Puppy Blog

We're moving!

2008-04-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

We've moved!

Gel's Homeopathic Treatment

2008-04-01T06:19:00.002-04:00

I wrote Gel's homeopath this morning telling her that I thought Gel could use another dose of his homeopathic remedy, Rhus Toxicodendron ("Rhus Tox"). In thinking about how he worked during some of his runs this weekend, he was stiff and unwilling to move to where I needed him to. Yes, some of this is due to training, but it's also the old "cognitive dissonance" raising its head. "Cognitive dissonance is often associated with the tendency for people to resist information that they don't want to think about, because if they did it would create cognitive dissonance, and perhaps require them to act in ways that depart from their comfortable habits." (Wikipedia)

Gel will bring sheep to my feet, there is no question about that, but bringing them in a line that I ask for, through panels, etc. is often not part of his idea of fetching sheep. That he was able to pull them off the exhaust gate (without running them into the gate or fence) and then out from in between cars and bring them to my feet, without making a mess, is an indication of that. Many dogs, put in the same position, would grip. Not Gel.

So, not only did this trial show me where our holes in training were, it also showed me that it's time to repeat Gel's remedy. Sure, I can drive the training into him and force him to do exactly what I want him to do, when I want him to do, but I'd much prefer to use the gentle push of homeopathy to make Gel more comfortable doing something that he feels is not right due to his particular set of mental symptoms.

I imagine there are people reading this thinking to themselves, this is stupid, Gel does what he does because he is not a very good stock dog. Well, that may very well be true, but I'm using all the tools available to me, including homeopathy, to help Gel become the best he can be. We may surprise you all one day. It may take us ten years, hopefully Gel will still be able to do trials when he's 14, but we will succeed on this venture.

Mexican Jumping Bean Sheep

2008-03-31T15:58:00.002-04:00

I believe I have been the lucky recipient of a rare breed of sheep: Mexican Jumping Bean Sheep.

About six months ago, Wally purchased five young black-headed Dorper ewe lambs from the auction. He got them when they were likely just weaned. They are cute as can be: little, round beasts with black heads. Can they jump though! They jump more than the black lamb who is part Barbado (Raisin), a breed that is known for its flighty nature.

Several times now while working them out in the front pasture, they've run to their fenced-in area and jumped (well, roll-jumped) over the four foot high field fencing. Once, when we were trying to load them, one jumped straight up into the air and kicked me in the head. The other night when moving them into a side pasture, all of the sheep but one slipped into my shabbily-fenced-in area (a/k/a my first fencing project) leaving a Mexican Jumping Bean Sheep out by herself. That is the kiss of death for a sheep, to be left by herself. She promptly jumped (really jumped this time) the four foot high fence. I'll often see the group of lambs running and jumping playfully, especially when I've first let them out, and the Mexican Jumping Bean Sheep are the ones who are jumping straight up and down, usually a good four feet in the air.

Sheep can me extremely entertaining, well, they are not entertaining when they are giving you and your dog fits in a herding trial, but in general, they are funny. Several of the sheep are loosing their hair (these are hair sheep and they shed their hair [it isn't wool] when it warms up). One had a long hunk of hair hanging down her side and dragging on the ground as she moved. Soon, they'll be sleek and shiny, especially given the amount of rain we've been getting. The grass is grow, growing, growing! I hope it grows three feet high! After the brown, crunchy stuff we had to look at most of last year, it's wonderful to see lush green.

Back to the drawing board

2008-03-31T06:33:00.003-04:00

I probably should have stayed home, laid on the couch in front of the kerosene heater and watched movies, but no, I took advantage of a trial within reasonable driving distance to get mileage on the dogs, me and of course, the car.

The sheep were much worst on Sunday than they were on Saturday. To give you an idea of how rough they were, the highest Pro-Novice score was a 57 (out of a possible 100). Sheep were escaping everywhere. We were able to park along the end of the trial field, and many times, sheep were in between cars and had to be fished out. We got a score of 44: as was the case yesterday, most of our score came from Gel's out-work. He didn't loose any points on his outrun, lift or fetch.

After the post turn though, it went bad. The sheep kept drawing up to the exhaust. They completely escaped once and I sent Gel for them. I couldn't see what was going on, but I found out afterwards the dog belonging to the person exhausting pushed the sheep away from the gate and into the cars. Gel got them out from behind the cars and back to me. Good boy. After several failed attempts to get them set for the first drive leg, we ran out of time. Oh well.

He stopped short on his outrun in Ranch. In retrospect, I should have flanked him around again which would have made the lift better, but I elected to walk him up knowing how strongly they were drawn to the left hand side of the field I thought it might improve my fetch line. Wrong move. It was another exercise in sheep trying to escape to the exhaust. I called the run after I saw it was going to go that way. No need to put Gel in the position of getting beat. I didn't see the Ranch scores, but there were a few good runs so I expect the scores were higher.

It was cold all day and only spit rain a bit so at least the weather wasn't quite as miserable as it was on Saturday.

I learned a tremendous amount at this trial from watching, talking to others and analyzing.

