Blaze and Diva enjoyed a trip to Pickering on Monday morning, meeting up with brothers Cawley and Mirk, plus sheepdog puppy Sam, for some lively training in the May sunshine.

The round pen was made more exciting by two loose sheep, whose nervous scurrying produced a much more motivated Blaze.....

.......and with a little prompting, he was willing to circle just as freely in his less-favoured direction, and showed a new unwillingness to stop at the end of his turn - according to Jackie this is what's known as a "good fault"!   

Diva put in some nice work, and we had a go at filming her working a simple course involving steering the sheep around some marker cones and back to the start. With Jackie handling she did pretty well, and a clip has been posted on YouTube - "Diva Herding" will find it easily enough.

In the picture below she is showing a definite hint of collie"eye" ......!!