Some more pictures from the great sheep move

I wanted to share the links to two other blogs for the other two gals who were along to help with move.

http://bcreese.blogspot.com/2010/12/real-work-for-working-dogs.html

http://fulltiltbordercollies.blogspot.com/2010/12/sheep-moving-party.html


I will say it again, it was great fun and thank you, Loretta and Sarah for coming along to help.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvfGNSR2isA&feature=related


I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season. Enjoy your families.

December Blizzard/Snow Storm of 2010

We got hit with a snow storm yesterday. It left behind 20 inches of snow in 24 hours. This is a drift on the south side of the house.

This is Steve showing just how high the drift is.

Cash and Jet in front of the garage showing how there is no driveway.

Stryker following Steve into the snow as he is wondering what Dad is up to.

And he got rewarded with some loving from Steve.

Steve and some of the dogs heading back up to the house.

Snow drifted on the north side of the barn.

How it looks going back up to the house.

There should be a driveway there just to the right of the fence post.

This is what greeted me as I opened the garage door this morning.

And yes, there is a porch under all of that snow.

Snow drifts by the house.

Snow drifts on the north side of the driveway.

Snow drifts on the way down to the barn.

The great sheep move, December 2010

I made the 2 hour drive up to Hinckley, MN to help Janet McNally move a flock of about 110 sheep from one farm to another on Sunday, December 5, 2010. We met at Janet's house with a neighbor of hers and Loretta, her two dogs and her friend Sarah. We then drove over to the summer farm that these sheep were at so that we could start the great sheep move. We trailed the sheep about 7 miles down county roads and down the RR tracks. The dogs did need to cover a couple of driveways so that the sheep didn't go into someone's yard. I would hop off of the ATV at these times. We did have someone's German shepherd come out at one point and we had to chase him away. Not sure if he would have tried anything with the sheep or not. It was kind of like our own little Sweetgrass thing. This picture shows Janet up on the lead ATV.

This is Cash at the beginning of the move. He is looking back at me riding the ATV as if to say, what the heck are you doing up on that thing? You can see Janet's young dog, Odie, up by the sheep.

Then Cash figured out, oh this is what you want me to do. Just push the sheep. At the beginning of the drive the sheep were moving at a pretty good clip, about 5 mph. We didn't want them to move that fast, but we couldn't keep them slowed down.

Cash and Odie moving the sheep down the road.

Then Bett took over for a little while. She just fell right into doing what we needed. She didn't care that I was riding.

Keep them moving Bett.

Then we moved them down a set of RR tracks. That slowed the sheep down.

Here you can see Loretta and me, with Bett and her dog Klink continuing to move them down the tracks.

Here we are doing under I-35. This was the whole reason that we needed to go down the RR tracks, to get the sheep past the interstate.

Then we switched dogs one last time. Cash came back out and Loretta brought out her Zip. These two completed the last miles of the sheep move.

When Cash came out the second time he really was understanding what I needed him to do. I didn't hardly have to say anything to him. Good boy, Cash.

Cash coming around to tuck sheep in.

These are a couple more shots of Klink and Bett moving the sheep down the tracks.
All in all, I had a blast doing this and I look forward to going up and helping with moving the sheep back again in the spring.

Winter Storm; 12-04-10

Yes, it took a snow storm to get me to update my blog. This is what the birder feeder looked like when we got up this am. That is 9 inches of snow on top of it.

The snow was almost to the middle of this old wagon wheel. We got a foot of snow in less than 12 hours. Lots of fun digging out from under it today. Luckily it was a light, dry snow.

The mugo pines in front of our house were completely covered.

Of course the dogs thought the new snow was great fun. From L to R, Jet, Stryker and Bett.

Even Jet with being a NC dog thought that the snow was great fun. You can see that it is up to her elbows.

Sting doesn't get phased by too much. He was just plowing thru it like a little truck. Too bad it wasn't snowing as he was sticking his tongue out as I could have said that he was catching snow flakes.

We had somebody who tried to get into the garage. I opened the door this morning to find all of these tiny tracks.

All of the pine trees were adorned with snow. It makes them so pretty. We got the Christmas lights up on the one tree and the front of the house.

RFD Working stock dog segment

We watched this program on RFD and I just wanted to share the link for the segment on the working stockdog. John Holman is a friend and the breeder of my old Jag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-rhbS-EADk&feature=player_embedded

Jet

This is Steve and Jet at their first trial. I just love this shot with the two of them looking at each other.

