My wife when young was not allowed to have pets because of Depression dictated penuriousness of her parents. So she had all our five kids in 4H animal projects. I learned a lot more about sheep than I really wanted to know. I did enjoy the Border Collies, except for the one who went down the road a mile to a nursing home that had cats, and chased the cats up the fire escape ladder to the ridgepole on the third floor and then howled for the night watchman to help him get down the ladder. Rather than face a court appearance I planted him. We never bothered with a wether, as the Border Collies solved all our problems. But imagine trying to take sheep to slaughter in large numbers, and have them go calmly into the slaughter pen, without the magic of an ovine Pied Piper, the bellwether they knew and trusted. Putting bells on the animals was a way of knowing where they were if the got out of sight in woods adjoining the pasture.