It's all good

Little bits of time stealed away for just me, and a couple of dogs. It's very rejuvenating. This weekend we do the sheep herding demos at the fair, and I have been up, pretty much every night stressing over it. Not a lot of fun!

But, this week I had scheduled a small two day sheep herding session with a trainer/friend, and it was really great. I see that I am finally able to listen to instruction, and do what the trainer tells me to do, and WHEN they tell me. Sometimes I talk too much, and that can really interrupt the learning process, but thankfully, the folks I work with have had patience, and now I have learned!

I went to work with Danny, although Lucy did get to do a few things, it was really Danny's time. The first thing we did was work on driving, basically teaching inside flanks, and making sure the shape was right. Then, we worked on the box shape of driving around us. Danny seemed to be getting it.

Then we worked on harder fetches, with sheep being held near pressure, so he had to think, and cover. Danny was nice and deep, so I lay him down, and then walk him up, and he did very nicely. At this point he needs to lay down at top, so he slows down his brain a little on contact. On the fetch, he has good pace. Danny needs work on his left outruns- he isn't covering as well as on the right, so I am doing exercises to fix that, and just in two days, he is better.

Danny also got to work on a very large group of sheep, I don't know, 50 or more. It was good, he enjoyed it.

When it was time to go, I really felt like Danny had learned a lot, and now, I can teach him to drive, and that is really great. Danny is also beginning to develop some eye, and that is also great. Danny's most earnest wish is to do what I ask, and boy, is that a nice thing. He gets that from his father, Glen, which is why I wanted a Glen pup in the first place.

So, that was our lesson. Danny, you are a good boy!