Amber

Miss Amber has a new home. She will now be living on and working on (after some training)a 1500 head cattle ranch in the north west corner of South Dakota. The deal came together really rapidly; the fellow phoned me on a referral from someone else and found a way to get Amber to his place within 24 hours.... so off I went to Missoula today, dropped her off and headed back. She will be in Billings tonight or tomorrow morning and in her new home in the evening, I assume. She will be reunited there with both her parents as this fellow bought her daddy and is co owner on her mama. Perfect!

First Snow Day of the Winter

The winter storm they forecast hit last night. Light snow until after dark, then this is what I woke up to today:

Just over 8 inches and supposed to snow all day today too. First order of business was to feed the birds, and they were all waiting for me to get out there, galvanized bucket of black oil sunflower seeds in hand, to fill their feeders. On January 1st we had 1 Red Winged Blackbird, we now have 4 and the little gold finches are really having to battle with them for food. I'm sure the blackbirds are putting the word out.... we also have a resident pair of Flickers that were trying to get to the feeders. Then there are these little guys- we don't get many of them usually, but there seem to be more this year, I like their rosy chest.

When I looked out my window at 2 AM, I could see the two geldings standing in the pouring snow (pouring snow because it is coming straight down in tiny flakes like rain) playing with the Christmas tree that I threw in their pen yesterday.  It is mild, and no wind, and I think they were enjoying the snow. Definitely better footing for them, the pen was all frozen pockets of muddy footprints before the snow hit. Now they can move around much more freely.
Josie, however, doesn't look impressed.

After horse chores the dogs decided that I should play ball with them.... it was pretty funny watching them plow through the snow and dig for the ball.

They had a blast! Even Reba got in on the play, although Amber wouldn't let her have the ball.

I'm making progress with Amber, I can now stop her when she is in full flight, and I can get her to "leave it" when she has a toy. Darn near to the point where I won't be wasting my money sending her for stock dog training, which I have scheduled for sometime in February.
Anyway, snow day for me means getting the housework done, then later trimming horse feet. Guess I'd better get off the computer!

Just doggin' it

Headed north to the Kimberley area yesterday - it was time for Amber to meet the lady who will be starting her on sheep in the new year, and for a quick Christmas visit to Janice.*Janice's other half, Dave, is getting heart surgery tomorrow, so if y'all are the praying kind, a little knee mail would be appreciated for him.*
I took Tess along too, and when we got there her daddy Quill was there, he is 14 now and it was nice to see him again. Tess's boyfriend Moss was there too, and P. put him in the sheep pen, and we had Amber (and Tess) outside the pen watching.

I didn't get any good pics of Amber, but she was quite keen on watching the sheep. Tess of course was beside herself, she wanted in the pen so bad!

P. also worked her young dog Drift, who will be doing nursery trials this year.

Possible future mate for Amber? 

The reason we aren't working Amber just yet is that P. had a hip replacement surgery in October, a couple more months to heal and then we can start- most likely February. 

She gave me a few pointers on things to work on with Amber in the meantime. One of the things I need to do is get Amber more focused on me, I need to be able to stop her in full flight- she isn't consistent with that yet but we're getting there.

We also had the chance to visit with one of Tess's daughters from her first litter, the one I called Emma but got renamed Peppy. They live quite close to P., so we stopped in.

The kids were throwing a toy for them, and Tess was all over that!

 Peppy is a beauty, and like Janice's dog Kali, she looks a lot like her daddy Moss (in the first photo).

 After that, a visit with Janice and on home. I think Tess is coming in to heat, so I'll likely be heading back up there before long!

Look Ma, No Fences

What a wonderful day today! After Church I took Beamer for a ride, accompanied by Tess and Amber. I treasure every ride with him, because he has arthritis in his left knee and while it looks awful, he is still ok when I ride.  My favourite view of anything is through Beamer ears....

including dogs!

Anyway, after that Shayla came over to work Kai. Ted had modified the tops of the round pen today so it was safe to bit Kai up; after a session of that, Shayla rode him for a few minutes....

and like she said- time for a trail ride. I clipped a lead line on him but only went a short way before I took it off- he was being such a good boy!

There were cows across the fence to the left, and of course they had to come check him out, he did lose focus a little bit on that but not bad. I clipped the line back on him and Shayla rode circles- back to his comfort zone- and then I took the line off and he was fine.



He was so good! I have plans to take him on a trail ride on Tuesday, with Shayla riding her mare Allie up in the hills. I hope to get in as much trail riding on him as possible while this lovely weather holds!
I looked back on my training posts and in my photos; not counting the times I rode while on a lead line, Kai had 5 solo rides from me then Shayla put 5 solo rides on him including today- and I rode him for a few minutes yesterday just to see how his steering was. I started his schooling on August 18th, so it has taken 2 months to get him to this point, although he wasn't worked every day of that 2 months; he did get a lot of ground work. The main thing for me is that I have a calm, happy horse. Another "good horse to ride" especially now that Beamer's riding days are limited.
 I started this post with a Beamer ear cam shot- and part with a Kai ear cam shot! (photo by Shayla)

Amber's First Trail Ride

I wanted to call this post "Back in the Saddle Again" because Beamer is finally sound again after having sprained his ankle, so it was time to saddle up and ride.... but the wasps in my tack room nailed me when I opened the sliding door (it's a metal shed) and I got stung on the top of my head. Bad wasps! Bad,bad wasps! They met their fate for that- Ted went uptown and got some Brake Cleen and sprayed down their nests and hidey holes. But, meanwhile, I couldn't get my saddle out, so I snuck in low and got the bridle and brushes, and went for a bareback ride.
Accompanied by the dogs, of course.
All 3 of them.
Yes, Amber, you can come too.

