Puppies!

Zac puppies are on the way! Due January 10th, out of a nice little bitch named Rhyme.
Rhyme's mother is Peggy Stein's Kit, a littermate to my Jet (sired by my old Ben). I'm really excited to see these lines being tied together. Ben was a very powerful dog and produced that in his pups. Rhyme's sire is Myra Soden's Moel Hemp, a very talented dog bred by Ceri Rundle. If you google Bwlch Hemp x Dolwen Fan, you will see many well known and accomplished sheepdogs that are bred the same as Myra's Hemp.

I expect the Zac x Rhyme pups to be athletic, very biddable, good listeners, with a lot of come forward, nice flanks and natural outruns, as there is an abundance of those qualities through all of the lines. Let's hope i'm right! They're due on my birthday and i think that would be a nice gift.

Here's a link to Zac's pedigree (click here)

And here's one to Rhyme's pedigree (click here)

And here is more info on Zac and some pictures of both him and dogs in his background (click here)

Packed Pen

I've referred to the packed pen method of training in the past here on the blog. Yesterday some friends and i got together with 3 fifteen month old dogs and did a lot of packed pen work. We got a bit of video and i thought i'd share it on here.

This first video is Zeke and it's his first time ever in the pen. Normally i'd start a dog on a 6 foot leash but Zeke is pretty calm and has a good idea what the flank commands mean, so i just left him loose. I want him going calmly around the sheep and not flipping his direction. You'll see he figures this whole thing out pretty quickly and his confidence grows a lot in a few short minutes.



This next video is of Moon, one of the Zac puppies. She's done just a little packed pen work before this video. It's been a terrific training method for her as she's been quite the determined little gripper. With her confidence growing, she finds she doesn't need to be biting, and even when she does, it's mostly nice and workmanlike. She really reminds me of her grandmother Spottie in this video.