After we finished some shearing today, Jolasveinn finally was able to meet the sheep. He was a little startled at first, he trotted past a lambing jug that our best ewe Fiona and her 3 day old twin lambs were tucked away safely in; she's a great mom and even though they were on opposites sides of a fence she stomped her feet at him then head butted the gate as he went by. The little guy quickly recovered and went out to meet the larger group.
He was immediately greeted by one of our Shetland rams Pembrooke, who gave him a little back off snort and stomp but otherwise was happy to let him be around his ewes so long as Jolasveinn didn't get too out of line with them. He ran them up from the lower pasture to the upper one, where the video stops he had also stopped to wait for us to catch up with him then went on to finish the job.
The Icelandic Sheepdog naturally herds in a droving style rather than Gathering like the Border Collie. They use their voice to move the sheep away from the shepherd, they can although be taught to Gather and drive the sheep toward the shepherd. The ISD rarely needs to resort to getting nippy or "grip" the flocks they herd. Our flock of Shetland Sheep are not dog broke and are not an overly flocky breed but even they can respect the authority of a 12 week old Icelandic Sheepdog
