In fairness, Blue never claimed his family came from Australia; but he never denied it, either. Well, last weekend he was unmasked. We took him to a two-day herder-dog clinic over in Esperance.

The experts there took a good look at Blue and laid out the truth about him. Brace yourself, for here comes: Blue is a Louisiana Catahoula Spotted Leopard dog.

That breed was developed down south to drive rogue cattle out of the woods and to hunt wild boars in Louisiana swamps. Evidently our affable tail-wagger would feel most fulfilled if his jaws were clamped on a bull's tail or on a wild boar's nose.

I know you're shocked. We were, too. It's as if we've been unwittingly harboring a hit man. Or have learned that a gentleman boarder, so pleasant with children and the elderly, is an escaped ax-murderer.

As soon as we got home to Fly Creek, I booted up the laptop and searched for "Catahoula dog." Up came a website illustrated with a photo of a dog staring straight at the camera. I gasped. He was a double for Blue, complete to the leopard spots and mismatched eyes. (They call them "glass eyes," down Loozyana way.) Australia, indeed!

In bed late that night, my own myopic eyes wide open, I got to thinking about "Catahoula." That sounded like a Louisiana county name. And so I got up, blundered into my study, fired up the equipment, typed in "Catahoula Parish." Bingo! I got a tourist website. I admire its designer, who'd worked hard to tout a pretty desolate area.

Up in the Louisiana's northeast, the parish dates back to 1808. Its name is Native American and means "big, clean lake." It's sad that gerrymandering later gave the big, clean lake to the next county.

Blue's home parish is 703 square miles. It boasts 10 public schools and 49 churches; maybe locals don't expect much of this life and are banking on the next. Catahoula has three incorporated communities. Its major tourist attraction is the Sicily Island waterfall, which looks to be about four feet high.

Each autumn's highlight is the Soybean Festival. The Soybean Queen reigns for a year; I'm guessing her major job is to present football trophies.

It's a quiet place, Blue's home turf. And so the good ole boys there have spent generations breeding a dog to bring real excitement to their lives. And leopard dogs do. Photos on Catahoula breeders' websites show them battling wild boars, three dogs working together to harry a raging beast while dodging slashing tusks. The dogs are raging, too. Bare-toothed, they look a lot more savage than the spotted hound who rubs noses with Owen the cat and sleeps, tongue lolling, under our kitchen table.

But what about Blue and our sheep? We already knew that, if allowed, his instinct is to run and snap at them. Now we know that follows on a heritage of clamping onto maverick cows' tails. It's fine that Blue's breed is Louisiana's State Dog. But can Blue learn to love and work with Fly Creek sheep?

We hoped the answer lay with Barbara Armata and her herders' clinic. People come to Barbara's Esperance workshops from states all around. Partly that's because herder training is hard to find, but mostly it follows on Barbara's high reputation. In training border collies, she's top dog.

One of the long-distance travelers at our clinic was Julie Jackson, a jolly mid-thirties mom in bib overalls. She and husband Chuck has hauled their border collies all the way from southern Pennsylvania to work with Barbara. The Jackson's van advertised, "Noah's Landing Farm and Big Dog Kennel." I loved the rhythm and whimsy of that sign and asked about it.

Julie laughed and said, "Chuck and I had our first farm up on a hilltop, and we filled it with every kind of farm animal. A neighbor visiting us shook his head and said, "This must be the hill where Noah beached the ark!" But suddenly Julie's eyes were brimming.

"We had a terrible barn fire. We lost all of them." She fell silent and then smiled. "We kept the name to remember them by." Chuck and she had moved to another, larger farm and started breeding mastiffs and raising sheep. And of course they soon had herding dogs.

These were all great people, and wonderfully varied. The staff was Barbara herself, backed up by Melody Hanchett and Heidi Fuge; the students were pleasant, laid-back owners and their working dogs. Lunch each day was a pot-luck feast on a farmhouse porch. Above a broad sweep of shaded lawn, 15 people laughed and talked while dogs of all sizes rollicked on the grass and puppies charged around under foot.

The rest of the day, though, was serious work. Each dog in turn had 15 minutes in the field with three tough sheep that sized up the canine in seconds. Under the guidance of Barbara or her assistants, the novice dog handler tried to move her dog through the herding paces, using calls, whistles, and maybe a few expletives when either dog or sheep just wouldn't follow through.

It was a fascinating dynamic to watch, especially since the trainer always had a veteran collie, a "hold-out dog." in the field to straighten out mistakes by the learner dog.

In the two days, Blue was on deck four times, twice with Barbara, once with Heidi, and (the highpoint!) once with my bride. Describing Anne at work as a Blue-tamer will have to wait till next week.

I'll just end by saying that we now know why our Catahoula Blue, normally a quiet, even comatose traveler in the back of our SUV, turns into a baying, slobbering wacko if a Harley-Davidson stops behind us at a traffic light.

You know what Harley owners call their big bikes. That's right. Hogs.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. Learn about his book at JimAtwell.com.