Honestly?

I have a feeling this might be a long post. So grab a drink.

I went out and worked the dogs tonight. I tied Echo up, and was using Zip to push the entire herd into my part of the pasture. I have my ewes with lambs by their side, all of Janie's weaned lambs, and a few of her ewes with lambs by their side. In other words, it is a very heavy flock.

Zip is the ultimate trustworthy dog, honest to the bone. He feels I am a large part of the equation and wants to please me no matter what it takes. He will go to the ends of the Earth for me if he thinks that would make me happy. What gets traded for that is a bit of power and some presence. With heavy sheep, he is able to work right on their rears and will flank back and forth and gather everyone in a nice neat group, and is respectful of the moms with the lambs and will "ask" them to move, rather than commanding it, and everyone eventually gets to my feet, and no one is upset or anything.

So I am standing there watching him work. I don't give him a bunch of commands -- he knows what he's doing. And it's all going along very nicely. Until ...

In flies a black and white blur. Little bitch.

Ok ... fine. I'll work you both.

The whistle goes in my mouth. She is much better on whistle now than off. I send her around the back and now I am working dogs in tandem. Their down whistles are different. That's pretty cool. For some reason, Zip will ignore her down whistle, and she will ignore his. Reminds me of a thread on the BC boards I saw recently. So this is working better than I thought. I figured out if I work just Echo, it gets done rather efficiently. Zip knows what he's doing, and this little black blur is just adding the presence behind it all and making things go faster. Alrighty then.

I get the whole flock into my 150' by 150' pen. I open the gate to the front part of the pasture and ask Zip to hang there. And he does. Because that's just who he is.

I turn around and Echo is all the way at the other end of the 125 with sheep plastered in the corner.

Bitch.

I call her off. Send her on an outrun. She runs out nicely, gets behind everyone, and I take the opportunity to work on her flanks. That works out awesome. The sheep have no desire to come to me, so I can send her around in circles both directions. She stresses a little, but it's keeping her thinking, keeping her wide, and keeping her from hanging off something.

I call her off and let her jump in the canal. I ask Zip in and basically have dogs switch positions.

I am working Zip, and in flies a black blur ... because that's who she is.

I switch dogs again, and I turn my back to see what she'll do. She takes off on an outrun. I down her and call her back. Bitch.

I swear I heard her call me, "Toots."

So for real, I send her. She goes out nicely, picks up the herd, is bringing them to me, when I notice part of the flock being left behind. I give her a look-back. She stays focused on the front flock. I walk toward her a bit, avoid her from flanking on the front flock, and with the back flock directly behind her, I give her a look-back. She has no idea what I'm talking about. So I change my body position, change my voice, change my position in relation to the front flock, but I cannot get her to look back at the flock behind her. I know if I want her to pick them up, all I have to do is give her the flank that would put them in her peripheral vision and she would flank out and go get them, but I am trying to teach her an actual look-back with them right behind her. So I move her 10' to her left, and give her a look back in hopes of her looking over her right shoulder so I can then give her an away, and she won't take it. She's still focused on the front flock. So I flank her a bit, ask for a down, and now she's set up such that the flock is behind her over her left shoulder. So I ask for a look back. She won't take it. All I would have to say is "Come bye," and the minute she squared the flank to work the front flock, she'd see the back flock, widen the flank and pick them all up, but that wasn't the lesson.

Short story long, I couldn't get her to understand what "look back" means. I stood directly between her and the front flock and tried to draw attention to the back flock by making it sound like something very exciting was back there, and she was having none of it. So ... I don't have enough tricks in my bag here. Note to self: Ask Dianne.

Anyway, it was nice working both dogs at once, and the difference between Zip and Echo is night and day. I still prefer Zip's style. I have nothing to worry about. I know when I send him, he's going to get them all, leave no one behind, and no one will be hurt or stressed out. I still enjoy working with Echo, though, as she poses a challenge for me. She makes me think about what I am doing. She's pushy, she thinks she knows it all, she wants to do it her way, and only when she decides I am part of the equation am I allowed to be part of it.

Bitch.

Oh and she's bleeding.

So am I.

My ex used to say, "Women bleed for five days straight and don't die. Scary."

Ok ... so I put a picture up of a cute little pup named Kodiak. That's going to be my son's new pup. Most of you know, I am waiting for Skar to come into season and I'll be getting a couple of pups back off of her. When Justin initially told me he wanted a pup, we had decided he would take one of the Skar pups. In the last month or two, it became pretty obvious to me that he wanted his "own" pup -- one not related to mom's, one not raised by mom, one that had nothing to do with mom. Justin had particular aesthetic requirements (as every 19-year-old would) ... and I thought the pedigree behind this would leave Justin's options open for whatever he decided to do with the pup. He grumbled something about working sheep now. We'll see. I'd love to have him come out and kick my butt on the trial field (not a feat -- by any stretch of the imagination -- but the trash-talking would be fun). Needless to say, he's very very excited. Today is his birthday. Last week, I got a $40 gift card for Secretary's Day to Zamzows. I went down there and bought a bunch of puppy toys, chews, a leash, a portable water dish, etc., came home, scrubbed one of the puppy crates clean, and put all of the puppy stuff in the crate and set it in Justin's room. He's due home soon. The puppy comes home early May.

So, back to honesty. I think I tend to be pretty honest (notice I didn't say "right" ... honest is not necessarily "right" ... LOL) and I'll stand behind my convictions ... normally even if they are wrong. I am occasionally accused of being "rude" or "mean," but to me, that's an ok trade. If I don't care about you or the issue at hand, I will say nothing. So if I am "honest" with you, it's because I give a shit enough to say something. I can't stand it when someone looks right at me and lies to my face to "preserve feelings." That's not preserving feelings. That's being phony. Please don't waste my time.

Then, of course, there is another form of honesty. There's a gal that blogs about everything under the sun ... including her opinions on other breeders and carefully explaining how she's different in that she doesn't breed just to breed, she doesn't plan litters for trial dogs, or for agility dogs, or for anything in particular. That's pretty honest! Perhaps there are times when one can be too honest! LOL. The part she forgets to mention is that the last time she had a litter, it wasn't planned at all! The female was maybe a year old and well, let's just say, the litter was very closely "linebred" ...

Funny thing that honesty, isn't it?

All in all, a very fun day. Doing brace work was a whole ton of fun! I'd like to try that out in the desert some time soon.

Happy tails,
Jodi