Jock got worked, and worked, and worked again!

It was decided that we'd be drenching all of our ewes tomorrow (Monday), and seeing as how Jock hasn't had much work (once in the last 3 weeks), I thought it a good idea to take him out into the paddock and put him through his paces a bit. Usually, running him cold is a disaster. If you are prepared to put up with him not listening, and you having to raise your voice a bit, then the next time he goes out (even if it's half an hour later), he'll be switched on.

Ahh, the exuberance of youth!

So, because he has taken to trying to bolt off after the sheep as soon as we get into the paddock, I kept him on-lead until I was ready. As expected, he forgot about the lead and went to bolt off around the sheep. I had a good grip, and he did the most artistic cartwheel when he hit the end of the lead. Needless to say, he was not happy, however he did stay nice and close to my leg until I was ready, and didn't need reminding once!

Well, the ewes (33 adults with 9 lambs at foot) were spread out over two paddocks, so our first task was to group them all up. This was done with ease and then we moved them all into an open paddock. With Jock working easily from one side to the other, he moved the sheep in every direction I asked. He even left one ewe (and her lamb) alone when I told him to. (The ewe has a sore foot so I didn't want her running).

After this, we went out to the paddock with the newly weaned lambs (and the old ram). These lambs have never been worked by the dog unless they were still on their mums. It was rather entertaining to say the least. Jock got rather frustrated because they wouldn't all stay together. They wanted to split into groups of 3 or 4 and go off and do their own thing. One ram lamb challenged him quite a lot, and to stop any bad habits forming (where the lamb wont move for the dog, or Jock becomes sticky), I ended up walking up to the lamb, scooping him up and putting him with the rest.

Now for the best part!

We had a visitor come over who wanted to have a look at the lambs, so I took Jock out to bring them up. Not only did he bring them all up to me in a group (with the big old ram included), but he penned them for me too! What a smart dog!

So, Jock had a great day, I'm totally exhausted from running around the paddock, and we're all set for tomorrow when he have to move both groups of sheep up to the yards, but keep them separated.

Will supply photo's of tomorrow's workout if we can spare the hands to take them.