Now What To Do?

Qwill having tummy scratch ecstasies.


After the work we did on Monday, I was debating what sort of sheep to get for Qwill today.  The choices were: same kind, some heavy and some light, or all heavy, or a large group.  I decided for her particular issue a large group would be the best, so I just had Sprite bring in the whole flock of 21.   The lambs and everybody were in there.  Qwill did pretty well, although she did run through the middle a few times, she didn't chase but instead put them back together.  Our next thing (soon) is to work on a packed pen idea because she gets a little frantic/flustered when they are all on the fence and I think she just shuts her eyes and runs.  Anyway, she needs to calm down a bit when they are all packed together. 

  

Training Qwill

Pepper and Qwill

Qwill, my little puppy, is now almost 18 months old.   She has a real natural talent on sheep, and I could (should) probably be working a lot more than I have been.  I did get her out to work yesterday, after using Pepper to bring in the flock and sort them.  

I gave her a more difficult group this time, including the anchor sheep (Decker and couple of heavies), plus a flighty young ewe and two lambs.  I wanted to see how she'd handle that.

We were working in the 100 x 100 paddock, and the first mistake (too close) she made, the three flighty ones split off and ran for the gate.  She went after them and it was a bit wrecky with her taking a nip on a heel.  I yelled "HEY" and she dropped to the ground.  She can be sensitive at times even though she is tough in other situations.  Emotionally sensitive while being physically tough, I would say, kind of like Hank was.  

She started playing it safe after that and pretending the three splitters didn't exist.  This is frustrating, to say the least, but every time she dropped to the ground I took her leash and gently pushed her around the group.   I didn't get mad.   After about 6 times of doing the same thing (patience of a saint required!) she began tucking them into the whole group when they would try to leave.  I told her she was such a good girl (without stopping her or distracting too much) and I had her circle in both directions for a while before letting her balance up and walk a little.  Then we called it quits for the day.   I felt like we had made good progress on that issue of handling flighty splitters that day.

 

 

Spring Lambs

The snow is melting and today was the first day the small pen is mostly ice free. I broke up the one little patch that was left and had Pepper sort 3 of the old sheep for me into the little pen. The lambs are mostly outside the barn now, with just 3 of them still in a stall with their moms, and Pepper did a great job working the whole flock, ewes and two week old babies included. We didn't do a lot, but just enough to get them sorted. I will be sorting the ewes from the wethers every day to give the moms some extra food. Then I put them back together. Yesterday Sprite did it and today was Pepper's turn.  

Once the sheep were sorted, I took little Qwill out to see what she remembered from last year. She didn't look like she forgot anything, and had even gotten a bit smoother. She's working on get around, stop, walk, out, all that good stuff right now. When old Decker tried to sneak out the gate with us as we were leaving she also got to work on "watch him" and "walk up" a bit more. She kind of liked that.