The following shots were taken at our house when Steve was first working with Jet.

Catching up yet again

Here I am catching up again as I have neglected the blog again. Things have been busy around here. Work has kept me busy along with training/working dogs. Steve got a new dog this summer. Jet is a 9 year old retired open dog. She is helping Steve to learn more about working with a herding dog and to help him to have some success on the trial field. They have been working at bonding and understanding each other.

I worked with Cash this summer. Started having some trouble with him on his outruns as he was stopping part of the way out and looking back to me as if he was confused. At times I thought that he was losing his confidence. And then I thought that he was just having trouble and was sometimes blowing me off. One day when Steve was helping me with our outruns and I sent Cash over the hill to pick up the sheep, Steve said that it seems as if he couldn't hear me and was confused on what I wanted of him. So we decided to have his hearing BAER tested. We discovered that he is deaf in his right ear. I have still been working with him as he does take verbal commands better than the whistle. I will continue to work with him as he loves his sheep work. I will only be able to trial him in pro-novice. If his hearing gets any worse than he will have to be retired from trialing.

I have sent an email to the doctors in charge of the adult onset deafness so that I can provide DNA samples to help with their research.

It is sad that he will never be able to run open. I was working him on his shed and extending his outrun when this all started happening. He will stay here with us.

Sting has been coming along with his training quite nicely. He has learned his flanks and I have started him on some short outruns. I have also had him walking up on his sheep for the just the start of the drive. I am quite happy with him.

Corbie is still working very nicely at home and with Steve holding the sheep. We now need to introduce a dog into the picture of holding the sheep before I try again at different farms again.

John Wooden

I borrowed this from another person's blog. I think that it is really worth sharing.

John Wooden’s Favorite Maxims for Life

Many of the following quotes are from John himself, others he mentions as favorites of his but are not from him directly.

1. Happiness begins where selfishness ends.
2. Earn the right to be proud and confident.
3. The best way to improve the team is to improve ourselves.
4. Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.
5. Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.
6. Ability may get you to the top but character will keep you there.
7. I will get ready and then, perhaps, my chance will come.
8. If I am through learning, I am through.
9. If you do not have the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over.
10. The smallest good deed is better than the best intention.
11. The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom will have to face success.
12. Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.
13. Time spent getting even would be better spent trying to get ahead.
14. It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.
15. Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights.
16. There is nothing stronger than gentleness.
17. You discipline those under your supervision to correct, to help, to improve; not to punish.
18. Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.
19. Make sure the team knows they are working with you not for you.
20. Be most interested in finding the best way not in having your own way.
21. What is right is more important than who is right.
22. You handle things, you work with people.
23. As long as you try to your best you are never a failure; that is unless you blame others.
24. Tell the truth, that way you don’t have to remember a story.
25. Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.
26. If I were ever prosecuted for my religion I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.
27. Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.
28. If we’d magnified blessings as much as we magnified disappointments we would all be much happier.
29. The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
30. The worst thing that you can do for another person is the things they can and should do for themselves. Abraham Lincoln
31. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without also helping himself. Ralph Waldo Emmerson.
32. Do not permit what you cannot do to interfere with what you can do.
33. Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Character is what your really are; reputation is merely what you are perceived to be.
34. Love is the greatest of all words in our language.
35. Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned who gets credit.
36. Never make excuses; your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.
37. We don’t have to be disagreeable just because we may disagree.
38. Be slow to criticize and quick to commend.
39. Be more concerned with what you can do for others than what others can do for you; you’ll be surprised at the results.
40. The more concerned we become over the things we can’t control the less we will do with the things we can control.
41. Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort; we are all imperfect and will fail on occasion but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.
42. Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.
43. The time to make friends is before you need them.
44. We are many but are we much?
45. Never be thrown off stride in how you behave or what you believe in because of outside events.
46. Nothing can give you greater joy than doing something for another.
47. Material things are not gifts but apologies for gifts, the only true gift is a portion of thyself. Ralf Waldo Emerson.
48. We cannot live a perfect day without doing something for another without the thought of something in return.
49. Do not mistake activity for achievement.
50. You can do more good by being good than any other way.
51. Forget favours given, remember those received.
52. Make each day your masterpiece.
53. Make friendship of fine art.
54. Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.
55. Treat all people with dignity and respect.
56. Acquire peace of mind by making the effort to become the best of which you are capable.
57. Be fast but do not hurry.

