Season of the Smelly Dog

[sclmarm]

As the snow melts, the season of the smelly dog begins.  In the winter everything is frozen and the snow actually keeps the dogs pretty darn clean.  There's nothing disgusting to roll in and no swimming wet dog smell.  Now the snow is almost gone and our muddy season is upon us.  Ew!  I'm glad it's only about a month long!  I let the dogs go swimming for about five minutes yesterday.  Beep was so happy!  He loves to swim!  We'll gradually work up to our 15 minutes, but right now they're a little out of shape and the water is cold!





Not this much snow anymore.





How we clean off after herding and walking.

Our smelling season got off to a very smelly start!  Noodle was skunked again!  Ew!  So gross!





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There's a Barn Hunt group getting going down in Emmett.  On Sunday they had a practice day, so I loaded them all up and off we went.  It was mostly for Beep and Noodle, but Poppet and Rooster got their turns too.  Nice group and fun to see lots of different dogs.  There were three younger ladies their with their dogs.  One had a mixed breed, another a German Shepherd and one with a Dutch Shepherd.  It sounds like they get their dogs out to do some lure coursing, dock diving and now Barn Hunt.  Nice to see younger people doing dog sports!

Noodle, of course, loves Barn Hunt!  He can be hard to read where the rat is because he's tossing tubes all over the place.  He does do a head check on the real rat though, so I have to watch for that.  They had a three turn tunnel and hid four tubes, 2 with rats for him.  They're having a fun match the end of April, might have to take him.





Noodle is a beast!

Beep had a great time and enjoyed his turns.  So fun to be out doing something with the old man.  His first run he jumped up on a bale, sat next to the tube and proceeded to just stare at it! Ha!  This is so how my Border Collies hunt.  We shall kill it with our laser eyes! The acupuncture, chiro and laser has paid off. He's moving more freely and is more interested in exploring on our walks.





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Poppet, it turns out, is a good little Barn Hunter!  She's methodical and is a bit easier to read when she finds the rat.  Always the good girl!  Rooster did a respectable job too.  He's such a goober and game to play what ever I ask.





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We're already on day 12 of the 100 day stockdog challenge.  I wanted to sort off some sheep, so we locked them in the barn, which is pretty small.  They all crowded into a corner and I wanted to Rooster to get them out, but there's a feeder in the way. So, I put Rooster in it, and for a few minutes, nobody knew what to do.  Rooster nipped one on the nose and got the log jam loosened up.  I was glad to see him do that. I don't want an alligator, but I do want enough bite that he'll defend himself.  I've never seen him back down from a sheep, but sometimes, especially on cows, you need that bite.  His outruns are looking good!  I read where around three they'll naturally widen on their own and by golly, he has!  I need to fix our stop at the top as them brakes are slipping again.  Yesterday I managed to pick 6 slugs for sheep.  They were easier to drive, but Rooster had to be right up their butts and on the fetch, they wanted to stall out.  When we got them close to their friends that we had left behind, there were two that'd break hard back towards them.  Rooster did a great job of covering them while not loosing the rest.





Hi guys! Let's move along.





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As I crested the hill coming up my driveway, there were two bald eagles!  I don't know if they were tired, wet or what, but they hop/flew just a little way and then just stood for a bit.  Very cool to see these birds so close.  They were 30-35 feet away.  Not very good pictures, because it was dusk, but so cool!





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