Accident Prone

You get to learn about the mysterious world of sheep when you do herding. Well, I’m learning more than I knew – which was about nothing. I now know that when sheep are sheared they’re much more difficult to work with. Apparently they feel much more vulnerable, and especially since these are all rams, they don’t want to bunch up together and get stabbed with a stray horn – which was less of an issue when they had big wooly coats. So the now very tiny rams were just scattering everywhere and Navarre wasn’t helping. When sheep go faster Navarre wants to go faster and closer – but he needs to go slower and give them more space to calm them down instead. He does not agree, however. By the end of our lesson he was actually figuring out how to handle these ‘new’ naked sheep, but it took a while. I declined to work him today, I was just not in the mood to handle that hot mess.

Ian and Navarre also worked on standing up to sheep – which kept happening because Navarre kept pissing them off by being too close and pushy – and newly naked rams were grumpy and not in the mood for his shenanigans. I don’t know if Navarre will be good at standing up to sheep in general, he’s just a big softy at heart. I think both Haku and Navarre are probably too polite for their own good. Navarre hasn’t really been challenged enough to make a sweeping statement though.

Ian says that Navarre is now in the stage that he knows the behaviors, it’s just getting him experience in different situations. Which was the goal before I got involved, though I still feel like I’m not ready.

However, in Molalla the sheep were much calmer and while Dave talked about them splitting, they had nothing on those crazy sheared rams, they seemed quite sedate by comparison. And Navarre was much calmer and things went much better. Naturally, things went well with Navarre and Dave, but things even went better with me and Navarre than we had been doing. It’s funny how often both Ian and Dave have to comment on how much better Navarre is at this than Haku. Today Dave said that working with Haku would drive him nuts. Good thing I think Haku is just perfect, but I’m always surprised when just about no one agrees with me. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Navarre is much better at being ‘precise’, as ‘precise’ is not something Haku has ever done well. Though it’s been said many times if I were as precise with Haku as I am with Navarre (aka, not letting him get away with everything), Haku would be a better herding dog.

I’m just not much into arguing with my dog though, which is what I mostly feel herding lessons are about these days – how to more effectively win an argument with my dog without throwing a tantrum about it. I have been reminded many times to move my feet when Navarre is incorrect, somehow it just doesn’t seem like the right response – especially if Navarre is driving and far away! I’m much better at it when I know my movement will get me a response, not so much when he’s WAY in the distance and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to respond anyway. You know, when he needs me to be consistent the most.

Still, today I felt better about our very baby teamwork. A step in the right direction. And did I mention how ridiculously happy Navarre is about this whole program currently? I like making my dog happy. Someday we’ll get on the same page.

Haku was limping this morning, same as always, it’s very discouraging. Once again, it’s not a huge limp, but it’s definitely there. And then he pooped in the water treadmill again. No freakin idea what that’s about, but I fired him from the treadmill. And the rehab vet wants me to get xrays to rule out osteosarcoma – which never even occurred to me and was REALLY not want I want to hear. But, yeah, he’s done absolutely nothing for weeks, and even if we hadn’t been doing the rehab stuff, it’s really weird that the limp remains the same. So we’re going in on Monday and, hopefully, rule out some bigger issues. Haku’s sire had osteosarcoma. So, yeah. Though Zing’s still doing well after amputation, years later, which is not at all the norm.

And no new pictures from me for a while, I managed to sprain my wrist somehow and I can’t lift things. So I’m learning to be left handed and wondering how long this is going to take to heal. You’ll just have to imagine our hike today, which was lovely with still some snow on the ground and it was snowing while we were there! To be fair, the dogs all just looked like drowned rats though, so you’re not missing the best pictures. We went hiking with an almost one year old female border collie – and Bright thought she was great and super fun, as did Navarre. Though Bright did enjoy getting to be bitchy, until finally she got told off. But even then, Bright was fine with that. I don’t know what’s with Bright and girl border collies, but they had a great time with their guest hiker today. Girls.