Text 1: Whistles on the hill, by Gareth Pennant

An original contemporary magazine feature.

On a steep hillside above Llanfyllin, shepherd Eirlys Prydderch puts two fingers to her mouth and gives a short, rising whistle. Half a kilometre away, a black and white blur called Mali swings wide to the left and disappears behind a wall.

Mali is two years old and has been in training since she was eight months. Eirlys farms 900 ewes and depends on her dogs every day, but this summer she is also preparing Mali for her first open trial.

‘People think the dog chases the sheep,’ Eirlys says. ‘It’s the opposite. A good dog barely moves them. She has to read them, keep her distance and make them think it was their own idea to walk.’

In a trial, the dog must run out in a wide curve behind five sheep without upsetting them, bring them straight down the field to the handler, then drive them away through two sets of gates. Finally, the shepherd opens a small pen, and dog and handler must coax the sheep inside, all within about fifteen minutes. Each command, left, right, stop, walk on, has its own whistle, and Mali knows eight of them.

Right on cue, five sheep trot round the end of the wall, with Mali flat on the grass behind them. ‘She’s not ready yet,’ Eirlys says, grinning, ‘but she will be.’

Text 2: Trial of sheepdogs at Cwm Aled, by A Correspondent

An original newspaper report written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this newspaper report from 1876, a journalist describes a competition for sheepdogs held in a Welsh valley.

The trial of sheepdogs held on Thursday on the slopes above the village of Cwm Aled attracted a company of nearly two thousand persons, many of whom had walked twenty miles over the hills to witness it.

The task set for each dog was this. Three wild mountain sheep, which had never before been handled, were let loose at the far end of a field some four hundred yards distant. The dog, upon its master’s signal, was required to run out and gather them, bring them down past the spectators, guide them between two lines of flags, and finally drive them into a small pen of hurdles, the shepherd himself being forbidden to touch either dog or sheep. Fifteen minutes were allowed.

It was a pretty sight to see how the best dogs managed the business. They never ran straight at the sheep, but went round them at a distance and crept in by degrees, dropping flat upon the turf the instant the sheep turned to look. Several shepherds directed their dogs entirely by whistling, others by a wave of the hat.

Many dogs failed altogether. One excitable young collie scattered his sheep over the hillside and was followed by them, amid great laughter, into the next parish. The prize of five pounds went to an old shepherd of the district, whose dog penned its sheep with a full minute to spare.

Using information from both texts, explain briefly what the sheepdogs had to do.

You should make it clear which text you are referring to.