All Creatures...

We had another RESDA workday on Saturday. Above are some of the sheep that we used, taking a rest under a handy tree.

Coal (above) helped again with set-out. Most of the novice dogs had never worked with a setout dog and stock handler before, so we set that up for them to begin practicing it. The dogs mostly had no issue with it, especially after their first run. Some of  the novice handlers hadn't realized the need to add this possibility into their training repertoire but that's what a workday is for, after all...to gain training experience through a collective effort. Coal is of course only too happy to help!

Rime is shown as a happy boy returning to the spectator area after his workout. He and I worked some on taking sheep off of the fence and just keeping the sheep quiet and controlled. I am very pleased with his progress (eighteen months old).

Today we worked with a friend on longer outruns with sheep set on hay. We added a person standing near the sheep (but no dog yet) to simulate a setout stock handler for the two novice dogs, including Rime. Once again I was quite pleased with Rime's work. With the sheep giving him a bit of "back-pressure" (i.e. not wanting to leave their alfalfa) it gave Rime just enough pause to rock back and make a thoughtful lift. Coal and I are trying to get back into synch after the annual "foxtail-induced vacation" from training. The field has been partially mowed so it's back to working for us on his more advanced assignments.

The three silly geese in the previous post are still here. They must have been very tame geese who got dropped off because they follow us around, nap under our cars, and even walked into the sheep pens ahead of the sheep. Then one goose got stuck in with a whole mob of sheep and acted like it couldn't get out. Of course we had to rescue it. Now you know where the term, "Silly Goose" comes from.