Ben the Good Helper Dog

Today was deworming the sheep day, and Ben was such a good helper.  
Of course he was.  But today I really appreciated him.  We couldn't see the sheep from the barn, but I sent him out into the pasture on a "way to me".  I got all the gates set the right way, shutting some and opening others, and just as I was straightening up here came the sheep in an orderly line.  I stopped Ben and closed the gate.  Easy.

He lay quietly holding the sheep as I caught each one and gave it the medicine.  The only time he got up is when one young one bolted out of the group.  Ben put it back.

It should always be this easy.   

Coyote

“There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.”
― Aldo Leopold

Yesterday I took a couple of the dogs, Pepper and Sprite, out for a walk.   Spring is here, and the critters are out.

I first saw the coyote about a hundred yards down the road.  It stopped to look at us.  I stopped.  Once it had figured out what we were, it faded silently into the woods to my left.  

There are a lot of coyotes around here, but I almost never see them, like maybe twice in 12 years.  Hear them, yes, but not see them.   I got the distinct gut feeling that it was circling around in the woods to watch us from behind.   A few dozen more paces on, the dogs caught the smell.  They hadn't noticed before.  I love watching them scent.  Their ears and noses twitched.  

When we past a certain spot about 50 feet closer than where the coyote had stood, their heads snapped right in unison.  I guessed that this was the place the coyote had come out on to the road before our arrival.

Both dogs scented eagerly in the air as we walked, then Sprite had her head down when we reached the place I had seen it and she was drinking up so much heavy scent that she had to lick her lips to clear them.  Pepper was starting to lose interest "Eh, coyote, big deal."   

They both turned their heads to look into the woods at the place it had disappeared.  I'm guessing it was long gone by then.

That was our first morning encounter.

Another mile down the road a bald eagle flew just over my head, near the river.  I watched a pair of geese watching me as they paddled upstream.  

On the way back I heard the sweetest, purest sound in nature:  the Wood Thrush.   It has a habitual summer home at a certain tree farm on our road, and this was the first time I'd heard it back again. It is like a flute, only prettier.


Since I last wrote, we lost two more of our beloved dogs: Kip and Cinder.  We are down to seven dogs, which seems like enough for now.  

Since the snow melted I have been working Tessa, Pepper, Sprite and Ben again, usually just Wednesdays and Fridays.  Taz is a bit more dog than I want to handle at the moment.  If you know anyone looking for that intensity, he's available to the right working home.  This is not a dog to sit on the couch all day.  He's very affectionate, wants to be in your lap once he gets to know you.   I'm sure he'd work cattle.  His dad was Hank and his mom, Tessa.  He doesn't do anything really naughty in the 50 x 50 pen, he's just really intense.  He's learned to circle and to stop on balance, but I haven't done much more than that.   


 

Working Tessa

Friday is one of my dog working days.  I actually thought to time myself today, just out of curiosity for how long I spend on a typical session.

Thirteen minutes.

It was pretty much an average length session too, so I don't actually spend that much time training, which was a little surprising to me.  Whenever I go outside, I always find a zillions little things to do, so it ends up taking way longer than the actual training session.

Well, anyway.

We first worked on a little fetching and she was fast but wide.  I was pleasantly surprised at how wide she was working, without any pressure, and how square her corners were.  I think she was reading the jumpiness of the sheep.  I don't know why they were a bit jumpy, but they were.

I practiced a few off balance flanks, having her come a full circle around the sheep with some encouragement.   

Then we started a little driving.  She was still coming just a bit too far to the head, so I picked up the line she was dragging and guided her into "way to me", "there", "walk up" and so forth, down a fenceline, keeping the sheep at a steady walk.  After we'd gone about 100 feet I dropped the line but kept my body movements and commands the same.  She successfully drove another 100 feet or more, then I re-positioned myself to present a different visual picture to her, and sent her to gather them back.  We worked on some small fetches, then I had her drive them toward the gate.  This is a tricky area, because at first they will try to bolt away from the gate in two possible directions.  Then as they get close to it, they seem to realize the inevitable and RUN toward it as a draw.   Tessa handled it beautifully, taking my direction commands, then driving at a trot until I told her steady, which she did!  Yay Tessa! 

Update for Fall

This is us lately, the couch sitters.  Well, not entirely.   I'm still working some of the dogs for their continuing training, so here are the updates:

Cinder:  Retired.  Her back legs are unsteady, she's mostly deaf.  But if she goes out to the pasture when another dog is working she'll disrupt the lesson, drive the sheep to the far side of the place, then sit down with her "Didn't I do well?" look and also "I can't hear you, but you said drive the sheep away, right?"  

Luke:  Also retired.  Limps a little bit, mostly deaf, but still pretty spry for a 14 year old.

Kip:  Retired.   Has a cancer in his mouth, and a fast one growing too.  He still seems full of energy though.

Hank:  Had to be pts in August after developing heart condition.   I miss him tons!  Such a sad loss.  

It's not a good year for the old guys.
Here are the younger dogs:

Ben:  Doing fine, one of my main chore dogs.

