pen them. Any halfway decent sheepdog can do it but some are better than others

It is not the job of the dog trainer to summon the dog's generics, not to impose man's will over dog's. It may be worth noting that many Scottish hill dogs never know the weight

Border collies predate the British Kennel Club. They've been bred consistently for 100 years. They're the last working dogs in the world, with some minor exceptions. Bench shows, dog shows have ruined the other breeds, like the hunting dogs. Border collies are peasant dogs, and that's protected them.

I don't care to read about Garrison Keillor. We cover the same sort of territory, and I don't need to know anything more about him.

Research is the historical novelist's map, constraint, and purest energy.

When people say what is 'Gone With the Wind' about, they say it's a love story between Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara. But Mammy is almost a third party.

I am no historian but have tried to stick tight to the facts.

I'm out of the terse Hemingway school.

What we didn't realize then - and one of the many things Timothy Leary was wrong about - is that when you drop out, you inevitably also drop in.

Had we settled in Pennsylvania, there's no way I would have written a Confederate novel.

You have to train a dog to think.

I do not believe you can work with animals - certainly you cannot train them - without deciding that if humans have souls, dogs do, too.

If you don't have work for a border collie or time to train it properly, your bright young border collie will invent his own work, and chances are you won't like it.

It is the job of the dog trainer to summon the dog's genetics, not to impose man's will over dog's.

Though each trainer believes his or her method is best, I don't think it matters which method the pet owner adopts so long as that owner finds a capable mentor and sticks with the training. Eventually you will learn to see your dog, and when that happens, the richness of your and your dog's lives will tell you what to do next.

The Civil War has a tremendous moral and emotional force.

A sheepdog trial is the most difficult test of a man and dog ever devised.

Since dogs could hear and smell better than men, we could concentrate on sight. Since courage is commonplace in dogs, men's adrenal glands could shrink. Dogs, by making us more efficient predators, gave us time to think. In short, dogs civilized us.