Most mornings on Patmos I woke at 6:00 am. The goat herd was passing by our house on Diakofto Bay, a flock of 300 shaggy animals with various-sized metal bells around their necks. The sun was beginning to rise over Tragonisi Island, the morning was still cool, and the goats were eager to graze.
The sound delighted me. Hundreds of gentle bells tinkling across the hillsides with each hoof step, a chorus of diminutive church bells.
I slipped on my shoes, tiptoed out of the house, leaving the rest of the family asleep.
The goat herder walked with a slow stride behind his flock on the jagged footpath. He had a curtain of long hair, a white sleeveless shirt and tanned leathery skin. In one hand was a thick wooden cane that punctuated his deliberate steps.
Patmos’s sheer cliffs and canyons leave little room for agriculture. But the flock knew where to go. They raced ahead to a narrow strip of dried grass beside the salt flats of Petra Beach. Others climbed the hillsides, foraging for weeds among the thorn bushes.
Ninety minutes later, the sun was higher in the sky and the temperature already topped 30 degrees.
With the climbing heat, the goat herder knew it was time to move. But leaving was far harder than coming. One morning I watched the departure process take a full half-hour. The herder and his dog rose from the beach and strode to the back of the herd. Seeing their time was short, goats began darting away, dashing up the hill or hiding behind large thorn bushes.
I marvelled that one man and a dog could corral these 300 recalcitrant animals.
His first technique was to shout “HEY!” – not a friendly greeting, but a sharp cry as if someone was about to crash into you. This worked with most. They would clambor down the hillside and back to the path.
But the more disobedient ones merely looked over their shoulder but kept scrambling away. Or they’d sneak into a crevice on the hillside, away from view. This forced the herder to work harder to flush them out.
He had a second approach for this worst lot. He would get up close and make a low guttural growl. It was slightly fearsome, for it was the man growling and not the dog. And the growl always worked.
All the time he carried the thick staff. But he never used this rod of discipline as far as I saw. The growl alone was sufficient.
The herder’s shouts and growls broke the tranquility of morning bells. But it was tough love with a clear motive – to protect his animals from the withering heat.
And I understood something about parenting in that moment. I’m naturally mild mannered – my approach is the equivalent of “Hey shaggy goat, come back. Please!” There are advantages to gentleness, but also limitations. Watching the herder, I realized that parenting also requires a few growls for the greater good of those you love.
