The training pen

Since Jock came home, my training pen has been changed four times.

It is made up of steel posts (star pickets) and mesh panels.

To begin with it was about 18-19ft across. Then it was expanded and moved, and changed into an oval shape. This proved to be the wrong thing to do because the sheep could get up too much speed and get away from the pup, so it was put back to its original position. That was change number 2. Change number three came when we decided to make it a little bit bigger. It became 30ft across, which was a great working size, but as I changed sheep to paddock raised, wilder, sheep, I found it still a bit small.
The last increase saw it move to almost 40ft across, and yes, some dogs struggle to get in behind and cover the sheep, but if they come at them at a measured pace, it's rarely an issue.

Below is a photo of the training pen when it was 30ft across. The black section is the gate.

The white tape that can be seen surrounding the pen has been threaded through the panel as a visual guide for both myself and the dog. It also shows the sheep just how tall the fence is, and to date, not one has ever tried to go over the top.
The black fabric on the gate (it's called wind mesh) is on there to stop the sheep from hitting that spot to try and get out. They all know where the gate is, but they don't want to slam into something that looks solid, even if they do get a fright.

Although my sheep are now getting used to the dog, they never had anything to do with them beforehand, and were quite scared of him. The fabric on the gate was put up in the hope that no sheep was rush the gate, and so far, it has worked really well.

Also, the panels are only loosely tied to the star pickets, and as they 'give' if a sheep leans on them, the sheep don't tend to get injured if they lean or knock the panels.

One thing about training a sheepdog is protect your dog from the sheep, protect the sheep from the dog, and sometimes, protect the sheep from themselves.