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!

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!

Updates from the farm

So I know its been forever someone who will remain unnamed felt it necessary to remind me of this fact...sometimes I do need a push to update though.

Well yesterday I took the plunge and got a new car, I really needed one as my old mazda protege, was well old, well worked and starting to slowly fall apart. It probably needed more work that what I wanted to even think about but I didn't want to trade it because I didn't want my payments to go up and I was sure they would. But thanks to a dear friend who helped me with my deal I got a new to me 2006 Mazda Tribute, much lower miles that what my car had and more room for dogs!! I was going to add a pic but either blogger or this computer doesn' t seem to want to operate so that will have to be added later.

I also am (hopefully) if I can scrape up the funds getting back a horse I used to own, Architect's Dream. Fred was my horse about 6-7 years ago and I ended up selling him to a kid who was going to show him, long story short they didn't and he ended up who knows where for the past several years. Well last Friday he was run through Sugarcreek Livestock Auction a notorious kill sale. Someone who actually lives in Hickory remembered his name and that someone was looking for him. She found my ads, bought my horse and contacted me. Fred is still in OH at this time, I'm trying to find the funds to pay her back for him and to ship him down...Its NOT as cheap as it used to be!

Other than that everything has been going well. I have applied for a few jobs that are closer to home, since the one I promised it now off the table because the pay, well it sucked! I'm tired of driving an hour and 15 min each way to work everyday.

Oh and I still have 2 lovely kittens that need homes a really sweet female black kitten and a very playful but sweet black male kitten. They have been wormed twice and I will be giving them their shots shortly! And I still have my retired from showing gelding, he would make someone a great pasture ornament or a trail horse but he isn't for a dead beginner on the trail. He would even probably make a great dead beginner lesson horse in the ring as he is dead quiet there.

Funny eared dogs

I thought I would spotlight a non-working dog today. I always tell Julie how much I love her dog with funny ears and how if a dog with funny ears comes along I am going to fall in love with it!! I already have one funny eared dog. He has been with me for ~10 years, he was a pound rescue as a puppy and he is a different type of dog. He is come type of collie mix, I have gotten differing opinions over the years on what he is mixed with. He looks part greyhound to me but we will never know. I took some pictures of him the other morning with his ears up, he doens't typically stand them up unless he sees/hears something that is of interest to him. Here is what he looks like with them up...

But was he was really thinking...YUM fresh chicken for breakfast. He hasn't ever gotten the chance but I have no doubt he would be a chicken killer if given the chance.

Oliver will actually go around sheep, haven't done anything but see if he would go around them. At 10 years old I figured there is no use in even trying but per his last vet visit he is in excellent health for a 10 year old dog...He does however do some funny tricks. He went through tons of obedience training, which in the end never worked for him on recall, no matter how much training you do with treats or anything else, if he sees something that he would rather be doing he does that, fingers in ears saying ha ha you can't catch me, remember that greyhound parent I had!! He is one long legged FAST dog!! Tucker thinks his best trick is the one where you tell him to get the cats and he jumps around in circles barking even when there are no cats around. He actually loves cats and would never hurt one. He will be sorely missed if anything ever happens to him. He is my guard dog and with his size and strength I don't think I would mess with him. My brother thought it funny one day to wrestle with him and then get on his motorcycle and ride right by him (Oliver doesn't like loud noises either), my brother regretted that day!! He is the dog that if I have to go scavenging through the woods/fields/pasture in the middle of the night that I always take with me, because if you are going to hurt me you would have to get through him first!

Yummm, tasty chicken for breaksfast. He was eyeing the chicken that lives in the horse pasture because she believes that she is a horse!!

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!