It's a lot of fiddle and negotiation, moving my day pasture. That's because none of my neighbors have fences that will keep goats in. A couple weeks ago, I finally managed to get permission to electronet a section of a two and half acre flat field owned by an elderly lady who has a summer home on the property. It is a half mile away, down the private road which serves the thirteen or so families in our little valley. I enclosed an enormous wild walnut tree and a random stump, for shade and recreation, installed a five gallon bucket of water, and figured I was in business.

In some AHBA ranch trials, there is an exercise in which your dog stops the flock while you check a road for imaginary traffic. The first time I opened the gate to take the goats home for the night, they dashed past me, ran down the field and out on to the road. At that same moment, my construction-foreman neighbor was heading home in his pickup. Luckily, only teenagers drive more than about ten miles an hour on that gravelled, potholed section. He stopped. Bonnie caught up and pushed my goats (with a little difficulty; they have no fear of cars) to the roadside, and all was well. Next time, I sent her out to stop them beforehand, just like in the trial. I guess some trials do mimic the real world.

But real-world herding is full of dilemmas and challenges that no trial ever could reproduce. The neighbor in his backyard practicing archery with his homeschooling daughter (the goats were fascinated, while Bonnie wanted to say hello to her friend). The cat who raced across the road and disappeared into a culvert, causing my passionately-cat-chasing dog to temporarily abandon her job. The acorns all over the road under the live oaks, allowing me to discover that goats love acorns. A yapping little dog from two houses down, who bounded up, took one look at the goats, and turned tail and ran for his life. The German Shepherd pacing behind the wire fence. The cattle grazing next to the road. And cars, driven by neighbors who are charmed to see my tiny agrarian project proceeding homeward, my noble dog wearing along behind.

Bonnie is not the best and strongest goat dog that ever lived. She doesn't like to bite my lead goat, who is, naturally, the one most likely to ignore her as long as there are acorns on the ground. She would much rather herd sheep, or even ducks. On the occasion of the cat, my goats took the opportunity to climb merrily straight up a hill above the road, from whence Bonnie had some trouble getting them. But we have managed so far.

One of the reasons we have, is that the real world differs from trialing not just in the amount of random incident, but in the fact that you, your stock, and your dog are all in a relationship. You are not strangers thrown together for ten minutes in an unknown location. Bonnie already knows the difficult patches of acorns where she needs to push harder. The goats already know that they are not going to be allowed to make a dash for home up the road as soon as I turn the fence off. I already know that I need to keep a weather eye out for cats, going past the yellow house. And so every day is a little smoother. Barring the unforeseen.

And then, goats are not sheep. When they are confronted with danger, they don't bunch, they scatter. When a dog presses them too much, they spin, rear, and come down horns-first. Just enough pressure, and they move, too little, and they ignore. Ignoring is something goats rather excel at; they even ignore Ty when he shoves his head through my field-fencing and snaps his jaws at them (before I catch him at it). Bonnie actually gets pretty good results by barking in their ears. She has a very obnoxious bark that even a goat can't ignore.

The good side of the goat personality is that, if something wild occurs, they don't lose their heads and end up a mile away totally panic stricken and lost, a la sheep. No, they startle, make a little dash away, then try to figure out what just happened. They are intensely curious creatures, and oddly wise. This makes moving them around irritating, but there is not the constant hazard of total crisis, as there is with sheep. If Bonnie completely lost her goats, most likely they would simply head for home. They know just where it is.