Back in the Saddle

Well two weeks off and back to work.

The two weeks does not seem to have radically impacted our herding ability or willingness to listen to commands - either adversely or positively. Pretty much picked up where we left off.

There were some good moments and there were some bad moments. There were moments when I felt the need to simply leave and ignore the sheep and re-introduce Piper to that old time religion. She did not like those but she did pay more attention afterwards.

There were some moments when she did me proud. Like when the sheep were first brought onto the field and I sent Piper on a completely blind (both to me and her) outrun sweep of the field in search of sheep. She never saw them the first time but kept casting in the given direction as I walked forward trying to find them myself. By the time I learned where they were and Piper appeared she had WAY overrun. But she took the reverse direction, came around and found them, and pretty soon I had sheep at my feet.

Then at the end of the day we were practicing shedding (I think Jennifer is trying to get me ready to move up despite our inconsistent and often DUI like driving). I was having trouble getting the sheep to make any hole. On the first of our three sheds I got a decent size hole and brought Piper in but she turned briefly on the wrong group and the shed group tried to rejoin. Piper turned on them and took them off but Jennifer told me she would not have called the shed. The second one took a while to set up but when Piper came through she took the proper group off. Finally on our third shed I was getting very frustrated because while I could get a single I was having big trouble getting a gap to take the rear two off at the head. Finally while everything was still in motion, sheep, Piper and me I saw a small gap and called Piper in. She came in and took the rear two on the head beautifully in the smallest gap I have ever asked her to come in on. It was too small for my confidence level but I realized it was all I was going to get when I asked her in. Piper handled it much better than I did.

Driving - now that is another story. Our drive aways seem to be much better and fairly consistent but we are still slaughtering the cross drives. Not sure if it is because of her feeling pressure she needs to guard against on the field or what because she actually seems to do better away from her home field. But anyway it remains our biggest bugaboo and we are working hard on it. I started walking out to be closer to her so I could instill discipline as needed and she got a little better.

The Sweep - Jesse puppies were about 8 days old and MY GOD ARE THEY CUTE !