Days Off

Well, I mis-read the schedule at work... Until 2 weeks ago I never had to pay any attention to "the board", because my schedule was set. Saturday is the first day of a new week and when I work on Friday of course it carries over into Saturday and looked like I was to work last night... Now I know how to read it... So I met Ben and the kids at Lowe's where they were buying some materials for the pool deck, had a quick dinner and came back home. I got up a little after 6:00 this morning and got all the dogs worked, did a couple other little things and then took a 2 hour nap. We have to be at the ball field for a cook-out and parents vs. kids game at 3:00- it's 1:30 now. I'd like to get some laundry folded, but it feels pretty good right here with my be-hind in a soft chair. I work tonight and Monday, then have Tuesday off.

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All the dogs did very well this morning. Cruz did nicely on some pushier driving and did just fabulous on the shed work we did. We only had 3 sheep (the more sheep the easier the shed) and we got several very quick and clean sheds. He hardly needs a hole big enough for him to fit thru in order for him to come right thru cleanly and hold whichever group I'm facing.

I worked on whistles with Toss and he did very well. I did some shed work with him too and took it back to the fenceline. He was not coming all the way thru before turning on the shed off sheep, which meant he was struggling to keep the group in 2 parts right after the call-thru. He was mentally about spent by the time I pulled it to the fenceline, but I did get in 2 call-thrus so he knew what I wanted. Next time I need to do the shed work first.

Gwen did really, really well on her walk and stay behind the sheep session.

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Ben is building a really nice deck around the pool. It's going to be beautiful! He has half of the frame work around the pool done, and some of the decking put down. The deck will have a 3 1/2' edge all the way around the pool and then a 20x20' (approx) deck off on one side. We love to be outside and this will just add to it! I'll get some pictures on my day off on Tuesday.

Herding

We're getting a little rain today, which is a blessing. They were saying on the news that we aren't in an official drought, but agriculturally speaking, we are. The grass that we have here is just about fried up. I bought some hay for the sheep the other day at the feedstore, and will go get a bunch from the lady that bought my friends' Jonny and Barb's place in Waverly. I'll store it in the stall that's in the barn. Now that I have a pickup truck instead of an SUV, I can haul a bunch at a time. Of course her hay is half the price of the feedstore. Too many hands to be paid when you have to buy it at a "store". She has lots of last year's hay for quite cheap, which will be fine while they still have grass and aren't bred or heavily nursing.

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I ordered the comb for the shears, so I hope that does the trick and I can get them sheared. It's pushing being quite late. I should have had it done around the first of the month... I'm deworming them right now, as they aren't very many dark red road maps in their eyelids. I was told the best way was to do 3 days of Valbazen and then 3 of Levasole, then wait 10 days, look at them again and repeat if needed. Today is day 3. There is one nursing ewe that I know will be thin when I shear them, but the rest are in good body condition. Once I've done the 6 days of deworming I may start to pull that ewe and the 2 lambs out and give them some sweet feed. I plan to rebreed the same group of ewes in Oct., so I want to make sure they are all in good condition before I do that. If she is still not wonderful looking in Oct., I won't breed her. I'd rather she get caught up. I'm hoping I can afford to buy 4 Cheviot ewe lambs from a friend, so I have 6 young and unbred sheep to work this winter. With the hours I'm pulling in at work, I think I can swing it.

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I worked till 5am rather than 3am this morning. The kids and I got all the trash picked up, re-bagged and all the barrels taken to the dump before the rain. We went 2 bags over the barrels being full, and even with the barrels and the bags in a portion of an unused kennel, they still managed to pull apart the bags (from the other side of the kennel panel) and strew plastic trash all over. We can't go one bag over the barrels being full between the dogs and the cats. So that's all cleaned up and the barrels are empty again. I told the kids to make sure and tell me when it's the last bag that fits into the last barrel. Dump runs are my duty I guess. Ben never goes.

