Cass and Chloe had a rough day yesterday.  I brought them out to do some herding training, and the sheep were completely uninterested in moving for the dogs. Chloe has a history of being a bit timid around sheep, and Cass is just figuring out her role as a herding dog, so I was worried that their confidence might have taken a serious hit.  I sent an email to Denise Leonard, sheep farmer and masterful trainer of herding dogs, and she offered to come up this afternoon to talk some sense into the sheep.  She also brought her enforcers, Maggie and Emmie, her two most experienced dogs, who are not inclined to take any guff from a sheep.  Denise doesn’t generally take any either.

Here’s Cass and Emmie getting the sheep to move rather nicely.  Emmie is not shy about showing the flock her lovely dentition.

And then Cass doing it mostly on her own; she’s the black-and-white smudge behind and to the right of the nearer group of sheep (closing fast on me).  It would have been even better if she’d gotten behind the entire group, but I think Emmie might be hiding back there and lending a hand.  We’ll see how the confidence transfers the next time my two have to work on their own…