Sentinel of the valley. [volume] (Woodstock, Va) 1841-1848, 1845-07-03

pie undertake raising either sheep OF
Alpacas, with any reasonable expecta-
ton of success, they must be supplied
with the shepherds dog. Of this
most faithful and most useful animal:
we add hereunto an account taken from
the Salem Register, Ohio; into which
Ipaperit was copied from late English
work:
THE SHEPHERDS DOG.
! The shepherds dog in his own de-
partment is perfect miracle of intelli-
gence. He understands the sign, the
voice, the look of his master. He
collects the scattered sheep at the Sigh
test signal, separates any one that is
indicated from the rest of the flock,
drives them wherever he is told, and
keeps them all the while under perfect
control, less by his active exersions,
than by the meditation of his voice,
which expresses every tone from gentle
instruction to angry menace. These
are his ordinary performances, visible
every day in thousand pastures
But he can do greater wonders. 1t
Glanced one night that seven hundred
lambs, committed to the keeping of the
Ettrick Shepherd, broke loose from
his control, and scampered away. in
divisions over hill and plain. Sir
rah, man. said Hogg,mournfully 10 his
cally, meaning it for an expression of
grief, and not for direction, they're
AVA Silently and without his mas
ter's knowledge,for it was too dark to
see, the dog left his side, while the
shepherd passed the hours till morning
in a weary and fruitless search after
his wandering charge. At the dawn
of the day he was about to return
home with heart full of despair
when he caught a sight of Sirrah
guarding at the bottom ola deep ravine,
not as he had first supposed, one divi.
sion of the lambs, but the whole Of the
vast flock, without soluntary excep-
ton. 1T was,' says James Hogg,
'the most extraordinary circumstance
that had ever occurred in my pastoral
life. How he got all the divisions COL
lected in the dark, is beyond my COM
prehension. The charge was left en-
tirely to himself, from midnight until
the rising of the sun, and if all the
shepherds in the forest had been there
to have assisted him, ether could not
have affected it with greater propriety.'
On another occasion, the same famous
shepherd saw dog when it was ut
terly dark, put upon the path of an eve
that had been lost by her owner near
a neighbours farm, and which was sup
posed to have mingled with her fellows
that were feeding in the surrounding
pastures. 'Chieftain,' said the master
Of the dog, pointing to the spot from
which the sheep had gone off, fetch
that, l say sir-bring that back;
away And away he went, and back
he brought, in half an hour, the identi-
cal sheep. A sheep stealer, who was
at last discovered and hanged, used to
carry on his trade by secretly signify
ing the particular sheep that he desired
out Of a large flock; as he viewed them
under the pretence of purchasing, TO
his dog, who returning by himself a
distance of several miles at night, drove
the selected sheep, which was undoubt-
eddy the fattest,to his fastidious owner.
Both Scott and Hogg relate this pic
turesque story more circumstantially
from the annals of the Justiciary Court
in Scotland. Sir Thomas Wilde knew
an instance in which three oxen out Of
some score, had mingled withP;-.;-Stiser
herd. Go fetch then,sa-~as all the in
struction the drever gave his dog, and
he inst-"tfy brought along with him
those very three. A cattle dealer, ac-
customed to drive his beasts for 1ine
4 MI