I didn't get to work Kit or Gwen the other day. Being that the temp has been 97-99, without any heat index, it's just not doable! With the cold front that came in this afternoon, maybe I can quick play with them tonight before work. I just called work and there is no truck. I told Rodney I stayed 2 hours over this morning, and could I come in at 8 instead of 6 since there's no truck. That was fine. I would go over 40 hours if I went in at 6. I'd rather GO IN 2 hours later than come home 2 hours early. The over-40 is nice, but so is 8pm!

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I'm entering a small trial the 19-20th of July, so I'm looking forward to that. I look at these trials as more training than trialing. Ella is excited to run Mary Jane both days. I'm also planning on running both days at the trial in August instead of just one day. That's the beauty of a paycheck! I just pull some money from my checks, buy a money order and send in my entry. No need to run it by Ben first and hope we can afford my "habit". If I can't afford to trial now that I'm working, than I'll quit- what's the point? I'm not going to work 80 hours a paycheck and NOT trial! It's what I enjoy doing and I'm not going to work 5 days a week, and then not go! At a trial last summer where I was exhausting the last of runs for weekend, I made a decision. As I sat on the bumper of an F250 with my dog under my feet in the shade of the truck, I decided "this is what I want to do". I want to sit on the bumper of truck, in the middle of field with my dog at my side, watch these awesome dogs do what their bred to and be surrounded by people with the same train of thought. Plain and simple. My long term goal is to be able to just that on my own piece of land. I love everything about herding. I love the dogs, I love the stock, I love being around people that have so much in common, I love "roughing" it when the weather is such that "normal" people are tucked in their houses, I love the competitive part of it, and I love the sportsmanship that most of the people involved show. I love herding!

Dogs

As much as it can be a bummer to work 30-40 hours a week, I'm glad I have an additional source of income now. I like raising and training, and helping new handlers, but I don't so much like selling dogs. Partly because it's a little hard to part with a dog you have a relationship with, even when you know you and the dog aren't cut out to be together. Mostly though it's the people. People are so unreliable. I've had dogs "sold" so many times, only to end up with it falling thru for numerous different reasons. I've even had a person pretend to be an interested person, only to find out it was just someone "fishing" for God only knows what.

I've gotten more and more business-like about selling a dog and it feels a little funny because that's not really my personality. I'm glad I did that with the "sale" of Kit and Sly though. They were to go to the same lady. She was buying Kit to put some goose work on and then turn her over to one of her biggest clients. Kit would have a stellar life on this HUGE property and live as pet when not "on the clock". Well... money trickles up hill in this situation and the company the man works for has not given him the money for the purchase of the trained dog, so he can't give it to the lady I was to sell Kit to, so she can't give me the money... She had already sent a small deposit- which of course she wanted back... I'm glad I wrote up a short, simple contract that stayed any monies put toward the dog were non-refundable unless injury or death of the dog occurred. At one time she had asked for me to get Kit spayed and she would send the money for it. This I would not do- again I'm glad I stuck to my guns. I tend to be very willing to do what people ask me and not stand up for myself- but I'm learning. She still wishes to purchase Sly when he's around 10 months, and he will be her personal dog. She wants to apply Kit's deposit to him, which although I could say no to, is fine. I did spend some money on Kit getting a HW test done and having her almost expired rabies boostered. But I would have done that anyway, so oh well.

Unless I meet someone in person and they want to take Kit and try her out, I won't be selling her. It's not worth the aggravation. If she's slow maturing like her sire (who she is 110% like) I should probably just wait her out anyway. She's a very nice young dog. She's tight and forward like Toss and gets just a little worried when I ask her to do it "right". So I maybe just need to do some easy stuff with her for another 6 months, not worry so much about her being tight, and just let her work. She was just 2 in April. Not all dogs are mature at 2, and given her sire's temperament, I probably haven't even scratched the surface on who she is really going to be on stock.

