I have just been introduced to one of the oldest sheepdogs in the Dales.

Bess is 20 years old. The North Craven farmer who owns her has no difficulty in calculating her age because she was born in the same year as his son.

Bess, who was always a useful sheepdog, despite being "a bit short o' size", is now a pensioner. I watched her make a somewhat laboured way across the room.

She brushed a chair, sniffed at her master as though for reassurance and settled down to sleep. Having watched this routine, I realised for the first time she was blind.

With an age equivalent to well over 100 years, in human terms, Bess has a quiet, orderly life. Three years ago, when she "went missing", the farmer thought she had wandered off to die "and we might come across her body in a clump o' nettles".

Then Bess was seen stumbling along the road to the farm. "We thought she must have had some heart trouble and had laid up till she was better. She's ailed nowt since."

Meanwhile, two other dogs are still on the active staff of the farm. In monetary terms, each is worth about £2,000 but to the farmer and his family "they're worth their weight in gold." That morning, in lambing time, he and his dog had been out and about at 5.30. It was now one o'clock and, back at home, both were ready for their lunch.

The farmer had made a comparatively quick round of the sheep, a matter of 15 miles across pasture and moorland, thanks to his trusty quad, the four-wheeled mini-vehicle on which he has a comfortable seat and his dog can ride as a pillion passenger. In the old days, on foot, it would have been a day's job.

Did the dog enjoy a ride on the quad? "Aye. Sometimes, it's a job coaxing it off so it can do some work. And it's allus ready to jump back again."

One of the family tales, dating back to the early 1920s, was of the time that grandfather had bronchial trouble and was confined to bed. His trusty dog, anxious about him when he did not appear as usual, sat on the garden wall, continually looked around for signs of its master.

Hearing about this, grandfather whistled for the dog, which immediately shot through the open door and up the stairs into the bedroom. This became a daily routine during the three weeks grandfather was bedfast. It was enough for the dog to see its master for a minute or two a day.

When grandfather was young, he and a dog drove some geese by road for a matter of 12 miles, intending to return home by train. When the train arrived, the lively dog was some distance away and he missed catching it.

Grandfather regretfully got into the train, travelled to his home station, then walked the mile or two home. The dog, which must have followed the train, was already there to greet him.

The many sheep at this farm are "hefted to t'common", which means they had drunk in a love of the home territory with their mother's milk and normally do not stray into other areas. The farmer knows where he can find individual animals. This heaf-going instinct, which is also extremely well developed on the craggy hills of the Lake District, is worth a lot to the farmer and accounts for the fact that except for a regular change of tup to avoid in-breeding, he is inclined to breed all his own animals.

This man's family had kept horned sheep on the moors for several centuries. Originally they were "crag sheep", and then with selective breeding the different strains evolved. At this farm, a change is in prospect. The sheep are Dales-bred and it is the Swaledale breed that commands the best prices because from it can be bred the mule lamb.

As for wool, "which made our wealth, if we had any", it is now worth less than the cost of employing someone to clip the sheep. "Somebody, one day, will breed a woolless sheep," said the farmer, with a wink. "Going back a lot o' years, my family kept all the wethers (castrated males) for the wool."

He added: "The stocking density is now high. We have drugs and fancy food for sheep, but I haven't noticed that much difference in the death-rate. One sheep is another sheep's enemy."

In these days of form-filling, counting sheep is a serious matter. "My dad counted in threes but I count in twos. When t'Ministry chap comes, we usually count 'em through a gate."

I was reminded of an incident in the popular Irish television series, "Ballykissangel", where a local farmer who had been swindling on a grand scale, and who could not find many animals when an official called, heard that it was now possible to count stock by satellite.

For days, there was hammering from an outbuilding. Then, on a never-to-be-forgotten day, the hillside was speckled with painted cut-outs of sheep, providing something for the satellite to fix its high-tech eyes upon.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.