Practice, practice, practice...

We drove out to Alison's in Conover to try out her grazes and sheep, just these few days before the trial. Her sheep are conditioned for tending only, and are only worked by her GSD (who just earned her HGH, by the way!), so would be a good test for the boys. I figured that the FL sheep will likely be lighter, and a smaller flock, but it gives me something to guage by. We took Jack along for the ride, he was soooo excited to get to go with his dad and half brother.





Here's Alison, showing me her bridge work and general road work. Looks sooo much better than last time I was out, and Myr actually looks much more relaxed. No, wait, they BOTH look more relaxed.










Alison sorted out "something less than forty" sheep for us to work, dumped them in a graze, and I started Pow. Not bad, but took him a while to kick in, which I worry about given that our graze time on the wide graze is less than 15 min. Heck, a dog is only getting started at 15-30 min and settling in! Do I try to use all the dog I have and hope that I still have enough for road work after the wide graze? Stand him often to prevent him from wearing out and therefore maybe get hit a little on the graze but have more dog for later? What if we pour it on and then NQ and I don't have enough dog the next day? This will all depend on the order of the elements at the FL course - decisions to be made between the handler's meeting and putting his leash in my hand.

His gather out of the graze was fine, sheep called out great, his corners were fine, and road work generally ok. Her sheep were very curious about him, being a dog of a different color and breed than they were used to , and on his gather out he had 10 stand and look at him, but he showed he had teeth just like Myr and they got in line. First bridge my placement of him was a little off, trying to get a feel for the sheep and being mindful that I might need to place him off the panel in FL, depending on how light they are. These actually had no problem on the way back with passing him when he was standing properly right at the panel edge. Strategies.

Malcolm hadn't worked his many sheep, but we started with the graze, and after running a bit and testing the boundary a little, he settled down and patroled. Most stops were fine, directions were ok....and then the truck and trailer filled with children came. Ah, car pass! Sort of. The most distracting moving/stationary car pass I think I could have thrown at him, except maybe short of someone doing skeet shooting or something from the bed of the trailer. The kids were yelling about the doggie, and squealing, and he knew that he probably should be between the sheep and the kids/adults/trailer/truck, and he headed right over and stood, facing his sheep, ears twitching as children yelled 5 ft above and behind him. I was so proud. The kids got to see a sheltie work, and he got to learn to handle the moving car pass while on the graze ( which he's done before). That made my day though.

His removal of sheep from the graze was actually much better than I was expecting, and he got them moving and in line pretty well. I get too tense with him, I have to remember he's not his dad and he's most likely, at this stage, to get into trouble by going through the flock or circling, and that I don't really have to worry about chasing or gripping with him. He worked the length of the flock adequately, still needs work, but we've worked on that the least. I don't mind helping him a lot on the C course, he's just a baby. Corner was fine, and I expect the bridge will be doable.

He's fun.