Moving Right Along ...

Geesh. I never thought updating a little blog would be so difficult. I keep forgetting to do it!

On Saturday, the girls all got together for a meeting of the minds, and we got a lot of stuff decided, and things accomplished, so now we can keep moving forward with Gem State Herding. Woo hoo!

We worked Mo ... starting to kick her out a little bit. And Rio has turned on in a big way. I am excited to see how those two turn out. I worked Skar in the big field. She's doing great, staying on her feet, and really thinking.

Janie brought over some adult sheep, so on Sunday, Zip and I sorted sheep into three groups all with a couple of ewes and a few lambs in hopes of getting the lambs to settle in. I told Colleen we need to work all three sets, so we used pretty much all the dogs we had. Colleen worked Reena in the field, and then added a set to that one and worked Skar. She had to work to keep all the lambs together, so she stayed on her feet and worked very nicely.

Next up was Rio. Wowie! She was twice as much dog as the day before and it was a big of a rodeo! Once she got rid of the initial zoomies, things settled down a bit and her brain started to engage. She's gonna be a fun one!

Then I decided to work Skar in the round pen and see if she would lock up in the small spaces again. Not this time. She was very comfortable on her feet and would balance everything to me. I was even able to lie her down and ask her back up without her locking up. Woo hoo! Big improvement!

Monday evening I spent cleaning house.

Tuesday evening was Echo's night. I took Zip out and split the flock into two groups. This little dog humbles me ... and she's a pleasure to work with. I often forget how young she is. Yes, she's fast, and she's tight, she grips and she splits stuff to holy hell, but she also has a maturity about her that I've never seen in a pup so young, can handle all the pressure I lay on her, and learns very quickly. After she got rid of her zoomies, everything kicked in to the proper gear. She stopped slicing and dicing, and kept off her stock better. She gathered and fetched, and gathered and fetched. I spent some time kicking her out further off her stock and attempted to get her flanks to arc out the way they need to. I didn't push too much, as I have the Shannahan clinic this weekend and would really like his advice on which direction to go with her next.

That's all for now. I am horseback riding tomorrow night, then hopefully working dogs Thursday night here, and then off to Janie's Friday night for the remainder of the weekend. Woo hoo!

Happy tails!