Herding Immersion and Best Weekend Ever! PART ONE
Everything hurts. Even my toe(s).
Friday, I drove the 3 hrs to Smithfield, VA, in, lo! 3 hours! I got to Terri's around 8:15 pm and hopped dogs out for quick walkies and re-situated everydoggy in crate or kennel as appropriate. Then we went over to Pam's apartment and had elk steaks and butternut squash for dinner and watched Smallville and Sanctuary and had brownies and ice cream and then watched White Collar, all with much YAY and YUM--not all of which was focused on the food.
Got back to Terri's v. late--like 2:30 am? And then slept. Got up at 9 and herded. Hunter, on Saturday, was about 10 days into her heat cycle, and she was unable to flank in the clockwise direction. As in, no, can't do it, I don't understand, that doesn't work, don't yell at me, OMG WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME I CAN"T DO THAT. Poor girl. And the she tried to take down Rumble, the young Painted Desert Sheep ram (only Rumble is young and little, so he looks more like this). She had him by the back of the neck and was gonna take him down. She did let go, then poor Rumble got his horns caught in the fencing. DOH. Terri let me and Hunter live, though, and the ram was OK too.
Kiva had a v. bad day. She never got to play with the sheep. When we got on the field she was basically in kill mode and the idea of lying down was beyond the pale. And when I did finally get her to lie down, she had a panic attack and had to lie on my foot, which isn't MY definition of down, but on this day it was hers. So we went away from the sheep and practiced downstays on the deck, but ultimately, Kiva decided she was traumatized by the concept of down and could she just go and hide in her crate???
Jubilee's session was the high point of the morning's herding--she was excited but she was factoring me into the equation. I started with some simple obedience in front of the sheep--here, down, that'll do. Then I set her up in a down and she held it while I went closer to the sheep. She did a lovely pick up of the sheep and we started moving around the field. She wanted to do her full circles, so I worked on getting her to "wear" or stay behind the sheep (imagine that she's running on a half circle behind the sheep instead of running full circles). I had some trouble getting in front of her to block her and get her to switch directions, but when I got it right, she flanked on a dime. That dog is amazingly agile. Super quick turns and stops like she was a quarterhorse--kicking up dust with her braking and turns. I got everything I wanted, albeit at 35mph, but she flanked, she stopped, no sheep were eaten.
Then Terri and I went to the Smithfield Bakery and had the BEST FUCKING SANDWICH EVER. It was a Crab Flounder Melt (or, after the influence of a marguerita, tequila salsa, and grape-tini, a Flab Crounder Melt). It was 2 slices of thick, fresh-baked bread, flounder, crab, onions, spinach, cheese, some kinda of mayo-sauce, grilled with tons of butter. So foodgasmic it was embarrassing. Then we had White Chocolate Pumpkin Praline bread pudding. No, really. We waddled back to the car and back to Terri's.
Then we herded some more!
After lunch, we moved Hunter to the round pen where we showed her that clockwise was a direction. And she was gentle on the sheep--even little Heather, the miniature Cheviot ewe. Heather is small enough that she could easily get out of the round pen just by going between the bars, but Hunter was calm enough that she didn't even try to leave, preferring to stay with her larger buddies. I only worked Hunter for about 5 minutes--enough to have a positive and controlled experience.
Terri then worked Jedi--the bicolor litter brother of Jubilee (and Joe!). I loved watching him work with Terri. He is very talented and wants so very badly to make Terri happy. He has much more experience and more controls on him than Jubilee--and he works in very smooth, ground-eating trot--and he stands and downs on command. He's much more sensitive than Jubilee. He cares more about what Terri thinks of him than Jubilee does about what I think of her. He got his Junior Herding Dog title back in June, I believe, and Terri plans to do more with him. (She's also training him for live-find SAR work and he was featured in the dock diving video on my LJ a few months ago.)
Jubilee had the most amazing ever lesson. She did all sorts of good things including offering a down or two on her own to take the pressure off the sheep. And she held the down when I asked her to, allowing me to get open a sticky gate and let the sheep into another field. She's fast, driven, excellent instincts and natural sense of balance, AND she's starting to listen and really treat me as a partner on the field. She really likes it when we do practical things that make sense--like put the sheep in a different field. It was a jaw-dropping session and we came off the field busting with pride.
Next to come:
Saturday night: Bonfire!
Sun morning: MORE HERDING! Herding with Border Collies, the cheaters. Joe thinks it's JUST WRONG to make him go slow, and Felon tells MsVi to go swim in a lake.
Sun afternoon: Lunch with friend(s)
Sun night: chasing geese in the sunset, I have an asthma attack and nearly break ribs coughing, MsVi tries to poison us with tequila
Mon morning: playing with cadaver parts at the Law Enforcement Training Center
Mon afternoon: herding!
