Spring has finally come!

April was a funny month, with lots of rain and soooo cold... but it seems the days are getting warmer now. We have been training on sheep twice a week, or sometimes more, and the youngsters are changing. Suki is still hard to calm down, and is kind of having a somewhat rebellion thing going on. She now thinks she knows best and I'm there to help her. Hellooo! It's the other way around, silly girl!

Yoshi is still quick, but at least she will take the stops I give her. So we seem to progress more as she listens to what I tell her. Jai is getting more and more confident, he takes his sides, fetches nicely and is learning to drive now. He is a peculiar one, and I'm finding the fine balance I need to train him properly. He is so keen to work, that it doesn't matter anymore when I correct him, he keeps on working. He listens, he thinks and then he acts and I'm enjoying training with him.

Floyd is still a mystery to me: one day he'll do everything I ask, another day he is like I'm not there and he is acting like a crazy dog. When I'm training at a friend's place, he works with her like a professional. But I can't seem to get connection with him, and it's making me desperate sometimes. Still, if I see what he can do, I know it's worth trying to find that connection. So I won't give up!

Jessie is actually benefiting from my work with the youngsters. I'm handling her better these days, and we are getting a better team. I'm working on fine tuning her on trial work. We have a couple of trials coming up, so I 'll be able to see if it works for us this way.

For the time being, we are now enjoying the sun. It is still chilly, but at least it is keeping dry!

All six of them in one picture!

Just some fun training with Jessie

I just realised that maybe you would like to see Jessie on sheep, and since my mother came along a few weeks ago to test her new camera on my dogs I finally have a recent video of Jessie on sheep. Just a little fun training though, these days she usually helps out on the sheep farm more than she does trialling. But she loves to go with me as I go training with the youngsters, so she can have a go too ;-)

Here comes Jessie!!

Floyd's first encounter with lambs...

It seemed to me that Floyd is a bit anxious around sheep, and that might be the reason he dives in when we're training flanks. So I was thinking of taking him to the sheep farm where me and Jessie help out, so that he could be around sheep in a relaxed way without working them. Since they have a baby boom of lambs, it was also an opportunity for him to learn to know the difference between sheep and lambs.

I took him into the barn where the lambs are taken after they leave their mothers, so they are not the new borns from the previous post. They roam free in and out the sheep pens, and they're very curious and know no fear at all yet. Floyd on the other hand didn't quite know what these little white creatures were, smelling like sheep and not entirely being sheep... And especially because they had no fear or respect for him! So he was a bit uncomfortable at the start, but after a while he got used to them. I put him back in the car for half an hour, while Jessie helped me moving some sheep. Later I got Floyd back out, and the second time he was more relaxed with the lambs. He even started to sniff their noses, and then their bottoms. Actually, he even licked their bottoms! He's such a weirdo sometimes...

Anyhow, I managed to film it with my mobile so I made a video of Floyd and the Lambs :)

Lambs, lambs, LAMBS!

There's a baby boom at the sheep farm, some twins and quadruplets but also a lot triplets are being born. Lambs are such cute creatures, and have no fear at all. They are very curious too, so I had no problem taking pictures today. (Click on the pictures to enlarge!)

These are a couple of triplets, some were just born when I got there....

Since these are milk ewes, their lambs move to the milkbar after a few days. Their mothers' milk is needed for the production of cheese, yoghurt, ice cream and a lot more.

The older lambs run around with the grazing sheep, who are inside for the winter. The milking sheep are in the other stable, where the new born triplets are. Enjoy the pictures!

 

Suki in training

Suki is a bit of a handfull... she is very keen and very natural, but also a little rocket and hard to stop. So last week I decided to work on her stops and her pacing, and also the start of a little outrun since she kind of does it natural herself already. She is actual easy to train, because she wants to work with me, but sometimes she's so focused that she can't hear me.

Regarding her stops: I don't want her to lie down specifically. She may, stand, sit or lie down, as long as she pauses herself. And I think she improved her stop from 2 seconds to 5 seconds now, ha ha...
Anyway, this session I used a bag on a stick for the first time, since she isn't much impressed by an upturned crook or stick by itself. The bag didn't impress her much either, so I got rid of it after a few minutes. I just have to remind myself to be patient and let her learn by herself and try to guide her as good as I can.

The flanks are good, I think, and I like how she gathers her sheep very natural. I try to make her gather both sides, so she doesn't get the habit of always taking the one side. I'm not trying to get her much wider yet, as this tends to come with age. What I also like is that she goes between the sheep and the fence easily, and did this from an early age on. She is not an anxious one, very brave of heart and has authority. But she seems more gentle than her mother Jessie, something I really like in her. Is it obvious I like her a lot?

So bear with me as I am a novice handler, and enjoy watching this youngster!