Scotland - Leault Working Sheepdogs

We arrived a little early for the sheepdog herding demonstration so we watched the dogs being dogs,

Lambs in a paddock

and checked out the wool that had been sheared from the sheep.

The owner explained a bit about the dogs and their training.  Seems he has a different whistle for each dog and short words for what he wants each one to do.  He only trains males.  You can train the females faster but then they reach a point when they just don't want to be bossed around any more.  The males obey better.  Sound familiar?  Then it was time to work... or according to the dogs.. play. 

He sent the dogs out one-by-one to herd the sheep.

Each dog ran, turned, stopped or sat according to what the owner called to them.

They brought the sheep in at a run but then circled around to stop them.

They kept the sheep in a small area.

He didn't use all the dogs at once.

And they sat by his side according to his commands.

He grabbed one sheep to demonstrate how to shear it.  Once he had it leaned against his legs, it didn't move.

Notice he only has a light touch on the horn to turn the head so he had start shearing.

He had people come up to help shear but he was controlling the shears at all times.

They do this demonstration every day and eventually, they run out of sheep to shear.  He only sheared one side of this sheep.

He showed us how to roll up the sheared wool.

Then it was time to go play with the lambs and the puppies.  He hauled the smallest puppies out in a bucket.  They were only 1 month old.