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!

Sally's work, Abby too

I did as I promised and took some ducks out to work Sally today.  I took them up to the roundpen field, where they've never been and let her work them in and out of the roundpen there.  I got two hens that were awful in this group so they made things rather difficult.  Sally was her usual pushy self though so that didn't help our hen issue!  She did very nice driving on them, outruns were acceptable though not great.  Her fetches have never been good, there were some that were ok and others that weren't .   I am also taking her south this weekend to work on the Call ducks, which she seems to like.  As well as working the trial course too since I don't have one set up yet!
I also worked Abby this am while I was feeding everyone.  We are still fighting about the drive but it seems to be getting better in small areas.  She looses confidence again when she gets further so that will be a work in progress.  Her walk up when she is using her brain is nice and somewhat straight; when not she still wants to roll all over the place.  I worry that her outruns are going to be crap for the trial next weekend with all this drive work...  She will also get work down there this weekend, I sure hope it helps!

Christmas work

Well I stayed home from NC to rest and work dogs, so I'm glad I got some done.  Really should have done more but I was just too tired!  With trials only 10 days away I should be working daily:-)
Abby I am still working on a better drive so I used the goats and made her drive them corner to corner in the big field, driving all the way into the corner.  There was a lot of fighting and improvements; so not too bad.  I just don't want to fight to get her to walk!  After a brief rest I took three sheep, two ewes and a ram lamb; we drove them up the field and then shed a ewe off and took her to the upper pasture.  With her off Abby did an outrun to the bottom and picked up the two extras and we shed them.  Drove the ram to the top and did a look back on the ewe.  All that work was pretty good; I could definitely see improvement on her drive and the sheds were very nice.  That was all we got done with Abby, we were both mentally drained.
I took Patsy out too.  We worked the single ewe back down the field to the barn, then we worked in the stalls.  She doesn't really understand the stall work yet but she will.  Nice work on the single and then we put them all together and did some driving and fetching on them.  A couple of decent outruns; way is definitely her bad side, will work more on that.  She is good at hunting balance though doesn't always stay and hold the pressure yet.  I'm looking forward to trialling her this Spring!
Poor Sally didn't get to do anything but chores!  I really need to get some ducks out for her but I just haven't felt like it...  I will give her some time tomorrow, I promise:-))

Week off:-))

Well we really haven't done much training this week.  Little bits here and there...  Abby I am working on improving her driving "lift".  I've always had some issue with her drive but can handle her through it on A course.  At home I don't usually have a need for a long drive but, it doesn't make a well rounded stock dog!  So we try to fix it, she needs a better drive; thats all there is to it.  She seems to be improving so we need to keep it up.  I have a trial first of the new year so will hope that we see some solid improvement by then.
I did get some good work on Patsy this week.  Here is a video of the little urchin:-))  She gets better and stronger with every workout.  I like that she does not back down from anything.  Can't wait to try her on cattle!

Trial weekend- Malabar

Well we are home and trying to recover.  I am uploading videos from my new camera now, hopefully will post tomorrow.  We had a great weekend!  Both Bubbles and Tulip (Rosy's sis) finished their PT titles, nicely done on both their parts, two more points for Beli's ROMS!! Woohoo:-))
Abby was pretty good both days.  The first day was a beautiful run, nice outrun, good fetch, ok drive/ pen and then the SHED.  I screwed it up!  Damnit...  I didn't settle the sheep or take control on the way to the shed and we just couldn't get it.  I called the run, heartbreaking really since the rest was so nice.  Sunday went in with a plan, or a better one...  Outrun wasn't as good, actually was pretty bad and the sheep left early, she picked them up and finally got back online, drive was ok; she wasn't really hooked to her sheep properly.  Got the pen, settled the sheep and approached the shedding ring.  So I got a little nervous and called her wrong but we got settled again and got a very nice shed.  Finished 3rd of 4 but more importantly; I'm really happy with how Abby worked over the weekend.
The trial was really nice.  Good to see friends and relax.  Nice runs, good stock, great handlers and nice dogs.  The sheep and ducks were both very nice and gave the dogs that were talented enough chances to fix one mistake but would take advantage of mishandling.  My ducks did really well!:-))  I got to watch most of B course Adv/Int both nice on sheep, ducks had some really great runs too though I set for those so couldn't watch as easily.

Finally got the vids loaded, you'll have to excuse the bobbles since I was just handing the camera off to whomever was available; they didn't get much in the way of a lesson on how to use it.  Enjoy!!!!