Mon night: OMG HOME!!!
Friday, I drove the 3 hrs to Smithfield, VA, in, lo! 3 hours! I got to Terri's around 8:15 pm and hopped dogs out for quick walkies and re-situated everydoggy in crate or kennel as appropriate. Then we went over to Pam's apartment and had elk steaks and butternut squash for dinner and watched Smallville and Sanctuary and had brownies and ice cream and then watched White Collar, all with much YAY and YUM--not all of which was focused on the food.
Got back to Terri's v. late--like 2:30 am? And then slept. Got up at 9 and herded. Hunter, on Saturday, was about 10 days into her heat cycle, and she was unable to flank in the clockwise direction. As in, no, can't do it, I don't understand, that doesn't work, don't yell at me, OMG WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME I CAN"T DO THAT. Poor girl. And the she tried to take down Rumble, the young Painted Desert Sheep ram (only Rumble is young and little, so he looks more like this). She had him by the back of the neck and was gonna take him down. She did let go, then poor Rumble got his horns caught in the fencing. DOH. Terri let me and Hunter live, though, and the ram was OK too.
Kiva had a v. bad day. She never got to play with the sheep. When we got on the field she was basically in kill mode and the idea of lying down was beyond the pale. And when I did finally get her to lie down, she had a panic attack and had to lie on my foot, which isn't MY definition of down, but on this day it was hers. So we went away from the sheep and practiced downstays on the deck, but ultimately, Kiva decided she was traumatized by the concept of down and could she just go and hide in her crate???
Jubilee's session was the high point of the morning's herding--she was excited but she was factoring me into the equation. I started with some simple obedience in front of the sheep--here, down, that'll do. Then I set her up in a down and she held it while I went closer to the sheep. She did a lovely pick up of the sheep and we started moving around the field. She wanted to do her full circles, so I worked on getting her to "wear" or stay behind the sheep (imagine that she's running on a half circle behind the sheep instead of running full circles). I had some trouble getting in front of her to block her and get her to switch directions, but when I got it right, she flanked on a dime. That dog is amazingly agile. Super quick turns and stops like she was a quarterhorse--kicking up dust with her braking and turns. I got everything I wanted, albeit at 35mph, but she flanked, she stopped, no sheep were eaten.
Then Terri and I went to the Smithfield Bakery and had the BEST FUCKING SANDWICH EVER. It was a Crab Flounder Melt (or, after the influence of a marguerita, tequila salsa, and grape-tini, a Flab Crounder Melt). It was 2 slices of thick, fresh-baked bread, flounder, crab, onions, spinach, cheese, some kinda of mayo-sauce, grilled with tons of butter. So foodgasmic it was embarrassing. Then we had White Chocolate Pumpkin Praline bread pudding. No, really. We waddled back to the car and back to Terri's.
Then we herded some more!
After lunch, we moved Hunter to the round pen where we showed her that clockwise was a direction. And she was gentle on the sheep--even little Heather, the miniature Cheviot ewe. Heather is small enough that she could easily get out of the round pen just by going between the bars, but Hunter was calm enough that she didn't even try to leave, preferring to stay with her larger buddies. I only worked Hunter for about 5 minutes--enough to have a positive and controlled experience.
Terri then worked Jedi--the bicolor litter brother of Jubilee (and Joe!). I loved watching him work with Terri. He is very talented and wants so very badly to make Terri happy. He has much more experience and more controls on him than Jubilee--and he works in very smooth, ground-eating trot--and he stands and downs on command. He's much more sensitive than Jubilee. He cares more about what Terri thinks of him than Jubilee does about what I think of her. He got his Junior Herding Dog title back in June, I believe, and Terri plans to do more with him. (She's also training him for live-find SAR work and he was featured in the dock diving video on my LJ a few months ago.)
Jubilee had the most amazing ever lesson. She did all sorts of good things including offering a down or two on her own to take the pressure off the sheep. And she held the down when I asked her to, allowing me to get open a sticky gate and let the sheep into another field. She's fast, driven, excellent instincts and natural sense of balance, AND she's starting to listen and really treat me as a partner on the field. She really likes it when we do practical things that make sense--like put the sheep in a different field. It was a jaw-dropping session and we came off the field busting with pride.
Next to come:
Saturday night: Bonfire!
Sun morning: MORE HERDING! Herding with Border Collies, the cheaters. Joe thinks it's JUST WRONG to make him go slow, and Felon tells MsVi to go swim in a lake.
Sun afternoon: Lunch with friend(s)
Sun night: chasing geese in the sunset, I have an asthma attack and nearly break ribs coughing, MsVi tries to poison us with tequila
Mon morning: playing with cadaver parts at the Law Enforcement Training Center
Mon afternoon: herding!
Mon night: OMG HOME!!!