Sheepdog trial: bringing sheep in

There are not enough sheep to do the whole trial without them running multiple times, so they have to do "change over" and bring the ones that have already run back up the hill. I try to get all the ones who haven't run yet into the pen before the tired ones come back up, so they don't have to run twice in a row back to back - the people competing want "fresh sheep" for their dog's run. Tired sheep can be "uncooperative" (bitchy, fuck up your dog).

These people generally care about the dogs (some don't even care about them....they are there for the sport and all the animals are living "toys" to abuse) and treat the sheep like a utility there for the dog's entertainment - I say they are "dog people" and not "sheep people", that's just how they are (my sheep people friends are shocked when I tell them Heather doesn't even ask me to go look at the sheep to see if they are alive when she's away and I'm farm sitting - I check on them anyway, of course). They only see things from one side. I try to look out for the sheep as best I can, since no one else really does. Sort out the lame ones and the ones with injuries too bad to run again, mark the ones that show up to me lame, stop them from hurting themselves too badly on sharp gates, point out injuries to their shepherd so he will treat them later, keep Kiwi from hurting them and vice versa (she can be a little rough and over excited still, she is young and hardheaded - but some of the mean ewes try to whack her, so I have to stand in between because she will lose her confidence if she gets beat up too much - she needs to know even the mean ewes can be told what to do, they are a lot less likely to try a confident dog - safer for everyone in the long run). It also keeps the people from bitching about getting a "bad set of sheep" 😂 "You are doing this on purpose!" - right, I'm shuffling a deck of sheep and you keep drawing the same 3 out of 100 because I am rigging the game just to fuck with your head (I don't even know most of these people 😂).