Saturday, June 13, 2009

Herding Practice

In case I haven't mentioned it before... i don't particularly like sheep. My dogs however LOVE to move them around. Thus, I cross train in herding. I work very hard to convince myself that someday, just maybe, I might actually enjoy this sport more.


I have many dogs to train, but they all don't train on the same day (2 hours is about all I can take of sheep :). On this day we worked 4 dogs total. I start off with the more experienced dogs
and they herd...

more experienced sheep [gasp]. These three don't look too intimidated by me or my dog, or the fact that I have very little idea as to what Im actually doing :) The dog however... she knows exactly what she's doing. Still, Im not feeling the love from these three :)

First dog up is Frenzy, my oldest dog, who will be turning 10 years old next month! Frenzy amazes me in this sport. She knows so much more then I will ever understand in her lifetime. She has tons of patience with me and often ignores my commands totally because Im wrong :) I really do need to learn to trust the dog in this sport!








That'll Do... Good Girlie!

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Next up is Banshee, another amazing herding dog. Banshee however does like to throw in a cheap shot now and again with the sheep. So I have to stay on my toes... and for right now, carry a rattle paddle :).






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From there we move onto the baby dogs. This was Got'cha!'s first time on sheep!

He was immediately interested and never once ate sheep poop (yippee!)

These are the sheep we used for the baby dogs. Arent they pretty!






What a great boy he is! An amazing first herding experience if I do say so myself!

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Even Jack, the non-border collie, got to work. This was Jack's first time on sheep too and he was great! Altho he did look like he was going to pass out with excitement a few times :)



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All in all it was a great training day and so nice to be herding in the nice weather! 

PS:  getting ALL the sheep AROUND the freakin' traffic cone...
PRICELESS!

Sometimes I really am easily entertained :)

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