A Whistle Across the Valley

My grandparents live on a hill farm in north Wales, and this August I spent two weeks with them for the first time since I was a teenager. My grandfather is eighty-three and has trained sheepdogs his whole life. He took me to a sheepdog trial in the next valley.

I didn't expect to be so moved by it. One handler stands at a post in a wide green field. Far away, five sheep are released. The dog has to gather them, drive them through a set of gates and pen them, guided only by whistles and a few quiet words.

My grandfather's young dog, Fly, ran out in a huge, wide arc across the hillside, low to the ground, fast as water. My grandfather barely moved. He whistled softly, two notes, then three. Fly dropped to the grass, then crept, then circled. The sheep moved like they were under a spell.

When Fly pushed the last sheep into the pen and my grandfather swung the gate shut, the crowd on the hillside clapped politely, the way the Welsh do. My grandfather just bent down and rubbed her ears. "Good girl," he said. "Good girl."

They came in second. In the car on the way home, Fly slept with her head on my lap, and my grandfather hummed hymns the whole way.