BORDER COLLIE

The Border Collie is the sharpest mind in the canine world, a herding dog forged in the hills of the Anglo-Scottish borders that give it its name. Bred for a single purpose, to move sheep with nothing but its gaze and its will, it reads a flock the way a chess master reads a board.

The modern breed traces to a single dog, Old Hemp, born in Northumberland in 1893, whose quiet, hypnotic herding style became the template for every Border Collie since. It is the undisputed genius of the species: one, named Chaser, learned the names of more than a thousand objects, and the breed has dominated sheepdog trials and film screens alike, the thinking dog against which all others are measured.

The Border Collie edition honours that intensity. A heather grey linen cover, the breed's black and white coat rendered through extreme macro photography, each glossy strand caught in motion, the pale ring of the eye holding the famous stare that can still a running flock. A book as quick and unblinking as the dog itself.