After Bonnie had worked the cattle a few times, Sherry told me it was “time to get some steering on her”. Bonnie knew to keep the stock between her and me, and she knew “get back” meant to change direction and cover the other flank, but she did not have any specific directional commands. Many people label directions right away, but Sherry prefers to wait until the dog is what she calls “stick supple”; that is, when a gesture with your stick or crook will send the dog the other way. Then, if the dog makes a directional mistake, you can correct him.

In her own training, she labels only one direction for three days, then only the other direction for three days, and then she labels both. For me, with one lesson a week, it would be six weeks before I was using both directional commands. It seemed a long time. “Then practice at home,” Sherry said. Did that mean I should practice on other people’s sheep? Yes.

“But not cows, and not ducks, yet,” Sherry said. Cows were too dangerous and ducks, too breakable, for my dog’s level of skill. So, I went home and emailed an acquaintance, Gwen, who had once offered to let me use her practice sheep, and set up a date.

Meanwhile I tried to learn the directional commands, quite a challenge for someone who cannot tell her right from her left without serious thought. The traditional commands are, “WAY-t’-me” meaning counterclockwise, and “Go BYE”, meaning clockwise. They are always in relation to the stock, not you. If you think about it, the first one is really “away from the clock and to me” and the second is “go around by the clock”. In my car I drove everywhere muttering my directions as I turned corners, and it slowly began to sink in.

Gwen kept her practice sheep an hour and half up the coast, in an enormous field, more than a hundred rolling acres. She had three Aussies, one ancient, one too aggressive for sheep, and one hardheaded with a lot of bad habits. These were the dogs the sheep knew. They were Barbado hair sheep, a very agile, light breed much favored for stockdog trials. When I arrived there, the first thing I realized was that we were on our own. It was not real life herding exactly—in real life herding, a dog which regularly lost, chased, or chomped stock would be a very shortly retired dog, and nobody raising lamb to be sold by the pound would be galloping them around any more than could be well helped. But my decisions would have consequences and those consequences would be mine to deal with. Any jam I got into, I would have to get myself out of. Or rather, Bonnie would have to get us out of.

Within the enormous pasture, Gwen had built a large corral on a hillside, with smaller pens and a shed attached. Separate from these was a practice arena and sorting pens. She had planned to have the sheep in the arena for Bonnie, but she got there late and some sheep were at large and others were in the corral. The grass was thick and high, making walking a struggle. Complicating matters further was a small herd of horses who shared the pasture, and who found all the proceedings in it quite interesting, being shooed away with difficulty.

The first order of the day was to get the sheep into the arena for Bonnie. Her best dog, Hardheaded Girl, was temporarily lame, so she sent her other two. Aged Boy made a valiant attempt to gather the sheep off the hill, and with the help of Tough Guy, got them milling in a circle. Then he gave up and sat down. Tough Guy was enjoying ringing the sheep, diving in to split and bite, and then ringing them again. He did not seem to have the concept of fetching in his mind. After a while I asked if I could try Bonnie. I figured she could not do worse.

So, with some difficulty, she caught her dogs, and I sent Bonnie. She had the sheep gathered and brought to me in a few seconds, but, as anyone brighter would have foreseen, they came at me at a dead run down the hill. I had turned and floundered through the grass to the little arena gate and, with naïve optimism, opened it. They thundered past me along the fence, nearly knocking me over. Bonnie used the fence to head them, and they spun around and came the other way nearly as fast, and passed the gate again. At this point one peeled off and ran away, and Bonnie was inclined to go fetch it, but I told her no. She had the rest of the flock almost stopped now against the arena fence. I told her “steady. . . there,” and she walked the sheep to the gate, where I was holding it open and using my body and stick as a visual extension of the gate, the way I had seen Sherry do at trials. In they walked, panting. Then Bonnie slipped in behind them and gathered them up again. Wow! I was so impressed with my dog.

In fact what Bonnie had just done was far more a tribute to her breeding than to anything else—certainly not handling! Her training and experience was just barely adequate to the task, but her breeding filled in all the gaps. It was breeding that fetched the sheep to me, breeding that stopped the sheep on the fence, breeding that made her leave the single when I said, “No, Here!”, breeding that slipped in behind the sheep through the gate before they could get away on the other side.

A bit later, when Gwen wanted to bring the other sheep in the corral to the arena, I watched again as her two dogs could not, or would not, bring the sheep to the gate, but rather, chased them around the field. Feeling cocky with my first victory, I asked if I could have a try. Unfortunately, I had never brought spooked sheep through gates into open pasture before, and didn’t know how to set it up. I had Bonnie gather them and drive them through the gate, which she did perfectly well, but then we were both in the corral, and the sheep were outside. They saw their opportunity and dashed away. Maybe a greyhound could catch Barbado sheep on a straightaway, but my dog, fast as she is, could not. When they all disappeared over the next rise, I called Bonnie back, with my heart sunk: I had lost my dog’s sheep for her. Not for the last time!

The sheep, it turned out later, had run clear over the pasture hill, dived under a rotten piece of fence, and out onto the county road, from which they wandered back many hours later, long after I had driven home. When I went to my next lesson I explained to Sherry what had happened, and asked what I could have done differently. “Go through the gate before the sheep,” she said, in that calm voice which doesn’t need to add, ‘you dope’. Oh. Next time.