Sprite:   My other main chore dog.  She's also good at lying by the fire and being adorable.

Dodger: Still here, not doing much with him.

Pepper:  In training.  She works once a week or so, depending on the weather.   She is still really, really fast.  She likes flanking a lot more than she likes driving.  She also likes cuddling on the couch and barking.  At everything.  Well, not at sheep, but at everything else.

Tessa:  Possibly up and coming chore dog.  She works nice and calmly, is easy to do chores with.  She drives a little bit.  I work her about once a week.

Taz:  OMG hyper spaz dog.  He's a handful on the stock, I'll say that.    Still working in the small pen once in a while, when I get the energy for him.   He could use some daily work, and possibly a large herd of cattle to kick some sense into him.  I think he'd like that.  

My mom ran her dogs in the trial last weekend, and Lena, who is Tessa's sister, got started titles and did a nice job.  Also Akela, who is Kip's son (out of Melica) got open titles with good scores.  Yay Holmbergs!  

Working a couple dogs and loading a trailer

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. 

Where Have I Been?

Where have I been?
What happened to me?

That is a complicated question, but in the past two years I have stopped reading and participating in all my old online dog groups.  I have no idea what is going on in the Aussie world, other than what happens to come through Facebook.

  I can barely bring myself to peruse the Aussie Times when it comes, whereas before it was nearly the highlight of every other month, mail-wise.   In the past year I have pretty much given up training my dogs.  I still work the sheep when needed, with my already trained dogs.  But that's it.  I'm entirely without motivation and the reasons for this are fairly complicated.   This week I put most of my sheep up for sale.   I haven't been to a trial since the summer of 2012 and that was mainly to judge.  I'm not even sure when the last ASCA trial I went to was.  A couple years, maybe.   I have tried without success to place several dogs that I don't need.  This has been a discouraging endeavor, to say the least.   So, if you're wanting a dog, partly trained, drop me a line.  They are on the two for one discount- and the first one is free.   Good homes only though.  I still love my dogs.  I just lost interest in the rest of the dog world. 

I don't really know if anyone has noticed or cared about my dropping out, but this week I have been doing a lot of soul searching, and decided to write something of a goodbye post.

 A little over two years ago I started going through some very personal stuff, too personal for this blog, that led to me rededicating myself to my marriage, to my husband, to my home and to my kids.   With this shift in focus came a gradual reluctance to travel, and when I did go to trials all I could think of was getting back home again.  You might call it sort of a paradigm shift.  I didn't intend to stop trialing or training, it just found its way to be less important and less attractive to me.  The less I trialed, the less I felt the impulse to train.  Trialing gives me incentive to train the same way an upcoming test would give me the impulse to study back in school.   The less I trained, the less ready the dogs were to go to a trial, so I didn't enter them.  It's no fun to go unprepared.   Besides, I didn't want to be away from home anyway. 

Also, when Sprite came up dysplastic it had a shattering effect on my breeding plans.   Sprite is an extraordinary dog in so many ways.   I had such hopes for the pups she and Hank might produce.    When she was spayed it put a huge dent in my morale vis a vis dogs.  Then I had an accidental litter which also didn't do anything for my confidence in myself or my interest in the dog scene.  

The only intact female I have now is Pepper, and while she is a great dog who could pass on some real talent, I really have no interest in dealing with puppies, or with prospective puppy owners.

Last year we had a horrible lambing season.  It was cold, the lambs came early, which was my fault, and many of them died.  It was heart breaking, absolutely heart breaking.  And for why?  I don't need more sheep.    We had more lamb in the freezer than we needed.  For some reason, mainly the economy, people stopped buying it. 

Now, we are looking at moving sometime soon.   So, cutting back on sheep made sense from many perspectives.  I just can't get rid of all of them and end that segment of my life, my one time passion.  

My husband also didn't want me to give it up- the dogs, the sheep, the trialing, training and socializing.  He worried that I was giving it all up for him, and he didn't want that to happen.  So by keeping a few sheep I'm leaving the crack open to start up some training again.   I don't know.  I just don't have the will to do it right now.  I keep saying "maybe later".   It makes me sad though. 

  

Rain!!!

It's raining today, and it's glorious.

 Maybe not so exciting for many people, who are just happy the flowers and yard are getting watered.  But our pasture is so dry there is nothing there.  I have to take the sheep out to the woods and sit with them, using a trained sheepdog to keep them from wandering, just to make sure they are getting enough to eat.   This can be a good time for relaxing and meditating, but really, how much relaxing and meditating does a person need?   I don't dare take Dane's laptop to the woods in case it would get leaves or something in it, or get stepped on by a sheep, and we don't have any smart phones or whatever.   Reading a book is difficult, because I don't dare get too involved in the plot lest the sheep get too far away, and out in the road or lost in the woods.

Then I feel like Little Boy Blue

Little Girl Blue come send your dog
The sheep are in the road and the cows are in the bog.
Where is the girl who looks after the sheep?
She's got her nose in a book, way too deep.