The Looking-for-Treats Game

Sometimes it's fun to do something simple, loooking for treats in the grass for example. All you need is some treats, cheese cubes in our case, and a place to throw them on to, preferably somewhere not too easy to find them. The dogs take this very serious, and do their very best to find them all. Jessie however has some other serious business to do.......

Garden Ballet

They never got lessons for it, but my dogs can really do some awesome Garden Ballet!

Beautifully, they move synchronously around in pairs, the girls and the boys.
Floyd always in the lead with Jai following him, and Yoshi and Suki turn and twist alternately.
They also mix up and separate again, it's really wonderful so have a look!

Of course it's just my sheep dogs herding each other, but it makes a nice story, doesn't it? :D


Have a nice week!

Autumn dogs

Summer has been gone for a while now, and it's been cold and rainy. But sometimes the sun peaks through the clouds and the dogs can run around without being all soaked. I managed to take a few nice pictures of my little rascals.

Jai

 Suki

Floyd

Yoshi

Jessie

It's fun playing in the snow!

I just realised I did'n put any pictures of the dogs together on here, and they're just too cute not to. Ofcourse they're all herding each other, but there was a bit more of play this time. Chasing and trying to steal each others toy was more fun in the snow apparently. In the mean time the snow is all gone, and we had a lot of rain since then. The back garden is now a big mud palace, and so are the dogs: muddy monsters. But let us first enjoy the last snow pictures I took :

Dogs and snow...

What gets into dogs, when they see and feel snow? It's like they're going crazy!
Racing and chasing, licking and picking snow, jumping and bumping around!
Anyway, they seem like little children having a good time, and that's a pleasure to watch :D

Of course, they wouldn't be sheepdogs if they weren't herding each other the whole time...
It's funny to see how focused they are, if it's on sheep or on their pack members makes no difference.
This yields great pictures of these beautiful working dogs, even when it's in the back yard.

Enjoy!

 

This is our Border Collie X Falco, he's no working sheepdog but he enjoys the snow too!

 

Water is fun, or is it?

It's hot, it's really hot here in Belgium. Almost 30 degrees Celsius, and the next days it's going to get even hotter, that's with our humid climate pretty hot. On the news we get warnings to drink a lot of water and not to do heavy work, especially old people and young children must be careful in this weather. Even the dogs like to be inside rather than outside, because it's a bit less hot in the house than in the garden. That suits me well, I'm not a fan of these excessive temperatures, be it very cold or very hot, and I like to stay inside too and do some work there.

But when the sun is getting lower, I get the hose out and then the fun starts. The opinions are divided though... Floyd, Jai and Yoshi chase the waterjet, snapping and biting at it and trying to catch it. They don't mind getting wet, they even seem to love it. Jessie and Suki on the other hand, keep far away from the water. I don't know about Suki yet, but I'm sure Jessie doesn't mind water when she's working sheep. She doesn't mind rain at all, and she lies down in a puddle or in mud ever so happily if she can keep on working. But when we're going on a walk, Jessie walks around the rain puddles and doesn't like to get her feet wet. I wonder if Suki is going to be the same...

So Jai is the most fierce one, you can hear his teeth clapping at the water. Yoshi is almost as fierce as Jai, she even races away to turn back and take a run at the water to attack it! Floyd wants to join in, he plays along and snaps at the water too, but when I aim the hose at him he's trying to avoid it though. But he's happy to be in the game. And so you can see, it's really easy to have fun with your dogs, all you need is a hose and water!

Mad Ball Game

My dogs have this peculiar ritual they go through, every time we play this ball game. It's always the same scenario: Jessie and Floyd each have their own ball, and they love me to throw the ball and then they run or jump to catch it. In the meanwhile, the 3 Musketeers (Jai, Yoshi and Suki) herd Floyd and try to nip him in the butt (in Jai's case) or in his collar (in Yoshi's case) or either one (in Suki's case). Jai and Suki run around him and are practising their flanks in the meantime, or they're sitting or standing eying Floyd. Yoshi lunges at him from under the porch stairs or eyes him from close by, or makes flanks too, whatever suits her best. I try to stop them from doing this, but somehow they listen better when they're working sheep than when they're annoying Floyd. I guess the latter one is more fun...

Jessie can catch her ball without being harassed, I guess that's the privilege of being the alpha female :)

The new Toy

I was at the pet store to get some chewing sticks the other day, when I saw these funny toy tires!
I bought two of them and when I came home I tossed them in the back garden. The dogs were chasing it immediately, curious as they are, and soon they were carrying it around the back yard and were trying to steal it from each other the whole time.

Every time I see a dog running around with it, it looks so proud like it's a war trophy it has captured!
Oh, how easy it is to make a dog happy.... :)

Jai had it first!

Trying to hide it on the couch?

No Suki, it's mine!

Got to hurry!

 

 Yoshi is a master thief!

Come and get it if you can!