Ted would like to share with you how he ended a very lovely day yesterday (which started out helping a friend set up for a benefit trial for Ovarian cancer, working sheep over there, then coming home and doing THIS!). Mama's very proud of her Tedlet. It won't be long before Ted can run with the Big Dogs on the trial field himself!
The point in both of these is to get him to circle around and stop on voice cues alone, with no hint from me or the sheep as to what he's "supposed" to do.
This video also demonstrates a technique to get the dog to bring the sheep nicely and not chase them pell-mell. You stop the dog, then correct the dog when he gets up and tries to get back into "chase" mode by speeding up. Then you "reward" the dog with a "nice" voice when he's correct (when the sheep are going nice and slow). That happens about halfway through, until the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh0ZzcNWnWY
This one starts with more circling practice, then I'm using another method to get Ted to slow down. This one is interesting because it involves backchaining. You strongly reinforce the desired end behavior, which is "settling" the sheep between you and the dog, with everyone relaxed and happy.
The whole chain is dog circles behind sheep-->dog starts sheep moving-->dog pushes sheep towards you-->dog stops and keeps sheep near you. If the dog gets excited and pushes too hard, the sheep will run past you instead of stopping, then the dog will zoom around and have to catch them and bring them back - oh, hey, that's fun! So that will teach the dog to bring them even faster next time.
If the dog learns that his job is to have sheep happy and settled next to you, he will work towards that end instead. This worked like a charm on my task oriented dog. Again, about halfway through you can see he's almost there, and then the last time it all looks very pretty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsQsuzySC0Y