New Watercolor of Cinder, GSD

Yay Luna!

Luna started her herding debut in Started A sheep, with a qualifying run. Whoo hoo! No gripping, although she was a little head happy.

Terrierist

So, I throw all the dogs into the duck arena to run and play this am. Eventually, a Yorkie shows up at the back door. This is bad, as the backyard is where the poultry are, and that's a very prey drivey little dog. I get him in, walk out to find somehow, I have no idea how, Oliver has opened the front door to the turkey coop, and let all the turkeys out. I'm thinking that Oliver suffered from the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" thinking, until he realized that they were all his weight, there were 14 of them, and they aren't scared of dogs....at all.

In fact, they headed for the dogs in the front yard, I found them all lined up, turkeys on one side of the fence, shelties and catahoula on the other. All very curious, and happy that they'd found some familiar faces. I love that they preferred heading for the dogs rather than the ducks and chickens.

So M and I herded and kinda gently nudged them with our feet into the canopy area, then boxed them up in 3's with Brick's help to carry back to the coop. Methinks it is time to dog break them!

Bleh. Too much stuff.

So: taught a client ( Humbug Farm ) to work clicker with her goats - hoof trimming, getting on the milking stand, stacking and walking on lead for showing, distraction and attention work. After two lessons with me, she was able to teach her older doe that she never puts on the stand jumping up on command, and teach the 3 yearlings the stuff they needed to go to the state fair. I hear they did great, even when showing late at night when the fireworks were going off - didn't bat a goaty eyelash. I think they got 4th,5th and 7th in their classes. She's now a firm believer in clicker for goats, and I think if she imprints all her babies, she'll have a great easy milking season.

I'm also working on dog breaking her flock of Border Leicester sheep - their flight zone right now is HUGE (75-100ft) so I'm using Nari, Joy and Pow mostly since they work very quiet and wide. I think my other client's comment was "wow, I've never seen them all grouped together before, unless there's grain out!"

We had good sucess at the PBCA trial at the Whorton Farm in Durham, NC. Yoshi finished his started A sheep title, the Kerry blues finished their PT titles, and Kestrel got 2nd and 1st in Advanced A ducks - I missed a champ point by 1 or 2 pts on our score. My fault, not hers!

I've got Frost started tracking, finally after taking a long break from obedience stuff, I was able to get him less obedient and able to follow his nose. So that'll come along quick now that he's got the idea that tracks are continuuous and go out ahead of him in a line. Started him on 10 ft on concrete with treats every step, now on different surfaces and about 15-20ft, still a straight line. Not aged - the one I tried to age, Pow got through the fence and started eating his track treats. Sigh.

Busy Busy!

I have a lot of posts to do:
A sheep breaking job
Goat clicker training job
The kelpie nationals fun day duck bowling
turkey goblets update
corgi herding demo and instinct testing for the annual corgi picnic


But right now heading out to get shavings, straw, turkey food for the next few days. You'll have to wait!

Fuzz update

The Fuzz has her own Catster page. Looks like she is growing up to be a very pretty girl!

Second rate Silkies

Well, the results are in from the Chatham County Agricultural and Industrial Fair:
Buddy and one of his hens - Jersey Giants, 1st place
Drummers the turkey - Slate Cross, 1st place
Golden 300's brown phase - ? I think they might have eaten their ribbon
Golden 300's black phase - 1st place
Indian Runner ducks, Blue and white - 1`st place
Silkies, Partidge - 2nd place

Poor second rate silkies

I think that Drummers had a good time, she got to ride home in the front seat of the car at my feet.

ES HCT/JHD at Maple Grove English Shepherds

We provided sheep, entries and stock handlers for a local AHBA test Friday at Maple Grove English Shepherds. The sheep worked wonderfully at their first event ( every single one got to go), being calm with the dogs, not ever thinking of bolting into a fence, and being good little heavy sheep when the dog was working right, and wandering off when they weren't. A few of the gates were a little loose, so there was one incident of Mikey testing a gate latch and then making himself half his width and squeezing through, but that was at the repen anyway, and on one of my runs, and we fixed that situation for later runs by putting me and Pow in there.
Pow and my client Meredith with her BC Terra worked stockhandling - Meredith has only had Terra for 2 mo now and she's done a great job. So I handled DJ ( ES), Snap (ES), Lyric (Rough Collie), and Patsy (Kerry Blue Terrier) for clients- all got their JHD's. My clients were also there in droves with their own dogs - Janine and Duncan (GSD), Lindy and Bree (Smooth Collie), Meredith and Terra (BC) and Connie and Sophie (ES) and Jane and Maggie (Pem corgi) all got their JHD's themselves. A really nice ES named Honor his JHD's handled by his owner. The HCT dog did well, but as it was her first time on sheep, didn't have the control she needed to get her second leg, but she was well turned on and loved every minute of it.
Pow worked all day, and even played ball after - you'd never know he was 10! He was so happy to be working, and very professional when I was handling him - he was a complete handlful when Meredith traded Terra for him when Terra needed a break!

Two new herding dog tests

I'm always trying to find out more about my dogs, and herding dog behavior, and what non-herding temperament traits to look for clues.

Took Pow out to work the tending for practice this am - makes the sheep rather happy to get to forage. Because of all the rain, one long side was flooded, 1/2 the graze was ankle deep in water, and parts of the other long side were flooded. Pow didn't care. If that was where he was supposed to be, he was there. As was Brick, flashing through the water and over sheltie high plants with gusto. I'll take the rest of the crew out in groups, get the chance to work them in the wet and see what they are made of. I'm sure the combo of high weeds and deep water makes for tough seeing and tough going for them!

Note: Whiskey is fine in the water - she does not take it as fun, but she doesn't mind dealing with it if she has a job to do.

The other thing I've been doing was out of curiousity and attempt to get some of them in better condition, I've been running one dog on the outside of the arena while I herd with another for an hour - or a client. Good distraction for the dog working. Brick, Pow, Jack and Nova will all work the fence for an hour silently, working the sheep from the outside, but on their feet and attentive the whole time. I want to test Whiskey and Kestrel to see what they'll do - they may be different in that situation.

It wasn't the CPAP, it was rain

Woke up at 3amish,3:30ish,4ish, and kept trying to get Marq to fix his CPAP machine, since it sounded disconnected. Woke up fully at 4:30am to harass him to find that it wasn't the machine, it was the heavy downpour on the roof. Guess my brain couldn't figure out the type of noise, it was very similar. It was trying at any rate to get me to fix the emergency.

I went outside to check on the goblets and found that, while it was ankle deep water in the backyard, they were fine in the new coop, but I brought them in just in case it got worse. I and Pow bundled the little sleepy babies into a cat litter pan, and ran them inside.

Now they are in a dog crate in the living room. They have very piercing complaint cries, and are very annoying. They want a glass of water. They want more food. Better accomadations. More rights for turkeys. Lower the drinking age. Fresh fruit. More dogs to peck.

Sigh.

For those of you interested, I'll try to find out their current weights, but they are between snack size and lunch size. Probably about a well fed quail is my guess, but growing rapidly.