When I was a kid, we had horses, the way western kids had horses in those days. That is to say, no big deal. Our horses cost a couple hundred dollars, and mostly we only could make a guess at their breeds. Most of them came to us with bad habits, which we cured by riding them so much they got tired of them (we had never heard of professional training). We picked fruit standing on their backs, swam them in lakes, competed in 4-H gymkhanas, and plunged across country in a thousand reckless adventures our horses often had to rescue us from. There was nothing special about our horses, but they carried us safely for hundreds of harebrained miles without the slightest adult supervision.

This is not the way people keep horses around me nowadays. These modern horses cost more than new cars. They are pampered with amenities we had only seen in books. These tall, elegant horses are so highly bred they're a little insane. They prance shuddering along the trails ready to explode with nerves. No question, these animals are capable of feats our horses could never have aspired to. On the other hand, if we had owned them, they probably would have either destroyed themselves, killed us, or both together.

I was thinking about those horses on my way home yesterday, from my second AHBA ranch trial. It was the first time I had been at a trial totally dominated by Border Collie handlers. Bonnie was not very good with her geese on the day, although she qualified, and she turned in a pretty darn good sheep run, although nothing like good enough to even place, with so many Border Collies. I guess she now has a couple of AHBA titles, Ranch Large Flock Level One, geese (RLFI-g is I think how you write it), and Herding Ranch Dog Level One, sheep (HRDI-s). I find I don't have a big feeling about these beginning titles. Perhaps I'll get excited about more advanced ones if Bonnie ever gets them.

I watched a lot of Border Collies work yesterday. Mostly, they were typical sheep-type Border Collies, dogs so extreme in behavior you can hardly believe they are dogs. It is amazing what people can breed animals to do. I thought of George's comment that the reason he gave up on Aussies is that he was so tired of being beaten by mediocre Border Collies.

If you have a dog like Bonnie, calm, responsible, willing, instinctive, but neither exact nor intense by nature, you will find it hard to do well against a dog bred to be very wide, hyper-reactive and obsessive. It would be like taking one of our easy-going, broke-to-death ordinary childhood horses against Hanoverians. You would feel ashamed of your reliable, useful friend.

Yet the only dog that I would have taken home that day was an English Shepherd, a breed I had never seen trial before. She was not as highly trained as the Border Collies in her class (level III), and she and her handler struggled to complete their courses. Her flanks weren't very square, she was often too close, and sometimes, it was obvious, she was wondering what the heck she was being asked to do, and why. But she was kind to her stock, in a way I have never seen a Border Collie be kind, but Aussies often are. She was the kind of dog you could send to fetch the cows from over the hill, and she would just go do it. She wouldn't dash over the hill like a flash of light, she would just go. No big deal.

The idea of trialing stockdogs is a peculiar one, full of ironies and complexities. If the point was only to compete to find the best trialing dog/handler team in the world, then it would be much simpler: get a dog bred for over a hundred years specifically to win those trials that are so difficult only such a dog has a chance. Indeed, trialing and Border Collies have evolved together, like coyotes and jackrabbits, one in pursuit of the other, who flees ever faster. On the face of it, it would seem that this is exactly as it should be.

But people trial for many reasons.

Some people trial to have fun with their dog in a social setting. Some trial to push themselves to improve their handling skills. Some use trials as a semi-objective test of whether a dog is worthy of being bred. While none of these goals require a hair-trigger fanatic, if that's what you are competing against, it skews your perceptions. I have seen some Aussies with extremely good handlers who could hold their own, even win a trial like the one I went to, but they are uncommon. It is simply much easier to win with a wide working dog that is bred to drop like a shot and creep along one paw at a time. And yet that is not the whole measure of a stockdog.

If I had to pick a dog which would last out a long day of farm work, it would not be most of the Border Collies I saw yesterday. The only ones who didn't put a thousand times more intensity into their work than what would be required for farm tasks were the really old ones. In contrast, the English Shepherd seemed to lollop around the course cheerfully, and it was clear she would be able to keep up this pace for as long as you needed her to.

This morning, feeding the animals, I needed Bonnie twice, once to block the hens from getting into the garden, and once to get the goats back into the barn, from whence they had wandered. Bonnie did absolutely nothing except show up, both times, and the animals immediately went right back to where they knew they belonged. No big deal, except if Bonnie hadn't been there. While I was feeding, was Bonnie fixated on staring through the fence in a hypnotized way? No, she was wrestling with my other dogs in the driveway. But when I called, Bonnie, Bonnie! she was there instantly.

Then she went right back to wrestling.

A couple hours later I noticed one hen had found a hole in the fence and was in with the goats, from whence she would eventually get out into the garden and Ty would probably catch her and start picking feathers -- he isn't chicken-safe yet. So I had to get her out of there. Bonnie threaded the hen through the legs of the goats and into the chicken pen while I manned the gate and kept the goats out. No big deal.

Common-bred horses who take care of children, ordinary farm dogs who just do the chores. No flash, no drama, no prizes. Everyone took these things for granted. And yet, they have nearly disappeared.