Tug on Sheep

He's surely keen at not quite six months old! Thanks to Christine Henry for the pictures.

Catching Up Again, Edgeworth Winter SDT

Sorry, i've been slack lately on posting here. There's not a whole lot going on but i can do a Shoofly Dog update. The puppies are 5 months old and growing up, wild little creatures. Moon is a real sweetie pie and is spending time with a friend so she and Tug can learn to stand on their own. Together they are a 2 puppy wrecking machine and go completely deaf to outside influence. She'll come back in a few weeks but in the meantime is having a good time and stealing hearts. Tug looks more like Zac every day and is just the funniest puppy. He's really a good boy. We tried them and Ranger on sheep again recently and they still look like they'll be working fiends, keen keen keen. Just what i like to see at this age. Gael is still out on loan and working very well, behaving herself nicely. Zac is on enforced rest again, as i try to clear up a nagging soreness he was having. Hopefully he'll be back to work in a month or so. Jet and Billy continue along, no big news there, they just wish there was more sheep work to be had this time of year. Short days keep that from happening much though.

I took the dogs up to the Edgeworth Winter SDT this past weekend and ran Bill and Jet. I thought both dogs worked very well and handled the sheep nicely but just some little errors on my part in all the runs cost us placements. Both dogs were just out of it the first day, by a couple of points. Second day was the same story, after i had trouble penning on both runs. I ran Bill's Nursery run at the end of the second day and he did something that i thought was pretty spectacular. At the pen, a ewe decided to challenge him and he just hung in there, walking slowly forward, very calmly. Finally this ewe decided she was trapped and butted him. And he just stood there, calm as could be, as though a fly had just buzzed around his head or something, no big deal. I don't think anyone has ever tried to butt him before and he just stood in there like a very experienced, confident dog. Really, a pretty special sort of natural reaction on his part. The group calmly turned around and walked in the pen afterwards. That was worth all of the effort of getting there! It was a really nice trial as usual, though really cold out. The sheep were lovely and a lot of fun. I wish i'd been sharper but it's the off season and it surely showed. I don't know about the dogs but it sure seems i'll need a little tuning up before spring!