In one of the last interviews that John Wooden gave he was asked what he would like God to say to him when they met at the peril gates, John’s reply was “well done.”

Actually John I am pretty sure you got more than that, He likely had the whole place do the wave as you entered.

Below is Johns famous pyramid of success. If you click on it, it will open in it’s own window so you can see it without my overlapping blog sidebars. I have a copy in my office and another one in our dog training building. It is worth the re and re-read and re-read.

Be proactive instead of reactive

I have been going thru some of my old sheepdog clinic notes and thought that this one would be a good subject to approach.

I am so bad at being reactive instead of proactive when it comes to running my own dogs on sheep. I can see it with other people, but find it so hard to put it to action with myself. I can so understand what is being said and then I forget about so many things that I have been told. Shame on me.

Here are some of my notes from Carol Campion that have made me think about this again.

"You need to actually figure out the pressure, etc., before you ever send your dog. Then handle the dog to keep AHEAD of what MIGHT happen rather than playing catch up. A stop, or there, or early flank, those are the kind of things that dictate to the sheep what they will do rather than fix what they have done."

"Give the dog what he/she needs, be it a there if the sheep are easy or heavy, and a stop if they very light and need room. She lets hers pick where to turn in on them, but decide how much dog I need for the lift."

"Don't think of downing your dog at the top so much as controlling him as much as you are just maintaining contact. If left along too much at the top, or anywhere else and then you try to step in to help, you are too late. Need to be more proactive. Need to be in contact much sooner."

"You need to be more proactive, if you see a potential for a bad spot or a problem area, then be prepared for it and try to set up your dog sooner to be successful. Don't wait until the problem pops up."

Here is some more that was directly related to a run of mine with my Jag.

"Think of it as more contact with you(me) rather than control from you(me). She thought that I kind of left him to figure out stuff too much for himself. (Which I did) Then if it wasn't what I wanted I was behind on timing because my intervention and direction was needed earlier for precision work."

The above was so true of me when I was running Jag. I sure hope that I can improve on myself with my upcoming dogs.

Kensmuir Heart of The Rose trial

These are the only two pictures that I took while at the Kensmuir HOTR trial. They are of the sunrise on the first morning of the trial. I was too busy the rest of the time to be able to tote my camera along.

The trial went well. I was super busy the first day and then just regular busy the second two days. I had to sort the lambs away from their moms each morning. I wish that I had taken a picture of the t-shirt and jeans after the second day of lamb wrestling.

We received a lot of compliments on the trial and hopes that we'll continue to have trials.

I should say that our runs did not go well. The grass was tall which made it difficult for the dogs to find their sheep. Cash found his sheep on his first run after a couple more aways to me. He did not get out to his sheep on the second run as they moved around, the spotter and her dog then moved and Cash figured that they were her sheep and he started looking for sheep somewhere else.

I pulled Corbie from her second run as the first one did not go well at all. She was heading out very nicely on the come by side and the spotter started flicking her whip at the sheep and her dog. Every time she flicked her whip Corbie would stop and I'd give her another flank command. I finally had to walk all the way out to help her. She did go up to the spotter and wanted to jump up on her and greet her, she corrected her for jumping which might have added to her fear. The judge did give us a re-run, but by then Corbie was way too scared to go out there even tho the spotter on the second run was very still.

Steve's run with Stryker did not go well either as he couldn't see his sheep at all and didn't get out to them. Steve pulled from his second run which was just as well since he wasn't feeling that hot.

Irises of 2010

I know that I have been bad at blogging this spring. It has been a busy spring with lambing, work and trying to get a veggie garden in. I just wanted to share some pictures of the irises that are blooming right now. These are some of the first ones to bloom so far.

We had some rain over night and early this morning and I was able to catch some rain drops on the flowers.

And I know, this isn't an iris. It is one of the last of the tulips of this year. I was very lax in getting any pictures of the tulips and we had some nice ones this spring. Reminded me of the tulip garden that my Mom had when I was growing up.

We are helping with a trial this spring just over the border in Wisconsin. I have been very busy helping with setting up this trial. Hopefully once we are done with the trial I'll be more on the ball on blogging, or maybe not. We'll see. The trial is over the Memorial Weekend and hopefully I'll get some pictures from the trial to post here.