Pups

Got all the dogs worked again today, so that sure felt great. I set up a high pressure situation for Gwen. She did pretty well. She still likes to "skate around" and hold the pressure rather than taking 2 steps in to push into the pressure just enough to make the sheep change direction. She is getting much better, and setting it up close and showing her she can do it will keep her confidence high and show her she can indeed walk into that pressure. She isn't weak, she's cautious, and I respect that. I appreciate a dog who's going to think before just blasting in. I did not help this trait by asking her to drive, and drive too far too early. We all live and learn.... She is so damn fast, but because she's so fast at responding, it's not usually a problem. She will learn to slow down her flanks with time and maturity. I'm not going to grind her into the ground. She's learning bump flanks and that's helping as well. She beginning to understand that not every flank whistle is an all the way around until stopped. I set the sheep on grain again today and she had zero trouble with that this time. Toss did not want to stop at all today. He was just powering right thru his stop whistles and even testing the verbal stop. Hopefully he'll relax by the weekend! The sheep on Sunday will not tolerate a forward dog that pushes thru his stops!! He's really catching on to the whistles. I've just been applying them, as I hate drill work and I know the dogs do too. He was a little flat on his drive flanks- sorta a snow ball effect of not stopping honestly, since he's still at the stage that I usually have to pause him before a flank on the drive. Tomorrow I'll come down on him if he continues to push thru his stop whistle. He will be disappointed when we keep everything so short he can see the glare in my eyeballs! LOL! Cruz did well, just a couple mis-timed flanks. I'm still learning to read when he can just keeping stepping to one side and when he needs to flank. A couple times we missed the panels because I thought he just needed to step, when really he needed to flank. I've gone from over-steering, to under-steering! LOL! The happy medium should be happening here pretty soon! Deal was a very good girl today. I sent her to the grain held sheep also, as that will often pull her in. She wanted to pull up on the first send, but took the additional flank command nicely. On the second send she was perfect- even gave me a beautiful flank right off the lift to fix the line. Not giving me a good flank right after the lift can be her MO and we've been working on that. I was thrilled with what she did for me, so I did NOT send her a 3rd time. Instead I worked on driving panels. She was very nice. I'll miss not running her on Sunday- but Toss needs some field time and I can only run what I can afford to run! I have her on my entry for Mt. Pleasant rather than Toss. Deal's ready to run Ranch at the smaller trial fields, but will be best kept in ProNovice for Mt. Pleasant, so after Mt. Pleasant I'll move her up to run in Ranch over the winter.

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After dinner I worked the puppies. Ivy's about ready for some real sending work. She's a very natural outrunner like her mother- it appears anyway. She just casts right on around and is very good about staying behind them. She will drift up the side occasionally, but not anything like Gwen did. She's very easy to kick back and does not appear to be uncomfortable in the correct position. I can start asking her to stay put long enough to send her. She calls off quite nicely. She is not clappy, and I will NOT be pushing any type of stop on her for quite some time. Instead I'm going to try and do some baby-level practical things with her to show her when a stop fits in, rather than just stopping her in drill type session. Sly did fine, I need to get in touch with the lady that has put a down payment on him to see if Oct. will be a good month to come and get him. He's going to be a handsome lad, and the profession of being her personal goosedog is going to fit him to a tee. Clare did nice as well. I'm going to have to hold off on sending her until she's ready for me to stand half way out, as she very much wants to go to the right. She'll cover both ways fine in a fetch, but no matter how it's set up she wants to go right on a send. I don't feel she's ready for my body pressure to make her go left, so best to just leave that alone for now. Somehow between Deal and Toss, all the pups are pretty sensitive- not quitters, but sensitive. I need to write about Jim and put some videos of him on here. He has been the same for several months now, so I do not believe he has the progressive form of the disease. If he did, he would have been so unable to maneuver (according to the info I have come up with) by now that he would have been put down. He's a trip! His disorder is now simply part of his personality. Jim is Jim... I don't have time to write about him this morning (it's 2:14am- I made myself stay up in order to get myself switched back to nights after 2 days off) as I need to get to bed here soon. But I'll post about him soon. It's such a sad disorder, but he is perfect in all other aspects! Only his balance is affected!