Drover…

Homer Davenport wrote of the working collie Fly on the Geer farm near Silverton where he lived for some time when he was a boy (the Geers were his mother’s family). In a newspaper article in 1907 he related: “I remember once when ‘By’ Geer and a herder were moving a band of 2500 head of sheep over onto a new range and were driving at night . . . a rain was falling that made the sheep hard to keep together. It was slow work. Fly had been very active. She was covering lots of ground, and it was quite dark. But she worked without orders. She seemed in complete control, and her sharp bark could be heard at intervals. Finally they missed her bark; an hour or so had passed without hearing it. The men were alarmed, as they knew that without her in the dark they would possibly lose a hundred sheep every mile without missing them. They shouted for her, but no Fly. She had gone. They decided that the only thing to do was to stop where they were. They got around their flock as soon as they could and got them bunched. They knew they had let some sheep drop behind and that old Fly was with them. But they thought it was strange she didn’t hurry them along, as she was known all over the state as a fast worker. They waited and waited. Daylight came and no Fly. Finally about noon she came with 250 sheep. She was tired and traveling slow. One doe had given birth to a lamb, and old Fly had gathered it by the back of the neck, as she would carry one of her pups. . . . Thus the faithful old Fly, carrying the lamb too young to walk and keep up, drove her strayed band on until they overtook the first division.”
Davenport loved the old-fashioned collie. He wrote in praise of it and was critical of the development of the show-only dog. He even suggested that sheep herding contests for collies be held in conjunction with dog shows, an idea scoffed at by show dog writer James Watson in their “debate” in the Country Life in America magazine in 1908.

“This trait resides in my dog Drover”

He has does this as I need him too. He never harms the lamb and it comes in handy for lost lambs…I tell him to find the lamb and bring it to me.