At first, Amber wasn't quite sure what was going on....

It's ok Amber! Come on!

Yup, just stick with Tess, she'll show you how it's done.

All 3 dogs, lined out and heeling- good dogs!

Meanwhile, Beamer couldn't believe his eyes- we were walking past a perfect horse buffet of fresh oat grass and he wasn't allowed even a bite!

Beamer wasn't the only one who got sidetracked- the dogs found some interesting smells.
I tested their obedience by having them all lay down and wait until I gave them the command to heel. They did great! It's so nice having two "broke" dogs to teach young miss Amber how things are done.

As we rode, we could see that there were thunder clouds boiling up over the mountains. That blue above the mountain is actually a cloud.

There was a storm brewing allright, and as I sit here typing, the north wind is howling, breaking branches, tearing the bamboo blinds off the window, and trying it's darndest to straighten out the mountain ash tree that was leaning to the north. Methinks it will be leaning south after this storm! (Had a power outage for 3 hours before I finished writing this post!)
Anyway, we headed home.....

Amber kept heading into the oats and lying down, hoping for a cool-down break.

I did a little trotting, and got the dogs all lined out, and I must say I'm pretty happy with Amber on her very first trail ride. She stayed well with the other dogs, kept up, listened well and heeled. However, as soon as we got within a hundred yards of home, she bee-lined to the water trough in the colt's pasture and had a good soak. Gotta love those border collies!

All in all, it was a lovely ride, albeit short, and the nieces will be here tomorrow so Beamer will be busy teaching them for the next couple of days.

In which Amber learns....

that it isn't a good idea to work horses.
Beamer was having some flat out fun this morning, and Amber got a little excited. She ran out and barked at him....

I hollered Get out!
And Beamer promptly showed Amber that she is not boss in HIS pasture.

I think he was pretty chuffed with himself after that!

Sunday sillies

Amber's big day

Yesterday was all about Amber. I loaded her up and drove up to my friend Janice's place, where she got to meet new dogs- Janice's 2 collies which are a daughter of Reba and a daughter of Tess- and Tucker, a big yellow lab. Amber wasn't too sure about that!  She wanted to hide behind me, but eventually figured it out that they weren't going to pester her. I left her tied up so that she could go in  the truck if she wanted, while I spent some time with Janice in her greenhouse.
After that, it was time to take her to meet sheep. We went to the beautiful Pine Butte Ranch, where  we met up with George, to assess Amber's attitude and aptitude as a stock dog.

George had his 2 dogs with him; Kate, who is a champion, and her daughter Nan, and he sent Kate out to bring in the sheep. He asked me about Amber, and asked what I wanted to learn about her, which basically was whether or not I would be able to handle this dog or whether she would be too hard headed for me.
Once the sheep were in and penned, George had Kate move them a bit, slowly and quietly, while we watched Amber's reaction. He put her on a 50 ft. string, just in case he needed to get her attention. She did look at them, head down in good Border Collie style, but spent a lot of time roaming around the pen, sniffing all the dried up sheep poo and occasionally stopping to watch the other dogs. While we were doing this, we worked on her recall, which I have been having trouble with. George is very soft spoken, and he would just say her name, and if she ignored him he would give a tug on the string, say her name again, and when she looked at him he would praise her. It worked great; he only had to tug a couple of times before she got it and would come walking back. Everything was kept low key, no excitement and running around.

Meanwhile, the sheep were just standing still, carefully watched by Kate and Nan. After a bit, Amber really started looking at them.

She made no move towards them, just lay there and watched them.

Amber watching, as Kate flanks.

The result of the day's assessment is that Amber is very smart, independent, has natural ability and desire to work. I need to work on her recall, and it's time to separate her from the other collies at home, so that I can keep her focus on me as the one who provides her with the activity she needs, which will help her to get over that independent streak. I also need to get a good lie down on her.

It was a good session. After that, the dogs took the sheep to another field where there are 2 large rocks that George uses as a marker to move the sheep between- practice for moving sheep through gates or panels.
He worked both dogs individually and I found it really interesting that each dog knew when not to work, even though George was giving whistles or vocal commands to the other dog. He says it's all about intent, which is the mental communication between handler and dog. We talked a bit about that, and compared it to horse training where there is a lot of mental communication; but with horses, it's direct; the handler is in physical contact or close to the horse and with dogs you have to be able to have that communication at a distance.

Kate watches while Nan works.

Lovely Kate! She is related to my dog Tess- her mother is Tess's grandmother.

Anyway, I'll work on those basic things with Amber, and probably take her about once a month to keep her looking at sheep, and in the fall, I should have enough basics on her to actually get her started working.
Won't be too much of a hardship coming to this beautiful place!

Mr. Kai

Kai is really looking a lot better now, still retaining some of that winter hair but a steady diet of unlimited hay, grass and Hoffmans Minerals really has him picking up- he is so shiny and happy now.

I keep Rio in a separate stall at night, so at morning turnout they play a bit- and Kai is the instigator. He is usually the one who comes over to Rio, snakes his neck at him, egging him into playing with him.

Rio towers over Kai....

so Kai usually backs down....

for a while anyway.... then he just has to come back and pester again!

Hey Rio- check out my six pack!

Kai is ready now for training, so today after work I'm hooking up the trailer and hauling him to the arena. 

Also, miss Amber has a date with the trainer on Monday. She is going to be introduced to sheep, and assessed - I'm excited!