Cowgirls!

Abby, Sally and I went to work cows for the first time today. The girls did really well too:-)) I'm proud of them today. I'm not real comfy with cattle but have had some time around them in my life. Of course my biggest fear is that the dogs get squashed! Well no one got squashed but Sally was cruisin' for a bruisin' as usual I guess. I am only posting 1 video of each girl, the second runs were improvements for both. Both were worked in the small pen first and I moved Abby out to the big field since she took right to them!:-))



So Abby's is first. I'm really suprized by her, very proud too:-))



Sally second, I think I am Sally's biggest problem. Next time will be better!

Ducks

I trapped the ducks in the barn the other night:-)) They are free spirits my ducklings, its time to get them under control. I have allowed their free roaming for legging them up and allowing them fresh eats.
I used Abby to get them to the barn which was really pretty good for her considering the number of times she's been on ducks. Nice outrun, good control, patience is not an Abby virtue but she did well. Then I worked her in the barn stall on them. Ducks freaked, Abby didn't do badly for the first time. I used her for the sheep chores too so that was all the duck work for her.

Patsy tried ducks for the first real time, she took them out of the chicken house once. It took some time to work them in the stall since it was a lot of pressure in there, but she got it. I took her out into the paddock for her second go and she was AWESOME! Nice balance and control on them, pulled them of the fence with ease. She is going to be a fabulous duck dog.

A little more work

We got out Sat evening and worked a couple dogs again, two weekends in a row!!

Abby, Sally and Patsy all got to go up top.
Abby- Working on smoothing out her flanks, squaring them off again. She has gotten really bad about slicing her outruns and flanks. I can see improvements but it will need work for a while. I have allowed her to be really sloppy, so bad Amy! Time to get on the stick! We've got a couple months now and so I'd better get on it. So Abby is going to need lots of time...
Sally- Couple big things, Flanks suck!!! Need to work on her "Come" sloppy regardless of what it is. Driving is pretty decent still need the great walk up on her now. Need some work on all these things for her. I really would like to get her Advanced sheep and start ducks and cattle with her.
Patsy- Have'nt worked her much but I see improvement everytime I do work her. I am going to try and work her on ducks this week once or twice. She is going to be a really nice duck dog I think:-))
We are going to try cattle this coming weekend with two of the girls. I'm excited about it.

Last weekend videos

Alright here are the vids not much to watch but it will give me some idea of where we are headed:-))

Got work??

Yes I did get the dogs worked last weekend and some through this week. There have been good and bad days for all of them...
I did get some videos which I will try to post once I edit them on youtube.
Abby, really up and down. Some wonderful work and some really horrible stuff. Don't know what is up with her. Been taking sheep next door to the neighbors to graze, his grass is lovely and the sheep need it. Its about 3 acres, half of which is ligustrum trees about 50 gal size(5x5). Abby does not like th eoutruns through the trees she is not understanding the whole out of sight thing with the sheep. Doesn't help that the grass is 2-3' too so she gets really lost in there. We are going to work on it a bit more today so we can get her through this, maybe it will help the outruns in the future since those are not her strong point...
Sally really is doing pretty nice stuff. GOOD driving work, Outruns remind me of her dad (tight but good contact with sheep). The heat doesn't bother her as much as the others right now. She has been taking the sheep over and driving them down to the bottom so that they graze that area right now. Overall good, hopefully we can get her Adv sheep this Fall, then we can do some duck work and maybe cattle.
Rosy, Just bad... She has been the longest off of sheep so that is not suprizing. Pretty poor work fast, not good stops, outruns are ok. She won't be trialing this Fall so we've got time for her on the drive and Int. work.
Patsy, doing really well. She is starting to get a little stronger on the sheep so I've kinda taken a break with her until she'll take more pressure. Outruns are pretty good so far, just starting on those. Very heady little girl.
So finally there is the update. I'll get videos posted hopefully this pm!

Huh...

I'm sorry to say that it has been this long since I really went out and worked dogs of my own. I've been inundated with work, both lessons and a new job. Dogs get work from time to time but mostly to do chores (feeding, vaccinating, worming...) or getting sheep groups for students. Its just no fun to be this busy! I am going to work dogs this weekend since I've got no students on Sat, which is good for the dogs bad for me:-)) Also my bud Debby will be here so we can really get something done hopefully and maybe even video though I don't know that I'll want to share it, since they've not had any work:-)) So I publicly apologize to my dogs mostly that they have not had my full attention as usual!