“Wad ye like your ain sheep chased about for fifteen meenuts? ‘Twould amiast ruin the sheep, and ye might have the Cruelty people after ye.’” In the end, he reduced the limit to seven meenuts, and I came first, for ma dowg did it in sax meenuts. Hooch, aye, and I’ve competed singly and in partnership with others. Once there was a man from the South of England, and his dog seized a sheep, frightened her, and drove her into the stream below. Two men had to carry the sheep up the hill to the place again. A dowg should never touch a sheep. We were havin’ a crack after the competition, and the man comes bragging about his dowg. So I said, ‘Ye need na’ talk; am nae sure ye won’t have to bring an ambulance with ye next time.’ He saw that his advice was not wanted, and walked away without a word. The dowg was not a wee bit of use. Why I would na have had the beast following me for a day. You can never teach a dowg like that different, he’s altogether spoiled.”
Tweed is a fine animal. The early summer of 1919 was extremely dry, and the dog’s work was very exacting. On one side of the Common is a pond, and, during the hot weather, local dog owners bring their pets there to bathe. The barking of these domestic animals annoys the sheep. Tweed’s work is doubled and trebled, and the animal, in consequence, is not always in the best of tempers. “Come away here: Straight away through them,” is a constant order, and Tweed gallops off and closes in the edge of the flock. “Come on ahint.” Soon, however, comes the . . .