Dare and Dually

  Only 1 lesson today so I worked my dogs.  I actually had enough energy to work them and now I have a goal for training and that is some upcoming trials.

I worked Dare on goats in the duck arena and just worked on his STOP and his flanks on the whistle . I am going to love using the whistle. It sure saves my voice.  I have to figure a whistle to mean GET BACK because I use that command a lot.  I am having enough trouble with the stop and away to me and go bye and walk up. It's not easy to get them consistent.  But I am getting better.

Dually also worked the goats and he is getting the whistles faster than Dare.  He seems to understand the walk up whistle and he blew off the stop whistle so I had to run him down a few times. He came up a number of times on the side of the goats and had to use the get back which is when I decided I needed a get back whistle.

I then took Dually out to get the cows up on the ledge again.  He was much better today. I only had to give him one flank and he went  behind them to get them out.  I was pleased with that. Of course he had to screw it up by not letting one drift while he lifted the rear cows.  Just let them drift and you can catch them later. It's not like they are running away ding dong.

no work for Edge today .  But he came for a ride in the car with me.

Kitchen and Dog work

I have decided that since I cannot order my cabinets until they take the wall down and  we can take accurate measurements and the cabinets are going to take a minimum of 5 weeks, that I should have them finish the windows and outside siding and close it in and call it quits until the cabinets are closer or until I get back from Ga if I decide to go.  Mostly because I have a clinic the first weekend of Oct and a houseguest and I feel I should have a working kitchen during that time period.  However, I have not told the contractor yet.  He should be fine.

Dogs:

I  sent Dually out for the cows this am and they were up the hill on the little ledge with their back ends facing out.  Dually got one off and he thought that was enough.  I was using the whistle to re-direct him and it was working sorta.  I kept saying get around but that was not enough to get him to go in behind or as it were in front of them.  I had to give him a flank and he took it and went right in there.  He had no trouble bringing them down after he got them started.

Then I hooked up the horse trailer because I had to bring 3 sheep to Shelley in Ct. Dually had no trouble loading them and if put him and Edge in the truck.  When I got to Shelley's , I knew no one would be there to help and getting in and out of her driveway is tricky so I dropped the tailgate on the street and hoped they would just come out and follow me..  No way.  They were not coming out for nothing,.  I got Dually and sent him in but he went straight in and started to bite them instead of going around and just taking them out nicely . Then one bolted into the driveway and he went after it and got it back to the group(no cars coming). They all decided to follow me after that and it was a short fetch into the pasture.  Yay 3 less sheep to feed.

Edge worked the flock but he was having trouble getting around them and kept chasing so I separated the goats off and worked just them.  He did much better on just the goats and we were able to do some driving and outruns.  He is looking at me less,which is good but his down is going to pot.  I will try  to keep his down, it was cute and fast.

Dare got to work the flock tonight and we worked on driving them to a corner and then taking a good square flank around them to take them off.  He had some nice ones.

Baby day

   Mary was working on the farm today and the first thing she ran into was a some baby snakes in the barn . Yech , not my favorite thing.  And then while she was digging up the clematis she found a nest of baby bunnies.  sorry bunnies but you have to find a new place to live.  It was very dangerous living there anyway because there are dogs in there all the time. 

And then I took the tractor up to the top of the hill to get some fill for some holes in the pasture(sink holes) and I brought a load down the hill to Mary so she could spread it and a bunch of turtle eggs fell out of the bucket.  Apparently there was a turtle nest on the top of the pile of soil that I was using.  One had cracked open and she thought they were snappers so I guess I dont' really care if they don't make it but Mary reburied them anyway to give them a shot. 

Edge gets to work sheep today

Why is it , I feel tired all day and then around 7 I get a small burst of energy and got out and fight the bugs and work a dog? 

