We were trying to gather a group of 1,000 ewes from a spread in ND with 5,000 sheep total. They're normally in bands of 1,000 spread out over this vast property. After hours on horseback, four wheelers and gators searching unsuccessfully for the group, they finally went up in a plane to locate them. As it turns out, they had gotten in with another group of 1,000, so for reference this is a flock of 2,000 sheep.
In the blanket of sheep pictured below, there were three dogs working gathering and directing the sheep to the gate. There's one dog visible on the middle right. I don't know if it's my dog or not. Note the large crevasse in the front of the shot. The terrain was quite rough in places. We were using four wheelers and gators but only the dogs could get to the sheep in many places. So much for four wheelers taking the place of dogs...
Here's a closer picture of my dog, Mick, from the scene above:
This is at the main facility where the dogs were pushing the sheep into a pen area to where the sorting chutes were. I think we were using two dogs for this. Mick is the one in the middle.
Here's Mick waiting for the sheep to be released after they're been worked through the chutes so he can take them back out to the field:
On the way out (Mick lower right):
Taking the sheep down the road back to the field with the help of a gator. This was around a half mile to a mile away but the sheep were happy enough to go back so I think Mick was the only dog we used:
The sheep finally back in the field at sunset:
