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her favorite chair in the living room and watched us. As he left, she turned her head away from the door and seemed to gaze into the farthest distance a dog’s mind could imagine.
    The first year we were together, Steele occasionally performed the reverse of the maneuver that I needed. I quickly learned that she needed to think she was more important to me than the sheep. I’dthen stop everything, go over to her, and make her run through the basic commands. “Come on by” being a left turn, “away to me” a right. “Put them in the barn.” “Bring them to me.” “Steady.” “That will do,” which brings her to a stop and then a straight-line run to me. I’d do whatever was required to reinforce our rapport, repeating the necessary move until she was satisfied, perhaps, that I’d never or rarely ever yell at her, never throw anything at her, and always love her. She seemed to have trained me thoroughly, because we haven’t gone through this refresher course in some time.
    In the winter, Steele sleeps on a washable throw on my bed. In the summer, she sleeps on her favorite chair in the living room. And when guests come, she is in perfect readiness to show her skills in an informal sheep demonstration, rushing to the spot I always put her on to begin the exercise.
    We have our routine. I whisper to her, “Come on by, I want those sheep in the barn,” as she stands next to me at eager attention. And off she goes. A visitor once asked me, “What did you tell her?” “I told her to make a wide left-hand turn behind the flock and bring them across the brook, over the bridge to the barn.” “No,” she said, “you couldn’t have.” “What did you just see her do with those hundred sheep?” I replied.
    Steele loves to swim and fish in the little swimming hole we have in the brook. She is alert in motion, especially if one of us is there to throw pebbles for her to try to catch in midair. It is her favorite game, this huntress who tries to catch birds in flight and catches frogs in the culvert in the summers with my grandson. And now she lies on the back porch in the sun as I sit on the grass, seemingly asleep but in fact absolutely alert.
    Samantha had quite a different beginning. She was one of six puppies I had no intention of keeping. From the day of her birth, she always distinguished herself from the others by rolling out of the dogbed and away from her brothers and sisters while they slept in a puppy pile on top of one another. She’d insist on sleeping off to one side all alone, and I’d always pick her up and put her back with her mother. When a friend who knows dogs better than anyone I know came to see the litter, it was the little black-faced dog that she thought I should keep. I didn’t want a puppy. Protested vehemently. And kept Samantha.
    Samantha’s nature is different from her mother’s. Her upbringing as harsh in its own way because I wouldn’t let her in the house. Even after I decided to keep her, she slept on an enclosed porch, never allowed indoors. Sam’s nature is sweet, however, and she sits next to me whenever she finds me seated. Now that I’ve moved outside with my coffee, she is stretched out on a cold stone patio floor wanting so badly to be next to me rather than lying in the sun like her mother. She swims with glee, if a dog could be said to be gleeful, making little happy noises and paddling in the swimming hole while her mother ardently fishes.
    I’ll soon train her for sheep. Last evening she sat motionless on the stone wall while I visited with my flock. It was the first time a “down stay” command was obeyed with apparent understanding of why it was necessary. She’s ready. She flocks her little horned Dorset-Finn cross lamb, Sir Parsley (the origin of his name and why he thinks he’s a dog, sleeps with Samantha, and refuses all