When I took on my second husband, I also took on his Border Collie, Patch. Both of them were getting on a bit - Tony was past 60, and Patch was 13 - quite old for a Border Collie. He went everywhere with us, and he was everyone's friend - I often joked that it was Patch I really wanted to marry, but as that was illegal, I had to have Tony as well!
One summer Sunday afternoon, we took Patch for a ride out to the moors, because we could let him run freely there. Even at his advanced age, he still loved a good run. As we crossed a popular common, we noticed a flock of sheep at the end of the common. One of them had detached itself and gone over to scrounge something from a family's picnic. As soon as Patch saw that sheep, he crouched down, and gently drove it back to the rest of the flock, he never made a sound, or touched the sheep at all, but he got him back where he thought he should be.
That dog had never seen a sheep since he left the farm where he was born at 8 weeks old, yet he knew just what to do. It brought tears to our eyes - and several of the onlookers were amazed, as they'd never been so close to a sheepdog in action.