Toss will be 5 in Nov. and he is just now becoming consistent and reliable. There was always a good dog there, it was just masked by incredible immaturity and the inability to tone down the intensity when toning down was necessary. Now? Now, what a super dog! My friend and trainer saw the real dog in him when he was 2, and she kept telling me "he'll be one of your best in the end". I trusted her, but didn't believe her. "She likes a different kind of dog than me" I thought. Wrong. She's simply been there done that and I hadn't. All that forwardness I used to curse and all his always so dang tight'ness that drove me nuts. I now see that many times that's what you want to see in a young dog. Toss will make it "all the way" and do very, very well.

When I work Kit today I'm just going to let her work. I'm going to do this with her for many weeks and then re-asses what I have in her. I'm seeing now, that even though I am fair and nice to my dogs, I have put a lot of handling on my young dogs. I need to back off from that and let them simply work their sheep a little longer than I typically do. I believe I am partially to blame for Gwen's cautious driving. I see now that I put too much control on her drive too soon. Most of what she does is who she is, but I didn't help. If I had helped, I would have just let her drive and let her drive and not worried about where to. One thing I do see with her (I learn so much with each dog) is that she doesn't have enough gears. She has a stop, and a forward- but not really much in between. On the fetch we have just learned to work thru that, I control the speed of the sheep by hitting her breaks. She really doesn't have any pace (out in the open and away from me- she's good at pen etc), and the more I think about it, the more I think that's part of her driving problem. She knows she can't run behind them, but pace is very uncomfortable (because I haven't showed her how). That light bulb came on yesterday. She also does not like to stay behind her sheep. She likes to flank. She likes to always have control of their heads. So two big things there and I should be working on them in a fetch not the drive. Funny how you see things that are now so obvious, but you didn't see it a week ago.

Carol is currently working a dog that is pushy and doesn't like to pace or flank in steps when that's what's asked. He is similar to Gwen in the sense that he has a great stop and a forward, and not much in between. She showed me what she was doing to show him what "walk" meant (she'll put a whistle to it too). She's getting great results with him now. I'll have to do a similar type exercise with Gwen. She needs to learn how to not always work at warp speed. Again with the maturity I think. She appears to be so incredibly mature and talented, so I probably did a bit much with her. Now I need to back track. I was going to run her in Nursery this fall, but now I'm re-thinking that. I'd rather have her solid for Ranch next year and Open after that, than run in Nursery with a few big holes. I may even pull her from the "fall line up" completely, although that's probably over-kill. Gwen is a fabulous dog, and knowing what I need to do to help her be more comfortable behind her sheep will really be awesome. None of her puppies want to head like she did as a little pup. As a little pup she would go around, get their heads and then not want to move. All the puppies are nice and free and will already stay behind their sheep with very little body pressure- so that's great! It's really her only natural hole, as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to spend the summer working with her on staying behind her sheep in a fetch and learning some gears- also in a fetch. I'm going to drop driving altogether for quite some time, fill in some holes, and then see what happens with the driving. She's not entered in a trial until the end of August. So that gives us basically 2 full months of work. I'll go back to driving with her about a week before the trial.

I have to work tonight, so I need to get outside and work Kit and Gwen. After that I need to do some housework and I'll have take a nap from like 1-4:00, or I'll never make it till 3am. I was up before 7am both today and yesterday. Yesterday me, the kids, and 4 dogs were 75 miles away from home at Carol's by 9:30 and then not home till almost 4pm. I took care of the dogs and made spaghetti before Ella was here at 7pm to work Mary Jane and let Wren have a turn on sheep... Go, go, go!! Gotta suck the life out of those days off for all their worth right? I don't have another day off until the 1st, and it's only one day.

Videos

Still no luck with videos on here. Videos of Clare on sheep from last week and one fun clip of "the girls" at the river will be on my youtube account shortly.

Ramblings

I have today off from work. Well, kinda. They swamped us with 2 trucks last night. Almost 5000 pieces! A typical night is somewhere between 1,000-1,800. It was simply crazy! I had 350 break pack boxes, and of course I was by myself. I usually have around 50-75 boxes- 2-3 pallets. Last night I think there were 9 pallets! I only took a 30 minute lunch and stayed until 6:10am. I told Barry I would only stay if I had tonight off. There is no truck tonight. Not sure who's planning that was, but it was awful! There was so much freight on the floor last night you could hardly move a cart thru the aisles! Typically I'm done sorting and delivering carts by 8-10pm. Last night I was still delivering carts at 1am! I got up at 11:45 and I still feel pretty run over, but I'm going to just relax today and of course go to bed at a normal time. Tomorrow I'll have to take a nap in the afternoon before work.

The weather has been nice enough that we've had the windows open for 3 days. Thank goodness, as the a/c units were running hard for about 10 days! It's going to warm up into the mid 80's, but the humidity is way down so it should be fine. I am definitely going to work all the dogs tonight during the nice evening it should be. I did get most of them worked a couple days ago. Yesterday it was too warm in the afternoon for the sheep, so I just played ball with the dogs for awhile. Maddie is recovering fine. She's pretty much herself now today.

I need to order the right comb for the sheep shears. The one Tony has on there is for "blocking"- whatever that is. I need to order it so on my next 2 days off (wed & thurs) I can get my girls sheared. I'll need to check and see if they need deworming too. I dewormed and trimmed their feet a couple months ago.

We're supposed to get some rain and maybe storms on Friday and Saturday. We sure need it!! Ben is home today too. They had their PRT this morning. He got some things at wal-mart and got the oil changed in his car. Think I'll have him load the truck for the dump. The trash cans are my only issue with the dogs having full run of the 3 acres. I lined them up on the back of the kennels and bungee corded them to the kennel, but some (or one) of them are still knocking them over and then making a big mess. uugggh!! I get pretty angry! Especially when it's just "stuff" and not even "good" stuff. Like one day it was all kinds of stuff from cleaning the garage. I was hoping if they could not easily tip them over, they'd give it up- but no such luck. I might have to put them (cans, not the dogs) in the chicken pen. There won't be many chickens left soon anyway, as I can't keep them in, and there is a very well fed Broad Wing Hawk living in the woods. I had found one dead chicken in the coop a week ago. I thought it was probably the one that Maddie happily retrieved to us alive a couple weeks ago. Being a retriever, she did not break any skin, but what kind of shape it was in when she caught it was unknown. Well now I think it was one that managed to get away from the hawk. Broad Wings are known for being quite brave and tame. Indeed this one is! 'He' was on a dead chicken the other day and I as was walking towards him I kept blinking, thinking it really wasn't what I was seeing- 'he'd' never just stay there. Well, sure enough it was. I got 25' from him (on the other side of the fence) with 13 dogs and he did NOT move for several minutes. He only half-heartily flew off when Maddie spotted him and rushed the fence. I had my phone, and didn't think till later that I could have snapped a photo of him... He came back for the bird before the end of the following day. We'll have to make a chicken pen that is enclosed. Even though he had my chicken, it was quite a treat to see him so close. I have great interest in animals of prey. The behaviors and team work of pack animals simply amazes me and the solitary hunters are simply incredible! I'm a huge big cat fan.

River Pictures

What a beautiful place to call your own, huh? Ella's house is in the tree line maybe 500' back. How cool!!

Wren keepin' a close on her rivals!

Run, run, run! This is what they did for 2 hours! They had a blast!

A still moment.




Pretty Wren.

This is a 4 picture series of "Ivy's Plan". (I think it backfired!)

All in good fun of course!






The boys were skipping shells and tossing them to Ivy.

Our boys have always loved the beach and totally fell in love with the river.


Shell on it's way to Ivy.

She's on it!

Determined!

GOT IT!

Another shell searching shot.

Such a pretty girl.

Charlie and Clare. I have so many pictures of the boys as toddlers that are this same scene- only with Cruz and Jake.

Dylan and Clare.

Wren keepin' watch.

Nap time?

Pllleease Ella?

"Oh, wait, maybe I'll miss something!"

"On second thought, that's okay, Ivy can tell me about it later!"

"Ah, the life...."

Pictures Later

Yesterday the kids, Clare, Ivy, and myself went to Ella's for 2 hours while we waited for Maddie to be spayed. We played at the river and the kids and the pups had a blast! Of course Wren played too. I took 225 pictures, most of which are good...

I need to get to bed now (4:13am), but will try to get a bunch posted this afternoon. Hopefully it will be reasonable enough to work some dogs. It would have been fine yesterday, but I was up at 6am to get Maddie into Surry by 8:30am, so I had to take a 2 hour nap shortly after we got home. I got up in time to scrub and refill water buckets, do poop patrol and a few other little odd tasks.

Next time we visit Ella's I'll have to take Toss. He would have LOVED it. The 3 girls played in and around the water, but weren't super crazy about swimming. Ivy did the most swimming and I think if another dog had gone out, she would have been more sure. They sure had a great time playing along the water's edge though- they ran and ran and ran and ran!!! Right about the time we had to wrap things up, Clare could hardly keep her eyes open! She crawled up on Ella and if we had stayed for 5 more minutes, she would have been asleep!

Maddie seems to be fine after her surgery. She was REALLY out of it when they sent her home with me. She did get up and go to the bathroom before I left for work, and Ben took her out a couple times later on. I'm sure she'll feel better tomorrow. No getting wet for 10 days they said!! That's like a death sentence to her!! So we put the ladder up on the pool and I dumped the stock tank. They'll ALL just have to drink their water for 10 days!

Off to bed....

Videos

Well, I've been trying since yesterday to get the videos of Clare and Ivy put on here and it keeps getting an error. Guess I'll put them on my youtube account. They'll be up there sometime today.

We had some good rain last night along with a storm. We have one huge 10' oak tree branch down. Unfortunately it was a good limb. Two of our trees seem to have died out on the top. It happened in the drought last year I think. We probably have 20 huge oak trees in total. Thankfully it missed the end kennel- by about 6". Ben will have to break out the chainsaw this weekend.

Ella came out at 7pm to work Mary Jane and give Wren a turn. I didn't get many dogs worked since she came out, but I will have tonight too. It was pretty cool this morning, but I went back to bed as my body was telling me I really needed to. Tomorrow I have to be up in the early am to get Maddie to Surry Co. to be spayed. I have to be there by 8:30 and it's probably a 30-40 minute drive. It's not far from Ella's, so I will probably just head to her place while I wait for Maddie's surgery. Mary Jane and Ella are becoming a very nice team. MJ's not cheating her lie downs as badly and Ella is starting to see when MJ needs to be told to get back rather than be asked for a flank at places like a pen or a chute. She's also seeing when MJ needs to be sshhh'd on a flank with a lot of pressure. This can be MJ's "hole" and Ella's starting to see it in time to help MJ thru it, rather than just picking up the pieces after MJ has followed the pressure (rather than open up/kick out and cover it) and rattled the sheep. At the end of the session she sent MJ a couple times and it went well. Previously, MJ was unsure what Ella really wanted when she'd send her. The last few sessions she has been doing lots of big flanks with a stop at the balance point. This helped MJ gain confidence in Ella's sending and it pulled in the stop close enough that Ella could enforce the stop on the first command. MJ likes to take 3 more strides first.... She doesn't do it with me anymore and she's beginning to trust that Ella is not going to let it slide either. I'm still having to remind Ella to head towards MJ as soon as she doesn't stop. Don't ask 2-3 times first! She's getting better though!! LOL! Last night she walked to her and poked her on the nose with her pointer finger and said "YOU, lie down!" Yeah for Ella! LOL! I'm sure it's a little harder to be insistent with someone else's dog. Next week I'll have to take some pictures and maybe a video. By fall they are going to be a very nice team.

I'm gonna go play ball with the dogs for awhile so they all get some fun exercise and this evening get everyone a turn on sheep. I need to work on just walking a driving with Gwen. I need to back track and not do so much turning and flanking with her on the drive. I need to help her see she can just keep pushing on in a straight drive. Getting a little sticky on the drive is really her only weak spot right now. She flanks beautifully, so I need to quit with that for awhile and just do drives where I don't care where we're going, as long as you're going forward. Cruz can probably do some shed work. Toss needs whistle work. He's really been a good boy now for a few months, so hopefully he'll be on track for fall trials. He was a good boy at Carol's trial in April. He has a stop and there whistle, but his flanks aren't really there. He has heard them, but he doesn't always take them. I could actually pick a shady spot and work him this afternoon on just whistles and a 2nd time on some other stuff this evening. Deal needs fetchline flank work to remind her that if I ask for a flank on a fetch I mean it. She does wonderfully when I stay on top of reminding her, but if I don't she'll back slide into not giving me good flanks on a fetch. She can do some shed work too. I left her class entry blank for the end of August trial. I'm thinking of putting into Ranch. I think the added distance and time on the field will do her good. She's probably my best driving dog. Although Toss is very, very good too. Deal has a little more feel for her sheep though. She has a little more natural pace than Toss. I used to think Toss' forwardness was a con, now I'm beginning to see it as a pro. With the longer drives that forwardness is really an asset. I was told there would come a day I'd see that, and it's here. Toss was very slow to mature, but wow, what a dog he is now becoming! He's the dog I'm starting to pull out for this and that work and very much enjoying him. I need to work Kit a little and to keep her flanks and stop fresh and to keep stretching her send out. There is a tie up in the money with the lady who's buying her, so she is still here. I'm not in a huge hurry to sell her and this home sounds so wonderful. As long as the lady is reasonable about how long it's going to take her, Kit will still be going to her. She's a nice young dog who likes people, but is not the kind that is going to take to lots of bouncing around and I don't want her to end up a kennel dog somewhere. I'd just assume she stay here before that's the case. Sly is also going to this lady when he has some herding foundation. He's going to be a nice dog. He's more dog than MJ. He's going to be able to take more of a correction than her. He's turning into a very attractive young man and has a very loving temperament. He has turned back on to sheep, so I'll start giving him a weekly turn beginning next week.

I need to start tieing all of the pups (1 at a time so if they need to be corrected a well behaving pup is not insulted) while I'm working dogs. They are over 6 months now, so they're mentally ready for that. I also need to start putting them on a leash once in awhile! I teach great recalls and they are so good at just being with me, that I sometimes forget that they need to be leash trained! The places I visit with them don't require them to be on a leash, just have a good recall. Because I'm limited to 4 crates when I trial, I don't always get to haul along a pup or two. They often times come along to my training places because I don't need to have a crate for them- but like I mentioned, I don't need to have them on leash there.... It doesn't take them long at all to figure it out though. I few nightly sessions with each and they'll be good to go. All I want them to do is walk decent and pick a side. I don't care which side, just pick one and stick with it! LOL! If I teach them to tie first, the leash work really goes fast because they already understand, "when I pull it's uncomfortable and when I don't, it's comfortable." When I bathe the dogs I always tie them. I gave almost everyone a bath the other day. I didn't get to Jim, Ivy, and Clare, but did do Sly. He pulled, and fussed and screamed at first, but quickly realized nothing was really going to hurt him. By the end of the bath he was fine. I need to do the other 3. Not so much that they need the bath- but they need the exposure of being tied and bathed. Same thing goes for nails and brushing. They might not need much nail clipped off, but they need to be exposed to being laid down and having their feet handled without a fuss. They've had their nails done several times.

I do think Jim is improving, so do the people that have watched him recently. Ella pointed out last night that Jim was running and wrestling with Sly and that she hadn't seen him do that since very young puppyhood. As he was playing with Sly they went flying off and Sly cut a hard corner, Jim was on the inside and he did a full speed 360 spin, didn't loose his balance, and was off full speed and ducked under the picnic table without even slowing down. This morning I noticed he was jumping off the steps, 3 steps from the bottom. Again not something I think I've seen him do. I need to do some more research on his symptoms.

This and That

Jim, Jim, Jim! What a special one this pup is already!!

(not a great picture, but it's Cruz and Jim in the same shot!)

Oh the joy of 2 days off in row!! I worked like a crazy person last week and paid for it. I worked 41 hours at work and tried out the plan of staying up when I got home and sleeping in the afternoon. Between the extra hours at work (1 morning OT and working a full shift on 2 of my 3 days off) and trying the new system at home I ran myself into the ground! I was a mess by Saturday. One day off on this shift does not work, but they really needed me, so I said okay.

The last 2 mornings I have gone to bed when I got home and did what I could do in the afternoon. That works so much better. I think staying up from say 3pm (on about 4 hours sleep) until 10-11am, to again only get 4 hours of sleep just wasn't going to work! Coupled with I don't sleep well during the middle of the day. Especially with the kids home. They can only be but so quiet for that long... Today is a day off and I slept until 11:30! Pretty late, (went to bed at 4:30am) but man I needed it! When I heard Dylan get up around 8:30 I asked him to put the sheep up and let the dogs out for me. I was so tired and sleeping so hard I woke myself up snoring a couple times!! LOL!! Yesterday it was 'cool' (used in relative terms) enough to work a few dogs in the afternoon. I played with Clare and Ivy and took videos of each. I'll download them this afternoon while I'm doing some other stuff. They're both such nice girls!

I think I need to look further into what I thought was wrong with Jim, as he seems to be improving. I'm still not ready to "tell the world", but just wanted the readers of my blog know he's still here and he's doing fine. He hasn't clicked on sheep yet, and because he has some problems, I have only let him see sheep a couple times. Now that he's getting bigger and stronger, I may start to expose him more often. He sure is a big, handsome pup- very striking! Temperament wise he is nearly all Cruz. He's unsure for a bit about new human arrivals (but could care less about dogs- like Cruz) and as far as what he does when I interact with him, he is ALL Cruz! His favorite thing to do to me is trot up behind me and shove his face between my legs. Not where some dogs shove their face, but just at his head level- right above my knees. Like Cruz he's a bit annoying to pet because it's never enough and he's never close enough. One touch means I must want him in my lap and it must mean I don't want to ever touch another dog... That is Cruz 110%! He's already showing so many Cruz trademarks!

Our evenings have been cooling off very nicely, so I'm looking forward to working dogs tonight and having dinner with my family! I have an extra 12' gate and an extra 4' gate that I'm going to use to make another chute. Right now I have a fenceline chute made with my 2, 8' panels. I'll use those to make a free standing chute and use the the 12' gate for a fenceline chute and use the 4' gate as an angled wing at one end. I like to do the fenceline chutes in a drive. Having a free standing chute set up keeps the dogs fresh on honest flanks. I have a permanent pen too, but I like to work the chute. My woolie ewes are never gimme's on chutes and pens, and some of them are really slick about squirting by the hole. I have very different sheep to pen pending which ewes I use, which is so nice. I'll get the new chutes set up this afternoon while the boys play in the pool. I tend to not leave panels and obstacles in one place for very long. I have 4 sets of short panels (they were 2 sets of normal size panels that I cut in half, which better suits my smaller area) and several different natural obstacles that I use as panels. I have Ella's and Carol's right now for big spaces, and should have the 30 acres across the road back by October or so. I need to go talk to David and see about leasing it this fall. He had told me this spring it would be fine as long as the man that rents his whole farm would not pass on renewing his lease because he would not have the 1, 30 acre field. (He must lease like 200 or more acres from David)

Ivy Ivy

Ivy is the 6 month old female that I kept from my CruzXGwen cross. She is just a wonderful puppy! As a "whole package" she is about perfect so far. She has a solid temperament and is very friendly. She's showing great promise on sheep, and she's wonderfully well put together. She's more Gwen than Cruz, but there are traits of both in her. I adore this little girl! She looks more and more like Gwen each month. She's going to have a bit more coat than Gwen I think. She is such a fun puppy. I appreciate her cleverness and her sweetness. She is going to be like Gwen and Cruz in the way she grabs people's attention.

More Toss Swimming

Something happened to the other clip- here it is.

Toss Swimming