Once upon a time, I attended a multi-week off-site leadership training somewhere around Bergen aan Zee in North Holland.

As we finished up, the facilitator announced we would need to wear good outside shoes for the next day’s surprise morning event.

Walking out the following morning, more than a few of us were excited to see a group of Border Collies by a man, all standing at a fence beside an open field filled with sheep. These were, evidently, international champion herding dogs that had just gotten back from a competition where one of them walked aways with top prize.

Now, intellectually, I had understood that working dogs were bred to do jobs with and for humans. Retrievers retrieve. Terriers catch vermin. Hounds hunt and howl. I had never seen what Herding dogs in action, let alone making the connection of, “duh.”