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.......

And it was a success

Wow. It wasn't perfect my any means, no lie down at the top or really even until the fetch panels....but for me it was a success. I ran Gael in P/N with Robin and Jet holding out the sheep and made it through the entire course.......WITHOUT A GRIP or really even a thought of one!! We actually came in 7th which isn't great, but for me with only 2 trials under my belt, neither of which were with Gael, it is great! I can't wait to run again!

I really love running Gael. We know what we have to work on over the next 3 weeks. A lie down on Gael and maybe next time I won't be deathly ill so I can actually blow my whistle and not go into a coughing fit! I really hope my new whistle gets here in time, I have a thin one and REALLY like the thicker ones better!

Jen was very happy to get to come out and get her rehab walking in at the trial. She was so happy to see everyone.

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....

Working Dogs

So I needed to move some sheep around yesterday....in the rain....and since I was already wet I decided to make work for both the dogs. First, let me apologize, I have no pictures as I am not yet talented enough to keep an eye on Tucker, yell at other barking dogs, watch horses reactions for signs of panic, watch sheep reactions since it requires moving them where there aren't any fences for a time being, and working/watching my dog. So I will insert a pic of Jen working over the summer for your viewing pleasure at the end.



First I took Spottie out and got all the sheep in the round pen, the 2 that I was keeping out of the main flock to strengthen up and then the rest of the flock as I wanted to move them somewhere else for a few hours. Spottie works well so truthfully there isn't much to talk about with her, except we are working on hind end strengh. Which I oddly enough have a lot of experience in with horses.....so some of those techniques are going to work on Spottie, we will see if that works out for her too!



After I had the sheep all put into the round pen, I put Spottie up and got out Jen. I wanted to push the sheep up to me so I could check eye color and worm if necessary. I also wanted to check feet because I'm a horrible owner and I hate doing feet unless absolutely necessary. Don't worry they don't suffer and they eventually get done. She did a great job at that. She occasionally creeps up on her belly still but a firm lie down keeps that under control. And if one splits off she takes that as a reason to very quickly make sure its put back in its place. She doesn't grip anymore but she sure is quick if they try to make a break for it which tends to upset the other sheep. But all in all she did well. I guess nutty sheep don't particularly scare me, so when they get a little upset, I just keep working.



We have fenced off the bottom section of the pasture as we are going to till it up this fall and replant seed since it isn't very good forage for either horse nor sheep down there. When I am taking the sheep down, I typically move the horses over to a paddock so they don't intermingle. Well it was raining and I was lazy. I had thrown some hay out to the horses so I thought they might stay up top while I had Jen pushed sheep to the bottom. They did and Jen managed to drive the sheep down through 2 gates and into the bottom. I'm really learning to trust my dog, its hard for me she started out as a sulky, sharky, fast dog. She is doing well....now if we can only learn inside flanks! If i'm in the picture we have this huge wide flank or either a sulky short flank!



Jen works so well around quiet women......I have been trying to just have her around men or people with more presence with me. Not working, just around them as she tends to get very sulky if she feels a strong person is around......not sure how to fix that but we keep moving onward!















I'm more than happy with both my dogs.....and soon I'll have that puppy to start! Thank you Robin for Spottie, she has taught me a lot in the short amount of time I have had her and she is a riot in the house and magically gets along with everyone!

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.

Another Fun Weekend

So, I spent another Saturday morning up at Julies, I'm lucky enough that she doesn't care that I come up almost every weekend to work my little dog. She even comes out and holds sheep for us when we need it. Robin, Dan King, and Laura were all there this Saturday so it made for a fun day of working dogs and Robin and Dan taking pictures. Robin got some great ones of Jen working while both her and Julie also gave me pointers on lengthening Jen's outruns while making sure there were still correct. I just love this little dog!

Tucker came with me and actually enjoyed himself. He took a nap on Julies day bed with one of her dogs and then even went on a walk with her, his excitement for the day - the bee attack!!

I also made one of my decisions on Saturday, I took home Robin's Spottie to try her out. Robin says she is a lot like Jen, just in an older more trained version...so we are going to see how it all works out. Hopefully she can teach me a few things and maybe I can help her with her weight loss....she has already been on 4 walks since I got her Saturday, so maybe she is well on her way...

On Sunday, Tucker and I took Tigger to his new home with Pam M. Tucker had a blast there, he got to play with Rly and Pam is even going to let him come over with Duke and learn some agility. She says he is old enough to be a Jr. handler so he is really excited, he really wants to train Duke to do some things.

So all in all it was a productive weekend!

Poor Poor Doughnut

So, I had several request for the pictures of poor doughnut.....


Here they are, they really don't show quite how bad he looks in real life, but the other sheep pick on him. Beside Doughnut in the 2nd picture, with the brown head and one spot is Polka Dot, she is a lamb ewe born this year, when I say she is huge you can now see I'm not lying!























I also wanted to add a picture of my Jen, she is the topic of most of my blogs as she is my only working dog......so here she is watching a sheep dog trial back in April. My mom has to be credited for this nice photo of her.













I need to get some pictures of the rest of the gang!! I'll try to do that this weekend.