Level 2!

So, a while back now Kola and Jesse and I got approval to start practicing on our own. Its been going pretty well lately. Dave said we looked really good on friday. I have two big complaints about the little dog right now.
1) Instead of going around her sheep she goes straight for them. She gets close and then you can see the wheels turning, now what? She's on the wrong side. So she usually winds up doing one of two things. Either she pushes them in a big circle and finally gets back to me. Alternatively she barges straight through the middle of them and then turns around and gathers them back up and brings them to me.
2) Once the sheep are headed for me she breaks off and does other things. If I move and call her to get the sheep then she dutifully comes up, pushes the sheep at me and then eats some more sheep poop or whatever. Its like she's playing billiards instead of herding sheep.
Dave thinks is that she's not sure what she should do once the sheep are headed towards me. It is true that once they are headed towards me she does get some discouragement from me because she always wants to come in too fast. I guess thats not mutually exclusive with my conclusion that she doesn't like sharing the sheep. She either has them or she doesn't. When she has them she moves them pretty hard and when she cant have them all to herself she would rather eat poop. Either way I agree that she'll get over it. In the mean time its a little strange to have to keep calling her off the poop and back onto the sheep.

Things I'm really happy about include:
She is slowly slowly starting to give her sheep more distance.
When I give her a flanking command she kindof does the right thing.
She is really trying very hard to do the right thing.
She is spending more and more time actually thinking instead of just running.
She is back to hustling to get her sheep instead of meandering up there.
She is coming off the sheep when I call her off them.
She rarely splits off a sheep and chases it anymore.

Ambitions I have:
Keep a little bit of a herding journal/blog so I can track our progress better
Do lots of trials with her this season
I want her to be able to run in the USBCHA novice/novice trials by the end of the year.
I want her to DROP when I say "down" and creep up to her sheep consistently like she does with dogs.