I have been working dogs again. I asked my husband to help me out with keeping me sticking to a schedule, so he put "work dogs" on my schedule for two days a week. I had been alternating working Pepper and Tessa on those two days, and also using the older dogs to sort for me. They were doing pretty well until the super cold weather and deep snow got here. I'm pretty well taking a break with them until the weather improves. I did try to work Pepper once in the barn, but it was too much for her, she never would calm down, so I decided to give that a rest also.
Yesterday I sold a few of the sheep, and Hank did an awesome job sorting out the ones the people wanted, then driving them through the yard, down the driveway, and right into the trailer. This was even with a lot of people "helping" including a bunch of very small children. I did yell a bit at them to keep the kids out of the way lest they get trampled, but they didn't do that very well, and Hank managed to keep the sheep calm enough not to run over any little kids.
Anyway, to them it looked like another routine day on the farm, but to me, I was proud as punch of the Hank dog. Nothing like a few trailer loading episodes go awry to make one appreciate a really smooth one.
