From my AWFA forum post on the pups..

I've visited both Step and Shep, two males from the Brick prgn/Whiskey
prg litter this past week, at their homes for lessons on site.

I'm very pleased. Very.

Shep is in a cattle home, Step is sheep/dairy goat/chickens home. Both
pups go around for chores daily, are learning the boundaries well.

When I stopped by Shep's house, A. had a calf loose on the wrong side of
the fence. Not only was she on the wrong side of the fence, but she was
in a narrow area between two fences, one of which was hot. A opened up
the aisle while I walked Shep out wide - his nose found the calf about
50 ft away, and he air scented up to her nicely in the brush. We
pressured the calf, she popped out of the fence, and started down the
fenceline. A accidently stepped in front of her, turning her back
through the fence, but Shep and I repeated our procedure and pulled her
out again. Walked her up the fenceline up to the barn. The barn is
basically set up as a U shape, with one end opening into where mom was,
the other a dead end. Of course the calf went into the dead end. The
only way to get pressure correct was to send Shep in through a hole in a
brushy cedar, over a heap of planking, into that dead end - a place a
human would have a hard time going into, only about 3 ft high. He did
so on command, A stood in the right place to turn the calf - and presto
- job done!! Shep is doing well staying out of the pastures when he
isn't supposed to be there, and flushed a racoon in one pasture on a
fence check. He's got some work to do on his recalls off off stock, but so do
all the other pups!

Step had lessons on how to bring in the lambs today, and how to hold
them for body score checking/etc. He did very well, watching the stock
intently, and fixing sheep leaking out either open end of a small
makeshift pen without prompting by a person He rates well, and has a
lot of natural know how - I was just tickled to watch him chosing the
right position time after time. We worked on hanging out with the sheep
after putting them up, and about how to foster the guardian aspects
during daily work. We also went over how to get the chickens out of the
coop on command and leave them to roam after - this is hard for him,as
he thinks the chickens are not supposed to be loose when all the other
stock is behind fences. He's shaping up to be a great little helper.

I'm definitely seeing an increase in guardian stuff in the 4 I have
still here at my place - twice now they've broken out of the puppy/duck
arena and come to help in the sheep arena - once I was yelling at the
goats to not go through the fence, and today when a client dog was
barking too much at the sheep during lessons. They are becoming
sensitive to dogs having a lack of self control on THEIR SHEEP, and to
my sounds of impending livestock doom. That's great.

I'm thrilled with the farm placed ones in the litter - so far only one
dog doesn't have stock- but she has a horse and some sussex spaniels to
order around, so maybe that counts. They'll be fine farmcollies. And
yeah - their dad's a trialing dog, and so's their mom, and grandfather,
and grandmother. That's not all they are of course. A trialing dog CAN
be much more, if you select for the right things in breeding and develop
all their skills. I think we have to remember that trialing PLUS looking
at the guardian/hunting is probably fine - it is trialing WITHOUT
attention to the rest of the balanced farmcollie that is the problem. I
love being at a strange site with my dogs in with my ducks and people
can't believe it - gives me a chance to plug the balanced farmcollie,
every time!! Surely a few of us out there in public with balanced dogs
is good PR!