You have an all-day work event, your dog walker comes down with something and your back-up help is out of town. Then you see the ad for a local dog-daycare facility: “We can help! We offer 12 hours of fun and socialization for your dog.” The message is accompanied by cute photos of pooches at play. Should you be sold?

As I write this, I have just come back from a day at the 2011 World Herding Dog Trials in northern England. I was in the UK once many years ago, watching the International Sheepdog Trials. I was just getting started with sheepdogs and had not yet begun to work as a behaviorist. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot, and I hope to learn a lot more in the future. But the lessons I’ve been taught by herding dogs are as timeless as they are valuable, and are a fitting subject for my last regular column for The Bark.

Most dog trainers love the process of teaching dogs new skills as much as they love the results. That’s why so many of us have dogs who are better than a résumé at showing what we can do. Our dogs sit, lie down, heel, stay and come on cue; wait patiently at the house or car door until told to proceed; or back away from food on the floor rather than scarf it up.