Getting Cheesy with Duchess the Farm Dog
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010By Meredeth Barzen
Here at Sidewalk Dog, we love a lot of things about Minnesota: the dog-friendly businesses, the lakes, the pretty scenery, the cheese. And since Sidewalk Dog’s executives are certified city slickers, we’re fascinated by the way that cheese is made. So when we heard that Michelle and Roger Benrud, dairy farmers based out of Goodhue who are part of the PastureLand dairy cooperative, had a new Blue Heeler farm dog named Duchess, we were intrigued. And when we heard that PastureLand was coming out with a new cheese called “Farmdog” inspired by Benruds’ previous Blue Heeler, Wylie, we knew we had to look into it. First, here’s what Benruds had to say about life with a real, live farm dog. Following that conversation, check out what PastureLand’s Steve Young-Burns had to say about his brand-new cheese.
Michelle and Roger Benrud, PastureLand Dairy Farmers
Wylie, the inspiration for PastureLand's new Farmdog blue cheese.
Sidewalk Dog: We heard your dog Wylie was the inspiration for Farmdog cheese. Could you tell us more about that?
Benruds: I think Steve had more inspiration for this than we did—he comes to our farm monthly for meetings and Wylie would always greet him as he got out of the car. Sometimes she smelled like a skunk she tried to wrestle, sometimes she was muddy/dirty from working, sometimes she’d even be clean. He enjoyed her greeting him and he was the one to make the connection between Blue Cheese and our Blue Heeler.
SD: What is a day on the farm like for Duchess? What are her main duties?
Benruds: She’s not officially trained, but Duchess has pretty well learned her duties on the farm. It’s nothing fancy—her instinct takes care of most of it—but we worked with her a bit as well.
Duchess helps us with getting the milking cows in from the pasture both morning and night. She also is responsible for making sure the cows leave the parlor after they are milked. During the time we had no dog between Wylie and Duchess, cows would just stand around and often poop in the parlor before they left.
Duchess absolutely loves casing cattle and has a lot of natural instinct for it. We are not by any means very skilled in training dogs, but they seem to pick things up quickly if they have the instinct. She is also a very good family dog—gentle with the kids and very friendly toward strangers. I do wish she’d be a bit more of a watchdog (she’d just as well show a stranger around the farm), but all in all, she’s a good dog.
Duchess, Wylie's predecessor at the Benrud farm.
SD: How does she add to the farm?
As mentioned above, helping with get cattle out of the parlor is very helpful. She is a good companion for us and the kids as well. We didn’t realize how much we miss having a dog until Wylie was gone and we had none.
Steve Young-Burns, PastureLand Dairy Cooperative
SD: Tell us about the Farmdog cheese—what was the inspiration for it? How would you describe the flavor and texture of the cheese?
SYB: I had wanted to create a blue cheese for a long time, and we have a world-class blue cheese plant in Faribault to work with, so I knew anything we made there would be top-notch. I knew I wanted a raw milk cheese, and I knew I wanted to honor the role that farm dogs play in the culture, atmosphere and work of American family farms. Blue Heelers are special because they get into their role so much. Wylie was a terrific herding dog, and Duchess is really starting to understand her role in the barn. She is earning her certifications as a dairy cow movement specialist and should be a great cow dog as she gets older.
I am in love with this new cheese. I think the best thing about it is that it is undoubtedly a blue cheese, but the blue serves to highlight the flavors in the milk itself. The blue is not overwhelming, it leads you to the other flavors in the cheese. Having said that, it’s really, really blue; almost green because the cheese is yellow from the grass-fed diet the cows eat, and the veins are blue. You do a double-take when you look at it because it’s green.
SD: Is this a limited edition cheese or do you plan to make it indefinitely? How often does Pastureland come out with a new cheese?
The label from Farmdog blue cheese.
SYB: We hope Farmdog Blue is a lifelong member of the PastureLand cheese family. We come out with one or two cheeses a year, depending on what’s going on.
SD: Do many of the PastureLand farmers work with farm dogs?
SYB: I think Benruds are the only ones with a herding dog right now, but dogs are definitely part of most pastured dairy farms. They do a good job getting the cows in from pasture, and moving out of the barn after milking.
SD: Where can people find Farmdog cheese?
SYB: Twin Cities shoppers can find Farmdog at most of the area natural food co-ops. Folks outside the Twin Cities metro can use the store finder on our website to find a store near them, or order online. [Ed. note: Some metro-area restaurants are now using Farmdog cheese on their menus, including dog-friendly spots like Clancey’s Meats and Lucia’s Wine Bar, both in Minneapolis.]
SD: Anything else you’d like to add about the cheese or farm dogs in general?
SYB: All of our education and product brand names are designed to remind consumers of where food actually comes from. We have cheeses named for several of our farm towns, and now with Farmdog, we begin to get people’s imaginations even closer to what happens on our farms every day. Dogs are really part of the family and they work side by side with our farmers to create the high quality butter and cheeses we make.
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