Dances with ... Monsters

The Echo Monster. Wowie!

I am really trying to concentrate on being quiet. Keeping my voice down. Not adding any excitement to what's going on.

I came home, cracked a beer, grabbed Echo and went out to the pasture. We put all the sheep in the round pen, and this time, I didn't need to push her back off the stock. She stayed off by herself. I never raised my voice and kept it just above a whisper. She took every flank, and didn't look like she was going to explode. It took no more than a couple of minutes to gate sort the 4 lambs off all the pregnant ewes.

This time, when we exited the round pen, I let her cover so we didn't end up with sheep in the open lambing pens again (I leave the lambing pens open because it's where the shelter is ... and the sheep will go in there when the weather turns nasty). I walked to the right side of my trailer, and Echo brought the sheep to me, and would hold them against the pressure while I was walking out to the field. They really really wanted to break back to the round pen. I didn't say a word. I watched as Echo held all four of the little popcorns in check, and when one split off, she stayed off it, got ahead of it, and calmly turned it with a quiet, calm authority. The lamb didn't like this and stood and stared. And this is when I saw Monster's maturity shine. I said nothing. She is in a stand off with the one lamb looking at her, but she is in the perfect place to keep it from breaking back to the round pen. To her right about 20 yards away are the other three, who are also threatening to go back to the round pen. Echo took one quick step to her left and turned the rogue lamb toward the other 3, which immediately invited the other three to start to take off because for that one second, she was not holding them. All in an instant, the rogue lamb ended up back with the other three, Echo flanked at about a 280 degree angle and was then holding all four together, still quite a ways off them, and they were quite a ways off the round pen.

I stood there with my mouth open.

She brought them to me and into the field we went.

And from here, I was only verbally commanding her about 20% of the time. The rest of it was all whistles. The down still isn't happening ... she prefers to slow down quite a bit, but she never really stops ... and it's always a forward motion. If she would stop, I wouldn't care if she was on her feet, on her head, or smoking a cigarette. So I am finding myself anticipating her NOT stopping and almost training her to wait until I go: (whistle) HEY! (stronger whistle). So I have to figure out a better way to do that.

To see if she knew which way her flank whistles were ... I stood directly in front of her with my back to her. The sheep were situated about 80 yards straight ahead of me. I didn't move a muscle and just gave her an away whistle, and off she'd go ... to her right. Ok ... I thought that might have been a fluke. I set it up again ... this time standing a bit off to her left -- although with my back still to her ... and acted like I would send her away ... and I blew a come bye whistle. And there she went on her come bye outrun. She's starting to take the whistles on the drive, although I (emphasis on "I") am not as comfortable and find myself still preferring verbal commands. I will work on that.

So I hope I make a little progress at the trial this weekend. A 1/2 way decent fetch would be nice. I hope I can keep her backed off enough. We'll see. But the part I am looking even MORE forward to is hanging out at the Sheep Shack. And above that ... Kirk is lending me his long lens and tripod and hopefully I'll get some good shots this weekend. Woo hoo!

Happy tails,
Jodi