Monday, October 4, 2010

Ahhhhh....

I love the fact that one of Zip's pups is so close to me ;) I get to see him work stock, do agility and just grow up. LOVE it :)

We took Spot and Lynn out today to work sheep. Spot is coming along very nicely. He is flanking both ways, taking pressure and is coming into balance and starting to get a bit of a walk up. I like his method and he is a great little dog. Now we just have to work on his owner a bit :) I had her help me move some sheep today, just so she could get a feel for the sheep, their behaviors and how they think. I think it was a very eye opening experience for her :) Spot is also going to the Kathy Knox clinic in November, so that should be a blast!

Lynn is doing well, getting PUSHY...VERY pushy :) But that is OK, I like that and she is really getting things. I started a LITTLE bit of driving with her today in the pen. She naturally wants to drive anyway, so she did quite well. I can send her on nice little outruns and she is now giving me clean flanks and pacing...love this dog. I think I'll will try her back out in the big pen again and see if things settle down. I would like to have her out in the field by November if I can, but I don't want her running over me either :) Which she definetly can do. So we will see. I really like how she is maturing into stockwork.

Klink got to work the lambs this afternoon, and at first she was pushing far too hard and they were zig zagging all over the place. And then after we had a bit of a talk, she realized pacing would be the way to go. Then they settled down :) I love working lambs with older dogs, really gives them a challenge and makes them think! Klink's eye tends to draw her in (not sticky..but like you took a rope and yanked her into the sheep) so lambs really make her control herself.

So much fun working the dogs on sheep...so peaceful and relaxing...so different from agility...can't really explain it...like nature's Prozac :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love herding too. (Love agility more ;-), but there is something very comforting in herding.

It took me sometime to get there. I think I was in a panic for the longest time with herding. Convinced I was going to get trampled or killed. I think a lot had to do with the fact that Emma barks the entire time she's out on sheep. It's nerve racking. And then I got Speck, and he's pretty good, but I still sucked.

Now we (Speck and Meri & I) are getting there.

Very fun!