Drive south on Highway 101 toward Hopland, and you’ll pass a turnoff for McNab Ranch Road. Most people zip by without noticing. But that little road is the namesake of something Mendocino County can claim that few other counties in America can: a working dog breed that originated here in the late 1800s and is still riding shotgun in ranch trucks up and down the North Coast. Meet the McNab.

The breed traces to Alexander McNab, a Scottish sheep rancher who emigrated from Glasgow in 1866 and settled on a 10,000-acre spread in the valley south of Ukiah. In 1885 he returned to Scotland and brought back two Scotch Collies, Peter and Fred, who became the patriarchs of the breed. The Collies were brilliant in the Scottish highlands and underbuilt for the Mendocino summer — soft feet on the rocks, too much coat, no real answer to half-wild range cattle.