Don't put your dog in the position where he is going to get beat by the sheep. It's still going to take me a while to figure out how not to do this, but by splitting up my sheep and working them in small groups, I think I can recreate a lot of what went on in this trial. See my note below on working the whole flock.
Don't put Gel where he can watch the runs (I need to take this note to my forehead so I'll remember as I put him there again on Sunday and I think he didn't have quite as much get-up-and-go as he should have had in his Ranch run).
I need to improve the quality of my whistles and I need to get Gel to respond quicker to my whistles. I need to work on flanking him in closer when necessary, which, I believe, is only going to be necessary when he's working in close and in drives, but we'll see how that goes.

That may be it, for now. I'm really quite proud of myself that I stuck out this trial even though our runs were rough. An earlier me would have left early and certainly would not have gone back on Sunday. I'm starting to care less about what people think about me and my dog. That, in and of itself, is going to help me to move forward.

Last night, while putting up the ducks and chickens, I realized something about Gel. He's a "big flock" dog. He lives to go out into a huge field and round up all the sheep. He's done it many times, not once has he not brought all the sheep back. When he was in a position of finding sheep lost in the woods, he didn't leave the one that was stuck in the brush and kept the other two in the same location. Some of the problems that I've associated with Gel's inability to deal with pressure, is related more to his desire to bring in all the stock, not just a select few.

All put one of the ducks went up. One was going around the pen and I was sending Gel around to put her up. He kept trying to go into the pen and get out all the ducks. I continued to insist that he focus on the single duck. Eventually he pushed all the ducks back out of the pen by his position behind the pen and the single duck went in with that group. The group headed out to the gate of their pasture and I flanked Gel around to bring them back. At that point, however, the sheep came up towards the pasture and Gel tried to go out to get them into the "group." I didn't let him do that and he tried to bag out on me, but I kept that from happening. We got all the ducks up, the pasture gate shut so the sheep couldn't get in there to eat the duck grain and went to bed.

While the genes of both parents contribute to how a dog works, I think Gel is working more off the bottom half of his pedigree which is dogs from the U.K., all bred to work large flocks over long distances. I know very little about the dogs from the top half of his pedigree, but I am assuming many of them are ranch dogs, again, bred to work large flocks over large distances. This business of working three sheep is frustrating for a dog bred to work large flocks. Of course, there are times that a dog has to work just a couple of sheep and Gel needs to understand that.

It's all a work in progress.

Quick Update

2008-03-30T06:24:00.002-04:00

The weather forecast for yesterday said 30% chance of rain; it rained all day, sometimes downpours with thunder and lightning. All in all, pretty miserable weather for trialing, but I can't get upset with rain, never again.

Our results were a mixed bag. For our Pro-Novice run, Gel lost no points on his outrun and lift. His fetch line was straight as an arrow, but on the wrong line (my fault, for the line business in USBCHA). We made the fetch panels (that's success from the last times we ran USBCHA when we couldn't make fetch panels). Just as we made the post turn, sheep that were in the adjoining field came to the fence and started talking to my sheep, who decided they were going to go over there and join in the conversation.

That was not a good thing. It was reminiscent of the issues we've had here where I had sheep on one side of the fence I was trying to pull away from other sheep. Too much pressure for Gel to handle. I finally left the post to help him, but it didn't make much difference. I was not too happy with Gel at this time as I think he was being a jerk at that point. We had talk afterwards. A little while after our run, I pushed a large group of sheep down to the set-out point and that seemed to help Gel's confidence.

Another thing that may have factored in there was the thunder and lightning. Gel is not thunder-phobic or even noise sensitive, but I think going through the storm at the last trial where the tornado was so close may have rattled him some. He was scared during that storm (I was too). Who knows.

Anyway, our Ranch run was better. Again, he lost no points on his outrun (300 yards), lift or fetch. This time we stayed on the right line. The draw to the left hand side of the field was rough, you essentially couldn't send your dog to the right. In fact, in some runs, the setters lost the sheep they were so drawn to that section of the field. The sheep did not want to go down into the first drive panel either and the dogs really needed to lean into them there. There were very few straight lines down to the first drive panel. When you came out of that panel and headed up the cross drive, the sheep were pointed right where they wanted to go: the exhaust, so they picked up the pace, sometimes too much so.

We made the post turn and got the sheep going very nicely towards the first drive panel, but missed it ... need to have my eyes checked or something here ... Got them going into the cross drive, which again was pretty nice, but I flanked him too soon because I was nervous we were going to loose them towards the exhaust and we missed that panel too. I think making panels is so over-rated (smile).

