Monday, October 19, 2009

Sheep-dog-day


Sunday, Janice and I headed out to work our border collies on sheep with P., the lady who owns Tess's daddy, Quill. Now, my dogs haven't worked sheep since February 2007, and Janice's dog Sage, (a Reba pup from her first litter) has never even seen a sheep. There were a couple of other folks there with some experienced dogs as well as Quill and Moss, P.'s new trials dog. We went to a large meadow, and watched Quill work first.

Quill

Driving the split away from the herd

After that, P. and I worked Tess; she showed me what she wanted and what to look for, and explained what Tess was doing; all in all she was quite pleased with Tess, said she is really soft and controllable, and that she was a great first dog for me to learn with. I don't have pictures of us working, you'll have to visit Janice's blog to see them. We also worked Reba, who has a little more experience than Tess, and I was pleased with the way she worked too. Janice got to introduce Sage to sheep, and she did quite well, showing her natural instinct and lovely obedience. After that, the pro dogs worked.

Sage, Reba and Tess watching and learning


This dog lives with the herd; that is Quill in the background driving the split

We also got to watch Moss, what a beauty he is; most likely I will be breeding Tess or Reba to him as soon as one comes into heat, as I have standing orders for 6 puppies.

Moss

He sat so quietly while the other dogs were working, not like my two who were so excited that they were whining and clacking their teeth! (Poor Janice had to hold one while I worked the other, bet her arms are sore!) They did settle down after a while though; I'm sure that if they did this all the time they would be much quieter.

Moss - a long outrun, and fetch


Look back, Moss!

We had a wonderful afternoon, and P. was trying to convince us that we should get 3 or 4 sheep to work our dogs on. I would love to, but I need to convince Ted! Maybe if he came and saw them work.... and maybe Janice will get some, then I'd have more excuses to visit there!
Trust me, I'm working on it! This is so much fun, and my collies know that this is the reason they exist.



5 comments:

Sherry Sikstrom said...

I love to watch a good dog art work. Skeeter is becoming a decent cattle dog , just has to learn to work if there are other people around , he gets pretty shy

Mrs. Mom said...

That has to be a blast. Our Jo is half ACD, but has absolutely no herding instinct. (In fact, she is terrified of horses..lol)

Your collies are nice looking critters, and those were some great shots of them in action!

lisa said...

Doggie school! That has to be a really neat thing to watch the dogs work! Hope someday to see it!

Janice said...

Excellent shots Shirley. I am going to post some of you and your dogs sorry they are not very good. I had to look through the view finder so they kinda suck. My arms arn't too sore but that's why your pics look so far away, I had a little to much interuption to get any close ups and it doesn't help that I'm still pretty crappy with a camera.

Paint Girl said...

That is so cool!! I would love to watch them at work! Great pictures!!