Back To School

Back to School, or, "Confidence comes with Experience"

All the kids were going back to school early last month. Spot and I also went back to school, too, in early to mid-August. We've not been attending daily like the kids do, but we have put in some regular weekend lesson sessions over the past few weeks. It is really helping Spot a lot in his confidence and experience level. My main goal is to get him more experiences so that we both feel ready to trial, when the time comes. I am not sure, other than Hopland, when that will be as there are so few PN trials to go to.

All the cool kids are playing with this iPhone app, called Prisma. It has some stunning effects! :)

I had thought that Spot was pretty good about taking sheep away from a stock handler ("spotter") but when you add in a lot more distance and hills, the ATV, some in-your-pocket sheep and a couple of extra dogs at a place that is not "home", it got a bit more tricky. We have been working on building Spot's confidence to lift sheep off of the stock handler. I've been enlisting any friends I can get to help me when practice on the home fields, but at "home" Spot does not seem to have any trouble with it. He is getting better and better about lifting the sheep at the lessons so I am sure we will work it out. But that is one of the things that we have been working on, over the past few weeks. His fitness level also wasn't up to par when we first started back to work in early August, after the pneumonia, but it is much better now. Next time we will be experimenting with chicken broth to try to entice Spot to drink some of the Energy Edge after his lesson. So far he has not wanted it just mixed with water the way Coal was eager to take it.

The driving is getting better and better as the experience level increases. Spot's outruns on the hills are still not quite as confident as I would like but they are coming along. I am hopeful that we will both feel prepared when our turn comes to finally go to the post after a year off of trialling. We're also working on his shedding and I think I got ahead of myself a little bit in the lessons with that but he IS shedding. I want to go back and work on some more beginner shedding, just calling him through a larger group, before we try to whittle it down too much to 4-5 head in a more trial situation scenario. The days are getting shorter for practicing at home, so I am really grateful that Spot's training has come together so well when soon we will have much less time to work sheep while winter is here.