We got a call mid-afternoon from our friend Treasure, who was trying all day to catch Griselle and Biddy without much luck. When she called us – she was helping Donna, who rescued the sheep from a farm whose owner had been evicted. They would have gone to slaughter if not for her.

Treasure asked if I could come there with Red, they were exhausted, and the sheep had just broken through the pasture fence – Griselle, Biddy and the huge ram samson. They were running outside of the fence, into the woods and through the meadow. Red flushed them out near the pasture gate and the mad chase was on.

They went everywhere but through the gate. They went up the big hill, down it again, into the woods. Everywhere they went, Red stuck with them, getting ahead of them, harrying them, backing them up, turning them towards the gate. He was butted by goats, knocked over by Samson, side-stepped a huge horse Treasure brought to help round up the sheep. (Border collies are better.)

Red was heroic, he never wavered, got excited, failed to heed my shouted commands. Out strategy is always the same. Pressure the sheep again and again until they quit. Sheep do not have great staying power, they have little stamina for conflict. Pressured, they run to the safest place and freeze.

These sheep are big and strong, and not dog-broke, it was a brawl from the beginning. The sheep ignored  Red, ran around him, over him  and on top of him. Red bit Samson on the nose after he butted him head-on and Samson began to behave.

That is essentially what happened. Red got them through the small pasture gate and into their stalls where Donna and Treasure and Maria could get a halter on them and then drag them into two waiting SUV’s. Samson was left behind with the goats. Donna is looking for a home for him. I told her to call us if he was neutered, although I have little doubt that Griselle and Biddy are already pregnant. We’ll see.

I have seen this movie before. This is real sheepherding, a lot messier and livelier than the stuff on TV. It is my kind of sheepherding, I started doing it with Rose and am thrilled to be doing it again with Red. It is kind of the point of it all. Red and I are so in sync I barely had to talk. He has passed out under my desk.