Sunday Fun

So instead of complaining about lack of dog work due to the foxtails today we headed over to the one place we can work "safely", locally, in Karen K's smaller, mowed, training area...where she had set up an interesting challenge for the dogs.

After an outrun of lifting (hungry) sheep off of hay you worked in the arena as you wished with panels, pen, and RESDA chute...or doing as you pleased. Then when ready to finish your turn, you took your sheep to a passageway that connected to a bridge structure that went over into the next pasture. Freedom. Grass to munch on. (Foxtails). No dogs. Humm... you'd think the sheep would be eager to fly up and over that bridge and out of the dog training area. The sheep who had done it previously were fairly easy to push over the bridge. Ryme's sheep went over easily; prior to that we worked more on taking sheep off the fence, which is one of his challenge areas, and pulling sheep off the hay, which is another. Each time I had Ryme bring me the sheep and we fetched them around a bit, so that it's not just schooling, but seems like a "job" to the dog. This is one of the gems of wisdom that I've gotten from Karen over the years.

Karen has a litter of puppies who are really at the cute stage. Oh my. There is a "black" puppy that would fit right into my group. I must be strong!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The sheep who had not been over the bridge before, needed convincing that we were not sending them over into boiling oil. It made for an interesting confidence-building session for Coal who got the fresher sheep. I am so thankful to have Karen around to invent these schemes to change up our training sessions and give us so much to work on despite limited resources.