He learns to bring sheep after a horse simply at a wave of the hand;
to force the mob up to a gate where they can be counted or drafted;
to follow the scent of lost sheep, and to drive sheep through a town
without any master, one dog going on ahead to block the sheep from
turning off into by-streets while the other drives them on from the rear.

How do they learn all these things? Dogs for show work
are taught painstakingly by men who are skilled in handling them;
but, after all, they teach themselves more than the men teach them.
It looks as if the acquired knowledge of generations were transmitted
from dog to dog. The puppy, descended from a race of sheep-dogs,
starts with all his faculties directed towards the working of sheep;
he is half-educated as soon as he is born. He can no more help
working sheep than a born musician can help being musical,
or a Hebrew can help gathering in shekels. It is bred in him.
If he can't get sheep to work, he will work a fowl;
often and often one can see a collie pup painstakingly and carefully
driving a bewildered old hen into a stable, or a stock-yard,
or any other enclosed space on which he has fixed his mind.
How does he learn to do that? He didn't learn it at all.
The knowledge was born with him.

When the dog has been educated, or has educated himself,
he enjoys his work; but very few dogs like work "in the yards".
The sun is hot, the dust rises in clouds, and there is nothing to do
but bark, bark, bark -- which is all very well for learners and amateurs,
but is beneath the dignity of the true professional sheep-dog.
When they are hoarse with barking and nearly choked with dust,
the men lose their tempers and swear at them, and throw clods of earth
at them, and sing out to them "Speak up, blast you!"