A bit behind the eight ball today- tired. Been waking up at about 3 something in the morning lately. Weird. Well, so it goes. I figure one of these nights I will crash hard....

Monday morning I took Danny up for another lesson with our trainer. I decided not to bring Lucy, because she would be just too cold to sleep in the car. Danny has a nice long coat, so I didn't worry so much for him... But, before I left for the trip, I saw that my furnace was not working... Great. Not a good time for this. I called it in, and also called my oil supplier who told me that they did NOT put additive in (to prevent the diesel from freezing). I told them they needed to do that. Jeez. Why should I have to request this?

Anyway, it was frozen lines and they were blown out later in the day.


The lessons went very well. Well, not at first. We worked in the big field and Danny was again too tight at the top. It's an oddity, but by the end of the first lesson he was back to being a good dog. These sheep are extremely heavy, and I wondered how he would handle lifting them. They are not easy to move off people. Well, Danny had absolutely no problem. He's got a lot of come forward, I have been told, and I see it now. He's so much more confident.

The second day/lesson, we did a few more outruns, and I was able to instill a good stop and then re-direct out- calmly for me- so after I stopped him, I was calm in my re-direct and Danny flowed out nicely, instead of bursting out. Lots of little stuff to remember for me, but that is a biggy. I hope his outruns get better, I really do... He may never be a great top of the outrunner, but what can I say- I am working on it!

Then we worked on driving with more driveable sheep. Well, wow. He was such a good boy. I was told we pretty much have it! All that flank work puts us in good stead for this stuff.

Then, I asked if we could do a pen. We have never penned. Danny did pretty good. He was a bit worried by the sheep getting away, and me being a bit nervous, but he did very well, and again, those good flanks put us in a good place.

I left early, because I wanted to go home to sleep (didn't sleep much the night before) and also to feed my sheep. I gotta find someone to hay them for me in the mornings. It's stressing me out too much to think they might be hungry.

Got home, had a sandwich and read my book. Now, it's back to normal :) Danny was such a good boy to work.