He looks like he is having a ton of fun! I love herding with my guys but it is a 600 mile RT to get to sheep lessons so I recently bought a set of ducks that I keep in my backyard to work my dogs on :-)

He loves it! That's really far, we only have to go an hour drive. There's actually someone about 15 minutes from me, but I haven't heard good things. That's great you have ducks! I'd love to get a house with a big enough backyard for some ducks.

My dogs would love some ducks too.
But probably not for herding!

LOL Randy. Someone asked me if I was going to name them and I said no but if I did they would have names like Peking, Crispy, and L'Orange ;-)

Your dogs would have some really fresh raw food! Home grown!

Home grown!!!!?????
I'd have to bring them home that way!

I could only hope they'd eat just one a day rather then eat till they couldn't move.

Sheep though. Somehow there always seems to be some kind of ethereal connect with a herding dog. They don't look at them as prey even though we say that that instinct is prey derived.
Know what I mean?

I definitely know what you mean! It's so weird seeing the way he looks at toys or neighborhood cats on walks, and then seeing the way he looks at sheep. He's very bossy with them but I don't think he'd ever try to catch one. And if he did he certainly wouldn't know what to do with it..

And yeah that's true about the ducks. It would be an awful mess in the backyard, and a horrible situation for the ducks! I thought about taking Conan to one of the parks with ducks to see what his reaction is (on leash of course) but I don't know if people would like my dog antagonizing the ducks.. though I wouldn't stick around if he got rough. As of right now he doesn't even know ducks exist!

katie, I discussed this with my herding trainer today.
Some of her (Terrasita Cuffie)thoughts
Are you working "gimme" sheep? In other words are they the type of stock that will follow the handler all over the pen regardless? (common) If so the dog doesn't really have to work. It's just following you and the sheep around the pen. You need to do a lot of random turns where the dog has to adjust to balance the stock.
We both agreed that you need to work on your dog's gathering. As I mentioned before it sounds like you've got a dog that's a natural driver and the two, driving and gathering, are seldom equal in one dog. Work on the dog's weaknesses.
You may also have very heavy sheep and the dog needs to stay right behind them in order to push them to go.
Doesn't matter if the dog is working out to the side OR directly behind the sheep. It's his job to keep the sheep to the handler and cause forward movement of the stock. In other words he should adjust his physical position in order to do what's needed. Random turns will help that!
99% of these thoughts are Terrasita's......and I agree with her.

Agreed! The sheep do pretty much follow me so I also don't think he's truly working either. I actually worked one of my trainer's Border Collies because I really just didn't know what I was supposed to be doing in there. I had a really hard time changing directions so it's something I need to work on as well. As of right now I'm just an awful handler! But I'm trying. Our trainer was at a trial this week so we didn't have lessons, and tomorrow we should have Conan's test results for his coughing (to see if it gives us any clues) and if the vet finds a definitive answer we should be cleared for herding on Sunday. Hopefully we are! I'm actually considering going even if Conan can't herd to see if she'll let me work on of her dogs so I can try and get a feel of changing direction again.

Thanks so much Bob, you've been a great help! Terrasita too! Hopefully I get better at it so Conan can too.

Fingers eyes and toes crossed on Conan's test results!
Turning sucks when you have a powerhouse dog that likes to cram the sheep against you.......trust me! I always thought I could just shove their hairy butts out of the way. NOT!
I've been playing with dogs....well....since the stone age aka Will and Connie and herding has been the most physically demanding of them all.