Cyrus is a tri-color Border Collie. Border Collies are bred as a herding/working dog. Many sheep farmers prefer to use the border collie because of their endless energy and deep seated desire to please their masters.
While I have seen amazing border collies, trained to not only herd the sheep into new pastures and pens, I have actually seen them sort out certain sheep. Many shepherds use whistles to give the dogs commands, I could never get on to those, so I use verbal commands for Cyrus.
He loves to put the sheep in the barn. All I have to do is say "let's go get the sheep," and he is almost to the barn before I get the words out of my mouth. When we do get in the field, I stand near the barn door and give him the command to bring them in. Sometimes he gets a little too excited and have to tell him to go easy, which means to slow down. Or to "down" which is a command to stop and drop to the ground. If I am too slow to get to the barn door, and not watch Cyrus, he will run in the barn, chase the sheep out and then put them back in.