I put on my new best friend(my whistle) and took Edge out to work the flock.  The last time I did this, he was not very impressive.  I had a very hard time getting him to go in either direction . This time it was not an issue. Well it started out to be an issue because I think I was rushing him.  So I just stood there quietly and said go bye and he laid there and thought about it and I said it again and he thought about it some more and I said it again and he got up and squared off (as if he was leaving) so I said good boy and he came back and did a nice go bye.  Then I tried the come bye side which was so hard for him last time and no big deal this time.  NICE.   We did a lot of flanks and downs and he has to learn the whistle much earlier than the other  boys. So I am teaching down with the voice and whistle and I will add the flank commands in very quickly too so he doesn't get stuck on any whistle means down like Dare is stuck.

We did a little bit of driving and he is fun because he is not always trying to bring them to me.  He is a little reluctant to walk ahead of me but it got better tonight.  Nice pup.  kinda like him

New Deck and New front steps today.

1/2  Finished Deck

Finished steps and rail--matches

Finished Step without railing

Finished Deck

Kitchen update and " While we're at it......

 THe front and new window opening

 Inside view from the other side of the porch

 Zip board up

 Zip board up on side

Add caption

 Log Siding going back up

 WTH--Might as well put a new deck on while we we're working here.

 Back Porch with newly painted table and fresh flowers -view from inside the hallway

Start of new kitchen

And along the way we have stirred up an ant problem  and I just stuffed 2 holes in the corner of the house with wire to stop the mice from coming in and hopefully they haven't already let in some flying squirrels. Oh God I hope not.

Worked the dogs

This morning I set up the C course for the ducks and worked on my timing around the obstacles.  Dually was being  a little bit bad about his flanks so I had to correct that and Dare was being pokey because I had the hose in my hand.  Too bad for you buddy.

Tonight I worked Edgie.  First I worked all the sheep and goats in the 100 by 100  and he had a very hard time going Away to me around the livestock. He got it finally  but it was forced.  He does tend to want to dive in on that side  and then I sorted off the goats (with him) and worked on fetching, driving  outs and just go get them.  Almost everytime I sent him to get them , he went straight up the middle then cut across to be able to go bye around them.  He might have decided that it was a little easier to go around a bit more at the end but I need to keep practicing that. 

At least tonight, everybody is sleeping and not wandering around whining.

Dog yard cleaned up

Mary came over and worked all day today cleaning out the construction material from the dog yard and the extra rocks that were dug up and then she weed whacked it.  It looks good.  Then she rolled onto digging up the new garden area right in front of the back porch and transplanting some grasses and some hosta and some coneflower.  It looks a little weak right now but I have faith it will look good soon. 

I am going to put some stepping stones across the new garden area, but I need to go buy some.  Maybe tomorrow afternoon after lessons.  I don't have a pic of this area yet, but I will take a pic tomorrow and then update this post.

6 cows in a 16ft pen is less scary than a power saw!

Dare is so scared of sounds that this morning , the workers were sawing and hammering on the front porch and I was trying to get a bale of hay out to the cows, he hid from me.

I took Dare out and put the sheep away and then went out and put all the cows in the 16 by 16 take pen so I could open all the gates and drive straight thru.  

I took the car out thru the fields and dumped the bale of hay. Dare layed in the shade  and followed the car back so I could get the tractor. While I was starting the tractor they were sawing up at the house and Dare bolted back to the cow pasture. I drove the tractor back there and I could not see him anywhere so I called him and he popped up behind the cows in the pen.  You would think that  6 cows in a small pen would not be the least threatening place to be.  It took a couple of calls but he came out under the gate and stuck with me until I finished putting the hay in the feeder but then I could not get him to come back to the barn so I could catch him. 

I closed all the gates and let the cows out into the field and went back to let the sheep out.  They didn't want to come out so I needed Dare but he would not come to me.  I put Dually out there and made some noise and Dare thought he was missing out on something so he scooted under 2 gates and helped me and Dually put the cows in a pen, and then I caught him.  I had to put him in the car for safe keeping while they were working today.  I really need to buy that doggie GPS tracker for him before I really lose him.