FRYEBURG – With only a trace of regret in her voice, Denise Leonard admitted that she had not qualified in the sheep-herding competition Sunday morning at the Fryeburg Fair.

“A group of sheep came flying off the top. It was a combination of her and the sheep,” Leonard explained, referring to her 10-year-old border collie, Kate, who was sitting close by, raptly watching another competitor in the arena. “And her handler was a little sloppy,” Leonard confessed, speaking about herself.

Kate did not seem too disgruntled by the ignominious end to her run. Behind the fence, a little black-and-white border collie was crouching and running, crouching and running, as it herded four sheep here and there on the course.

“They’re obsessed with it,” Leonard said, talking about the passion between the border collies and herding. “It’s instinctual.”

Leonard was one of the many handlers responsible for bringing about 45 dogs to the one-day trials at the fair. She has a farm with 30 sheep and four border collies in Greenfield, Mass., that she calls Tanstaafl, short for, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

Michael Dathe of Strafford, Vt., was the big winner of the day. He earned 106 points out of a total of 110 for first place.

“Everything went perfectly,” Dathe said, giving credit to his dog, 10-year-old Cooper, who Dathe trained as a puppy. “He’s been a real good trial dog,” he added.

“A perfect run,” trials Judge David Young explained, “is essentially a dog that gets out and takes control of the sheep with control and solid authority.”

Young judged Sunday’s competition, as well as Saturday’s competition at the New Hampshire state championship. A cabinet-maker from Quebec, Young also runs a farm with his wife with 80 ewes and four dogs.

“After that, you’re looking for a dog that keeps control of the sheep but is responding to a handler’s controls to follow the lines of a course,” he said.

The course at the fair, a large field, was set up like an obstacle course with gates, a shoot and an open pen. The dogs had to run a group of sheep in a specific line around the fences and into the pens, as well as split them into two groups, all in under five minutes.

Points were deducted if the sheep were herded in a wavy line or if the dog lost control of a sheep or two. Sometimes sheep would stop and graze, a big no-no.

The relationship between the sheep and the dog is critical, Young explained.

“You want sheep to feel relaxed with that dog,” he said. “They’re reading the dog and the dog is reading them. They’ll pick up weaknesses in a dog.”

Young said that older dogs, like the champion Cooper, often do better in the competitions.

“Old dogs have a savoir-faire,” he said. But he also credited the sheep that had helped give Dathe and Cooper first place. Getting a good herd of sheep is just chance, since different sheep are randomly assigned to each competitor.

“He had winning sheep,” Young said. “He had the luck of the draw; the dog listened well, and the sheep liked the dog. There’s nothing wrong with that.”