Yesterday my friend Maggie Chambers came up with her pup Strike, a litter mate to my two youngsters. She needed some hay and what better excuse to get together and work dogs!
I'll admit I have been in a slump lately due to some things going on as well as it being really cold with relentless winds.
It was a pretty nice day yesterday. Sunny, light winds and in the mid 30's F.
I got to see Strike work and it was a treat for me.
These three pictures I got of her yesterday, the last one looks so much like Bracken , her mom in style.
I think she and Maggie are a good match and a great team .
Working the dogs yesterday gave me a jump start and I was back out today .
I was very pleased with both young dogs yesterday. Even after some time off they picked straight up where we left and did not need too much in the way of reminding them on keeping a flank clean or stopping or treating the sheep with correct pressure and pace. I had been struggling with Flints flank whistles and go figure yesterday he took each one for the most part correctly!
Today, well not so much. I have found with him he struggles with new situations but once he gets it , he gets it. Often just when I utter in frustration he's never going to get this...he does!
I brought the sheep to a back pasture with Bracken today, worked her some back there. I then worked the pups in this field. One they have not worked in as of yet. It has some pitch and roll to it and a stone wall that is partially broken down in some spots. While not a big field it holds challenge in many ways.
I worked Rush first and she was great. Took all her whistles, and voice commands. She tends to over flank on a turn but I was able to swing her back to where she needed to be on a cross drive. Part of this is she is VERY fast and sometimes will run through a stop for a few steps. Part because she is going too fast and part because she is cheating me a bit. We will work on this some more to steady that bursting exuberance and tone it down some. I only took a few pictures of her because she worked so well and we were not out there too long. She had no issues with the wall in running out to get the sheep or pushing them over it on her drive outs. So we ended the work.
Flint was a different story! Not really bad mind you but he did have confusion with the stone wall. So we were out there for a while. He needed some help getting out and around it to gather the sheep , but he did figure it out. He had some confusion about pushing them over the wall but with several goes in different spots he started to understand. He was driving well though on his cross drives. To end the session I flipped the sheep around and left them where I had been standing while working and had him gather them and bring them down over the wall to me. I did put a bit of pressure on him today and he handled it well enough.
I really hope I can have a go at Nursery class this year. Although they are at a bit of a disadvantage , having a birthday late May. They will be the younger of the dogs who only have this year to give it a go. Last year they were only a year old, and just a few months past that by end of July the cut off to qualify. It just seems so unfair a dog maybe six weeks younger gets to give it a go again next year. But you have to draw the line somewhere I guess .
Lastly , I think I had mentioned I had put a tarp up over the sheep's door back either late November or early December (Can't remember) because we had been having relentless steady winds averaging 20-30 mph with stronger gusts. The door faces due west and the wind was just blowing in that door so hard it was making the whole barn cold, not to mention it blew in a few of the old dairy style windows . Thankfully it did not break any of them.
Our house was not so lucky as we have these same crappy windows in our basement. One of the west facing windows just could not take the winds and the latch gave way, the window collapsed into the house and smashed against the cinder block wall. I am not kidding you that it was really blowing up here on the hill!
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