Apparently Piper was reading up on her Spanish explorers and is a fan. Or maybe she just read on Facebook that Geri Byrne is famous for setting long outruns and was threatening an 800 yard outrun for Dry Lake. Either way Piper was ready for a long outrun yesterday at Jennifer's. Only problem - the sheep were not that far away.
First run of the day I sent Piper away. The sheep were actually a little forward of where they are usually set - but not by much and we were sending from further back. Piper went out and looked good and then she just disappeared. I waited, blew a come in whistle, waited some more, blew another come in, waited, blew a recall, waited, blew another recall and finally Piper was sited completing a circumnavigation of the entire field without ever finding sheep.
It took Magellan 3 years to circumnavigate the globe. It took Piper a lot less time. If she runs that wide next week at Dry Lake we may be looking for her in Oregon.
It was the start of a rough day for Piper. To be fair she did some things well and it was a level of work that I would have been happy with a year ago, but it was below her capabilities and not what I was hoping for a final tuneup for Dry Lake. Oh well, bad rehearsal, good show. And we may get a slight tuneup in as we travel North - either right before leaving or when we arrive.
Rylee was a different story. SHe had a better day yesterday and was starting to show some pace at least on her fetch. She did have a little trouble on one or two outruns but she took the redirects (an encouraging thing) and generally came up well. She is still extremely cautious but she was showing a little more pace yesterday. This was particularly true in the afternoon when we were working on drive aways and straight fetches in the lower field. She still needs encouragement to come near my feet to get the drive started but she is doing better on that and once she gets past my feet we were able to jazz her up a bit. Just need patience.
Cute post!
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