Joan at Mud Ranch is hoping to add a border collie to help with their sheep chores.  They are going to get a trained dog, but the sheep need some training as well.  Jacob sheep can be challenging for a dog, they like to intimidate and some do a little more than intimidate…especially when they have lambs.  I offered to bring Kate with me when I came to visit and work with their sheep a couple of times.   You can read Joan’s tale of the day on her blog.

Kate and I had a slightly different take on it 😉

Her sheep have mountains and they are very good at climbing them!

I love the look on her face in this photo.  Kate had never seen anything like it!

She is used to working on flat ground without any obstacles.

The sheep thought they had outsmarted her, but after convincing her that the sheep were up there (she couldn’t see them) she went up and around and brought them back to the barn for us.

I forgot how much fun it could be to work ‘challenging’ sheep.  Most of our sheep are ‘dog broke’ meaning they are used to being worked by a border collie and ‘give’ to her when she puts pressure on them.  We have individuals that still like to give Kate a run for her money, but for the most part she has done a good job training them.

It took her a little while to get a feel for the different environment and the different sheep…

but she soon had them bunched up together.

She had to keep going left and right or in herding terms ‘away’ and ‘come by’, but she managed to keep them together so we could get a closer look at all the lambs.

It was much warmer than she is used to and her tongue was hanging WAY out in no time at all.

Luckily there was a little creek close by for a cool down.