Jocks first real go at sheep

At just 9 weeks old, Jock was allowed to have a go at working some lambs. The lambs I had chosen for this were only about 4 months old, and as they were bottle fed lambs (only recently weaned), they were very quiet and didn't mind being close to me. This proved to be a huge hinderence later on as they constantly tripped me up, and they wouldn't react the way paddock raised lambs did. There was effectively no leader, I was their leader, which caused a huge amount of problems.
A wise trainer once told me that the worst possible sheep to use were orphaned lambs, but that's all I had to use, and now I can fully understand why.
This  photo is one of the bottle fed babies that Jock was first allowed to 'play' with.

This little ewe lamb is called Perky. She's one of three that were bottle reared, and used as a 'first introduction' sheep.

This training session was done in a round pen. The pen was made up of mesh panels (6 metres long by 1.1 metres tall) and was approximately 19 feet across. More than big enough for the pup and lambs to move, but not too big that the pup could get out of reach.

To begin with I just wanted to see if Jock wanted to work the sheep. He was all for going up and saying hello, but that wasn't exactly what I was after. I wanted him to show an interest in getting around them and moving them, and he didn't disappoint.

It was at this stage that I introduced the plastic garden rake. I NEVER used it to hit him, or punish him. I would simply use it to block him from getting too close to the sheep and to encourage him to go in the other direction. With the sheep standing in one spot, and me between him and the sheep I was able to encourage him to go back and forth around me to each end of the sheep. This training session only last for about 5 minutes, but at the end of it, we were both happy, and a little tired.