The boys and I have made some progress on our sheepdog work in the past couple of weeks. We were lucky enough to get a chance to practice in a large field yesterday. It is really hard to set up any kind of distance at our regular fields so this was a very fortunate opportunity. The weather smiled on us too and it was neither too hot nor raining...rain is in the forecast for next week and is very welcome but we didn't need it for our special training day!
Coal and I have been out of synch a bit but in our second run yesterday it felt like everything was falling back into place like old times. That was a nice feeling although I do feel like he and I need more tuning up. His outrun was great but the suppleness and responsiveness is still not there on the rest of his work, like I want it to be. But everything felt better so we are on our way.
Ryme ran the open course as well. I almost asked our sheep spotter to bring the sheep in closer for him to a more P-N level but then said to myself that we should just give it a go, as is, for the open outrun. I am so glad that I did. Ryme did a beautiful outrun, took my stop whistle at the top and then we went through the rest of the big course with only a few glitches, none serious, and only because my timing was poor in places.
I am very grateful for my good boys and also that they both drew into Hopland.
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