Patrick Shannahan Clinic Review

Wow! What a fun time we had yesterday and to think Julie P and I almost thought about not going. Patrick is a great clinician and trainer and helped me get some amazing work out of Dutch. What a drastic change in such a short time with just a few little changes!

Patrick had me work Dutch just a little myself just so he could see him work first. Then he came and talked to me, he says Dutch isn't soft just super sensitive and that he doesn't like to be wrong at all. With some very light corrections and taking the pressue off of him when he is right and putting it on him when he is wrong, very lightly I might add, we had Dutch doing 100-150 yd outruns.

We also worked on his pace, at the top he now slows himself down, lifts them nicely and marches them down the field at a nice reasonable pace instead of blowing into them and tearing them down the field or quitting if you got after him for doing so.

All of this outrun work translated right over into his driving and he is driving much better now, I still walk along with him but he is pushing them along at a nice pace and controlling them.

I'm excited, can't wait to get him out and work on this with them. I plan to go to another clinic in the spring with Patrick if I can get into one. He works well with Dutch and I think he can help me along with him. And the fact that my dog doesn't like to be wrong thrills me....NO he's nothing like his owner :)

I'm just here...

I've kind of been in a funk lately, stuck between a rock and a hard place...so i'm here, but just here

Jen is still doing rehab, not going to the rehab vet on a regular basis, everything we do is at home now. She's bored, I'm bored, but we plug away at her exercises every day. She goes back end of December/first of January for another recheck. Then if all looks well she can start to slowly go back so sheep work, meaning 2 minutes at a time.....

Dutch is growing up...

he's 15 months old now and looking pretty nice on sheep. I'm starting to do little outruns, give him flanks commands and keep reinforcing his "stand". Starting him I never thought I would say that since he started off sticky. I try to use him for the chores that I can, though when I have to move sheep outside of the fence I do use someone else! Thank you Julie for working him while I was out of town, that week of work did wonders for him. I'm hoping to get Dutch out to some new places, anyone who wants to volunteer their fields/sheep would be welcome, I have a few opportunites just need to work out the logistics....and maybe run him in NN as I can find the trials, time and money.

Spottie is still here, seems she has mostly gone deaf to my tone....but she can hear Tucker. Tucker likes to go out in the sheep field and play with the sheep, he pretends he is the dog and his favorite activity is shedding the sheep. I like to sit out and laugh at him and he always wants me to pick the hardest sheep to shed off as single so that he can attempt it. I have to admit that he is pretty darn good at it and holds his sheds well. So the other night I told him to go get Spottie and he could try to work her. I'll be darned if she just didn't work for him! She didn't want to take his lie downs but for the most part was good. She CAN hear him, so he now has a dog to work around the farm and learn how to be a handler. I imagine that I will be giving up one of my dogs for him to work in short order......CRAP that means I'm going to need more dogs since I only have 1 that is work now and 1 that may be able to work again sometime in the next year LOL.

The rest of the old dogs are doing well for now. Duke isn't old but he goes into that category. If anyone wants an agility or trick dog he is their man and I would consider loaning him to someone for that purpose, kind of like a free lease on a horse....but only to the perfect home!

My job front sucks, I mean it really does. I've worked for the same facility for 9 years.....and they cut my hours to part time. So now i'm working 3 part time jobs. Talk about tired, some mornings I can barely get up! I'm hoping to find a single full time position soon. I have an interview this Wednesday that could potentially be the job of my dreams (pending the hours are good and the pay is decent). Lets all cross our fingers for that.

I need to get out and mow the pasture so that some friends could come down and work dogs/sheep with me.....as soon as the fuel pump on the lawnmower gets fixed


Maybe that will get me out of my funk.......

Moving forward....

Lots of things have been going on lately. We have gotten several new chickens because of my egg business literally exploding. Its a good thing and Tucker has named them all. The newest injured hen (bought that way) named Henrietta LOL.

Jen is trucking along in rehab. We are down to only 1 vet visit a week, she is walking 4 times a day for 20 minutes each time. And 1 day a week other that vet visit day I take her soft cast off and she gets to spend the day without anything supporting her leg and she gets to walk without the cast for 15 minutes 2x that day.

Dutch is coming along. He has been out on sheep quite a few times and seems to get better each time. He is a nice looking dog so far and even during an experiment out in JP's field that went wrong he didn't majorly lose his head!

Gael is working nicely for me, I'm trying to learn her whistles better as Spottie would take anything close where Gael won't. We are entered in a trial, starting out in P/N in a few weeks and then the end of next month, pending the first trial goes as plans I have moved us up to Ranch. It will be nice to have her to learn from. I have basically decided to retire Spottie to just farm work, she was getting slower and slower while working in any sort of larger area and just wasn't recovering as well as I thought she should, so its definitely nice that Robin has let me borrow Gael (and good thing she works for me)......Now if only I could find an affordable dog that could definitely take me to open ;)

Other than that nothing around the farm has really changed......more updates to come!

Ok so you all probably thought I got lost

But I really haven't I have just been SUPER busy with things!

First off, poor little Jen, my all time favorite dog managed to injure herself about a month ago. I had her out in the yard with all the dogs, they were having a grand time playing, and some how she managed her cut her leg just above the carpal pad, well being that dogs dont have any fat in that area, she also managed to cut the flexor tendon on that leg. She had emergency surgery to repair the tendon and has been splinted for 4 weeks now. I think we are going to try to move to support bandages next week and go from there but its going to be a long recovery for her.








Dutch has decided that sheep are fun and now wants to work all the time. He has only been on sheep 2 times, if you don't count the 1 time he broke into the pasture, and seems to be doing well. I think I will like him....that is if I can catch him when its time to be done working sheep. He's 7.5 months old now and is small like Jen, I think that runs in the lines, but he has enough attitude lately for 2 dogs! This is a picture of him after a long day of destroying a toy with my old labx.








I managed to steal Gael from Robin back in December. Well actually Robin offered, but I think she thought I would have sent her back by now. Its nice to have her around now that Jen is hurt and she is a blast for me to work. I really like her style and may even try to trial her sometime this spring. Don't worry Robin she will come home sometime!!



That's all the dog updates I can think of for now, I'm sure there will be more soon though....

OK OK I know I haven't blogged in a while!

So there has been a lot going on lately!!



First, I went to my first dog trial 2 weekends ago. Boy, now I'm hooked! Being a former competitive equestrian, I really have the desire to now be a competitive dog handler! I replay it over and over again in my mind and just think of all the things I could have done better. But I think we all did OK for our first trial....2nd in P/N with Spottie and 6th in N/N with Jen. It was Jen's first trial as well and the competition wasn't exactly easy either! Spottie is down to her ideal weight but we now need to work on Endurance!



Second, Dutch is growing and growing. He is up to about 15 lbs now and he thinks he is King of the Hill (see below). He continues to be a great puppy and gets along well with everyone. I have to say, I have been keeping my sisters 6 month old lab for the last 2 months who never quite got dog manners, the first time someone growled at Dutch over a bone, I was ECSTATIC to see him back off and find a different bone!! His ears have started to stand...OK well they both stood for a while, now only one stands, the other is a 1/2 way up other 1/2 sideways ear! But its CUTE!













Thats all for now.......There will be more to come! We are entered in a couple of other trials coming up and I will try to get better updated pics of the puppy and the other happenings around the farm!

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!