Work with pics

I had lots more extra time than usual today so I made myself work dogs:-))  I scheduled some time for us to work since I never seem to get around to it.  Abby, Patsy, Sally and Dory all got worked today.
Abby same old, same old.

Abby driving

 We drove figure eights through the trees today, I need to set up some cones to do this at different spots but it was a great excersise for Abby.  Sally will need some more miles on the sheep first.

Driving away

Fetch

 Sally's outruns need loads of work but overall she worked pretty well for not having been trained on sheep in a while.

Drive on the back fenceline

Abby doing her happy roll after working

Patsy and Dory didn't get any pics since I have to keep up with them a little more.  Patsy got to move the ewe lambs from the front pasture for work this weekend.  She also got to see the baby goats for the first time, that was quite the experience:-))  Dory is doing really well.  She is learning the proper reactions to stick pressure and starting wee baby outruns.  Her balance is pretty nice still and her flanks will be pretty nice.  So a pretty nice day.  Haven't gotten around to putting up trial videos just too busy to tie up the computer for 8 hours!

Sally HXAd, Abby status quo...

Well I can't say I'm upset with either dog but I'm not overly thrilled with either.
Sally did an ok job on ducks that weren't easy at all.  I will try to get videos up Tuesday.  They did not want to fetch up the field either day and Sally was PUSHY!  So it was tough going but she Q'd both days with a 3rd place, I think.  We may have to travel for some different ducks!
Abby, outruns weren't great either day but I could see a different dog once the drive began.  So at least I have made progress on the drives.  Going to have to do lots of work on both though.  Overall her work was nice throughout the course, some tight pushy spots but that will always be an issue:-)) She did Q both times in the mid-high 80's so not too shabby.  So I will try to post more later too tired tonight...

Putting on the squeeze

I just squeezed in some work today.  I was terrible busy most of the day.  Sally I did work on the ducks today since I had a lesson on them anyway.  Sally was soooo pushy so I just worked her on stopping when she was told and keeping her off of gripping them.  She did better but boy does she need to renew her patience too!  She wants to just keep working all the time...
Abby well I forced myself to take her out even though I was pushing my time limit...  I worked 5 sheep out in the goat pasture and even though I really screwed down hard on her she did nice.  Her drives are much better and her outruns have really been pretty nice.  Its been real interesting figuring her out.  Once we worked the "trial sheep"  I had some chores to do.  I took the school ewes out since they are starting to bag and took them to the front pasture.  Now they can eat Timothy hay instead of coastal and get fatter:-))  Then I just decided to scrap the whole thing and take the young ram out and put him in with the others for my school group.  Thats really where I could tell the difference in Abby's drive!  He is super light and stupid; previously she has moved around so much that a fight broke out because she would'nt stay on balance and walk.  She moved in a straight line, it was not a walk but did a nice job getting him to the barn.  We brought the other 3 rams in and they started to all out fight.  So another change of plans I hobbled all the big rams and locked them up, the small sickly one I took up to the front pasture with the ewes hopefully he'll put some weight on up there with the good food.  So the boys decided to get along by late the evening but I'd sure bet they are sore all over.  For the dogs and I though I think it ended up being a pretty good day.

Todays Dory video

This is Dory's video from today, she has a lot of nice things to work with.  We'll see how she comes along this Spring.  This is my first attempt at editing video from the new camera; somehow I've managed to paste the two edits together so once you've seen the first round it starts at the beginning again...  Sorry about that:-))

Starting the new year

Well I don't have any pics but we ended last year and began this one by working dogs.  I took Abby, Sally and Patsy to work this weekend and they all did pretty well.
Abby did some nice trial work and low and behold we didn't fight nearly as much this time.  Her outruns were pretty nice and her drives were much calmer and steadier.  I was really happy with it!
Sally had some rough ducks to work and therefore was not really very nice to them but she warmed up and worked better after that.  Hopefully she can finish her title this weekend.  The ducks are not behaving as well as last fall...
Patsy had some really nice work over the weekend.  She still needs to give up the heads easier but overall nice work.
So hopefully we can stay on this track and keep up the good work!  Dory got worked today and did a pretty nice job, there are lots of things to work on but she worked and found balance much better than before she left.  So the young dogs have some stepping up to do for the trials in the Spring and hopefully we'll have a great new year working dogs!