New Field

I haven't been able to work lots of different places with my dogs, and while Spottie has been MANY places thanks to Robin, Jen has not. I don't know if Jen has really done any work other than my field, JP's field and her old owners field ever. So when I was presented with the opportunity to go to another field and work them I jumped at the chance!

It was a bigger field than I had ever been on and we were working lambs, not somewhat broke lambs, just lambs! I worked Spottie first and true to form she lifted the sheep nicely and worked well. We are still working out a few kinks between us, mainly the fact that she knows she can get away with more with me than she ever could with Robin. But I think we will make a nice team and I think she will really help me get started in trialing.

Next I brought Jen out, I wasn't nervous, but had prepared myself for disaster. We started out in a smaller fenced area and she was working quite well so we moved out into the big field. That little dog went right around and did well. She worked those flightly lambs like she had been doing it forever and was even driving them with confidence and energy! The only bobble we had was my fault, I couldn't see her and thought she was chasing the sheep. I should have trusted her as she was only covering and JP said she would have done just what was right had I left her alone rather than lying her down. We even got to take the lambs and work on penning them. Something Jen and I had never done and she did great and we got them penned more than once!
I'm glad to see her really starting to come into herself...now I just need to trust her!

All is good on the puppy front, we had one bad night but that seems to be over with and he is doing well. He is very sweet and gets along with everyone so far.

All in all it was a good evening, hopefully we will be able to get out somewhere this weekend and work again.

Introducing Dutch

Since I have been told that my blog is sorely overdue for an update here is it!!

First I would like to introduce Dutch. I was and still am against little puppies, they are just a pain in the you know what, and I already served my time as a mother for a small something (Tucker). I just like dogs you can actually do something with! But I still got talked into Dutch.....










He isn't nearly as big as he looks in the picture, I'm working on getting a scale so I can weigh him, but my guess is 10 lbs and no more. He is a tiny little thing at 11 weeks, but oh so sweet and listens quite well. He is an uncle to Jen, not fully but enough to have some of the same charecterisitcs as her (her head, the smile). I'm hoping he will turn out to be a nice working dog as well as companion to Tucker.

He has a funny story on how he got his name, it started out from the breeder as Cole. I don't care for that name and all the puppy names we had come up with during our hopes of getting a ChrisxZac pup were female names. I love the show Deadliest Catch and was watching it one weekend morning while waiting for Tucker to wake up. I really want to visit Dutch Harbour and had thought that would be a great show name for a horse. So once we got the pup home we started calling him Dutch and it stuck. He seems to recognize his name and neither him nor Duke seem to be confused at who I am calling. Now me on the other hand, with Duke, Dutch, and Dash (Tucker's kitten), I can't wait to see what kind of name I come up with when yelling at one of them :)

So I'm at my limit for dogs! And I'm WAY over my limit for cats, seriously can ANYONE take a kitten, anyone???

I'm also excited to get started trialing with Spottie. She is working well for me, although we are still sorting out whistles, by no fault of hers. I'll keep everyone updated on how we do at our first trial, don't expect greatness though!