"That’ll do," she shouts a few times. It’s an expression the dogs know and means "stop what you’re doing."

Milliken, who runs a 120-head sheep farm on 400 acres near Kingston with husband Mark Bustard, has been competing for 13 years and has won nine Ontario championships in the past 10 years. She won the Canadian championship twice before (in 1999 and 2001) and once earned reserve grand champion in the United States. She and her husband competed in Ottawa with seven different dogs, camping next to the competing field.

She’s trains her dogs with what she calls "a lot of discipline and sensitivity. Develop its good instincts and play down the bad ones."

She faced 46 competitors from across North America at Ottawa’s National Capital Equestrian Park. The finals, Sunday, Sept. 22, whittled competitors down to the final 12. They each had 25 minutes using a series of about 30 human whistles to send instructions to their dogs to guide a group of 10 sheep down a field and through three gates. They then separate the sheep wearing red scarves from the others, which they try to herd into a small pen in front of the grandstands.