First The Sheepies...

Duncan and I had a nice long herding session on the 1st of the month. While we were there, I asked our trainer to get a few photos of Duncan working. Turns out that Claire not only does a wonderful job of training dogs and their people, she also takes some great photos.

Duncan is in every one of these pictures, although you might have to really look for him in a couple of them. Even when he appears to be relaxing, he's actually working pretty hard. He's either watching the sheep to make sure they don't wander off, patrolling the borders, moving the sheep back inside the graze, or herding them exactly where I need them to go. The last picture is of something very hard for him - he had to wait while I put the sheep back in the arena. The poor guy, its stressful for him when he thinks he's not doing his job, but he really was - he was making sure the sheep didn't bolt back into the yard. Still, I knew Duncan wanted to be right on the sheep, pushing them into the arena, but being the good boy he is, he waited...