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.