Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Training day on sheep!!

Sunday was spent working some of the dogs on sheep. The weather was wonderful, bright sunny very little wind and well above freezing (high of 48).

Kane was the helper dog for the day. His job was to either keep the sheep together if the pups got too wild and chasing ... or to get the sheep moving to encourage some interest from the pups. He loves his job!! As many times while I am paying more attention to what a pup is doing, he can get away with being a little overly pushy to the stock, not to mention the ability to 'stir things up' in order to get a pup interested is certainly right up his alley!!

Overall we had a great day. My main hope was to get the Ellie x Kane pups who are now almost 10 mos old keen to work stock. They have been exposed in the past but the situation has been a bit big overwhelming to them, and they all seemed just on the 'edge' of turning on. My hopes/wishes were granted on Sunday. All three pups (Dora, CueB and Zeke) have turned onto stock!! They certainly showed they know how to 'catch the eye' of a sheep as each of them found great fun in chasing the sheep into a corner and holding them there with their eyes. Very natural about shifting their bodies to keep the sheep from leaving even when the sheep clearly wanted to.
Zeke with the help of his father was able to face up to three sheep and back them up one of the fencelines. It was such a proud moment for me to see my beloved Kane showing his son how to be quiet, calm and not back down (but not rush in and bite) from three sheep stamping their feet at them.

Sadly with all the action going on, there was no way I could take photographs at the same time. I did try to set my video camera up in a corner of one small working field and hit record but with my attention to toward the young pups and the upcoming holiday, I have not stopped to even look to see what I got. IF there is anything usable, it will be added to my channel on YouTube.

Another wonderful day working dogs!! Certainly something to be thankful for!!

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