Fido’s

Got a chance to go check out Fido’s Farm with Maddy. Other than Scio, the next closest location for herding trials. I wanted to check it out, figure out where everything was, how it worked and for Haku to get a chance to work in the field and to see where the sheep were set. Also, just fun to go have a herding play day. And, yes, Navarre got to come too, the first time I’ve worked him since the workshop we went to a couple months ago.

(Herding photos by Maggie!)

Such a beautiful spring day, kind of pity that summer is right around the corner, herding is fun and easy when the weather cooperates. New sheep, new location, both dogs remained ever enthusiastic – this is their idea of a good time. Navarre certainly did NOT show any signs of his ‘off’ behavior that he did last week, but he didn’t working with Ian the day before either. He did some good stuff and some of the same crap as always. We started out working some slow moving heavy sheep and he did okay, but then we switched out for some lighter sheep and he thought he needed to push just as hard and even closer than the last group – and that certainly didn’t work well. And while I can get him to back off fetching, I can’t stop him from running right up their asses while driving, so that was a whole lot of arguing with my dog fruitlessly that I should have avoided.

Navarre got to try some things and he wasn’t super successful at them. I thought I could work on his flank whistles while the sheep were in a pen, having him go around outside of the pen so I wouldn’t have to argue about him being too close to sheep and we could just work whistles. Yeah, that was a total bust, couldn’t get him to understand the exercise. And I couldn’t do that damn away whistle until I tried to demonstrate to Maddy how bad I was at it, then I could do it every time, naturally. Hmph. We also worked on trying to fetch the sheep off of one another, and we only got about two tries before Navarre lost sheep doing that. I can say he still isn’t sure WHO he should be bringing sheep to when lifting off another team. Then when the sheep took off both him and Bones went to fetch them and apparently Navarre just kept circling them instead of actually, you know, helping to bring them back. Dork.

Still, for all his lack of skill and unearned self esteem, he’s really keen to do the things. Including running off and looking for sheep if I get distracted, and actually bringing them back from WAY far away. So, yeah, we couldn’t really do anything, but I felt better about it – which I suppose counts for something.

Haku also tried very hard. And, yes, we’re rusty on the skills we have not been practicing – which is pretty much everything except shedding. His outruns were surprisingly bad, as that’s one he’s usually pretty good at. He also could not spot the sheep for what the outrun would look like in a trial. He wasn’t listening to his whistle down on the fetch either. He knows his flanks and he TRIES to drive, but especially with the heavier sheep – OMG, world’s slowest drive ever. And he would do pretty good at responding to my commands, less good at holding a line and occasionally kept throwing in 90 degree turns for no reason. He was trying really hard, bless his heart. And I got frustrated with him for not responding and turning the sheep back to me even after five lie downs and he was so upset. Poor sensitive Haku.

We did some shedding with the big group of sheep, which went … shockingly well. I still find the whole making a hole thing to be like magic, and he came through almost every time! I think he’s getting the idea, knock on wood. His AKC trial with Carol is next weekend, but he doesn’t need any shedding skills as of yet.

Shaping up my summer schedule, trial organizers are making it easy for me to cross agility trials off my list by starting late in the day and then putting all the classes I have no interest in the morning when it’s actually somewhat pleasant to run. I rarely did USDAA as it is, but since they now spend the first couple hours of all their trials totally dedicated to the ‘training in the ring’ class, I really have no interest in going at all. They have a trial just right up the road from me, I thought I’d at least enter a few classes in the morning – but, no. Same with the UKI ‘classic’, I thought I might enter a couple classes in the morning, but, no. Oh well. I have a couple AKC trials I might enter the tall to small days, just a few classes, but then I’ll be waiting until it’s cooler. Ah, summer, I really don’t like it at all – it literally makes me feel ill just to be hot, much less running around. I have a lot of sympathy for dogs in my classes that totally shut down in the summer too – I’m right there with them.

I DID enter all three days of an obedience trial in June with Navarre for his Open debut. I’m hoping we can knock out all three legs in one weekend again, but I’m a little less confident about his Open skills. Need to look at the broad jump again, practice our retrieves to make sure he remembers about coming back over the jump and keep working on the drop on recall. His position changes are pretty good as we do that one a lot anyway for conditioning, but need to make sure he can do it with distraction and in a formal setting. I SHOULD be working on his heeling, but, meh. Good enough, it’s not like we’re trying to get an OTCH here. Now, if he does sail through Open, I do feel like we’ll have to finish up training his Utility skills, which is pretty much mostly about the go-out. The rest he’s been exposed to, but we haven’t worked on them in forever. So it would be fun pull those back out, but if he struggles with Open, well, we’ll see.

Dove’s puppies are FIVE weeks old – pretty much the cutest age, the pinnacle of puppy cuteness. Oh, and they are just such fun, sweet, people focused puppies – love all of them! We took them outside today to a new area of the yard, next to the busy road, and they were just totally solid. Brought my dogs out to meet them, puppies were like, “Sup.” I thought Navarre would love a litter of puppies, but he was pretty unimpressed. Bright and Haku ignored them, of course, and the puppies just did their adorable puppy things. Such good pups!