Didn't get the full pen either (got one sheep in). They switched out sheep for the Ranch run to younger sheep who were not at all pen broke (like the sheep that they ran in Novice and Pro-Novice were). I had one who kept breaking away from the group and during the pen she headed over to the fence where the other sheep were, a/k/a the "point of no return" for Gel, but he redeemed himself. After I called my run (the sheep were doing the ring-around-the-rosy routine around the pen and I didn't want to play that game, once sheep start circling the pen, it's often useless to continue to try to get them in), the judge came out of the car and asked me to flank Gel around to the left to bring her back before she went out into the road (the field is fenced, but the gate was open so people could come and go). Yea, right, I said to myself, Gel's going to pull a frantic sheep off the fence in the exact same place he bombed out before, but he did! We picked up the other two further on up the fence and sent them to the exhaust. Two handlers came up to me afterwards and said he did a good job managing the group we drew and dealing with the situation after the run.

So, all in all, for our first time back in USBCHA for almost a year and our first Ranch course, we did okay. I know what I need to work on before the next trial. That's the whole point of trialing (for me), not to win, but to see what you need to fix to prepare for the next trial.

I decided to go back down today (Sunday). There is even a higher percentage of rain forecast for today and it's going to be a lot colder, but we need the mileage. This is a very low key trial, the lunch they served yesterday was excellent, the field is very nice and in general, the sheep are nice too. The sheep that they use in the Novice runs are tricky. They know the deal. They test the dog and if they figure out the dog isn't going to make them stay on the course, then they are not going to stay on the course. This is one disadvantage of dog-broke sheep. The sheep they are using in Ranch are a bit easier for us to manage.

I learned something today: the trick is to not let the sheep beat your dog; know your dog, figure out the sheep and keep your dog where it needs to be to stay ahead of the sheep. Tricky creatures: sheep.

Off to put up the sheep, let out the ducks and load the car for the two and a half hour drive down to the trial.

Sad story

2008-03-29T16:38:00.002-04:00

On Friday, I talked to a guy I knew from trialing. I've tried to contact him over the past six months or so, but got no response. I hadn't seen him listed in any running orders in some time now so I know he hasn't been trialing.

He's now selling all of his Border Collies and sheep because he doesn't want to have to keep up with them. He never did train much, blamed it on lack of a place to train. He has a lot of dogs, some of which are not going to be able to be sold or placed due to age or temperament issues. I had talked to him about going up there on Sunday to look at his dogs and sheep, but he never called to set a time (no surprise there). Last year, because he was short on kennel space, I took a young bitch of his for a while to try to work her. She was very, very shy and didn't have a lot of confidence. I had a nice pet home lined up for her, but he decided he wanted to keep her, why, I don't know, except I think maybe he wanted to breed her at some point. He tried a few times to trial her, but she's not and likely never will be a trial dog.

This is so reminiscent of my cat showing days. People with more animals than they have time or ability to care for. I always said while I was showing cats, if these people were limited to the number of cages they could keep in their household, then they'd have to limit the number of cats they kept. You cannot keep a large number of free-roaming cats in your house, especially intact cats, without fights and lots of breeding. So, their cats are kept in cages, some 24/7. Sometimes the cages are nice and roomy, some even have their own rooms, others, unfortunately, are kept in cages the size of a 36" dog crate.

I still remember as vividly as it happened yesterday what I found when I first stepped into the household of the woman I stayed with when I first moved to Charlotte, a fellow cat breeder. She had a decent cattery set-up, but it was far (FAR!) less than clean. She had floor-to-ceiling stud cages, which would have been nice if they were clean. She also had smaller compartment-type cages that she called queening cages. These cages had no windows or other openings once the door was closed, they were essentially dark boxes. I opened one up thinking it was storage only to find two cats in there with filthy litter boxes. I won't go much more into detail, but she had some 30-odd cats, many were sick and some had serious temperament issues. It was horrible. While I was there I helped her clean it up. After I left, I came back to find it back in the same state. After that I told her I could no longer associate with her, it was too upsetting for me.

My cats and dogs don't know how good they have it; I care for them as they should be cared for.

Panels

2008-03-28T09:32:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, I worked a bit late last night and didn't have as much time as I wanted to work my dogs. I have been working on a very complicated transaction at work since before Thanksgiving. I probably have about 300 hours into it at this point. It almost closed the beginning of December, then went belly up. It's come back alive several times since, each time, there's a change in the deal structure, but it hasn't closed. Well, it's alive again. They say it's going to close next week. We'll see. The partner that I'm working with on this deal doesn't seem to get around to asking me for status and giving me more working until 4:30 each day. Oh well, they pay me well and I like my job.

I figured if I was worried about panels, I might as well take the sheep down in the field where I have panels set. Unfortunately, the wind had damaged two of the panels so I needed to fix them before I could work. That took a while. The game plan is on Sunday to make PVC frames for the panels, which are made from plastic lattice, so they will be more rigid and less likely to bend. Instead of plastic stick-in-the-ground posts supporting them, I'll go with light-weight steel posts. These won't be as easy to set, but they should hold up better. The plastic stick-in-the-ground poles tend to bend and eventually break at the base.

After I had the panels set, I tied Fern to the ATV so she'd stay out of the way and set the sheep. We didn't do terribly, but we didn't do great either. It's harder getting 12 sheep through panels and darned, I can't read where the sheep need to be in order to get them through the panels. It doesn't help that the field I have the panels set in is very rolling. Of course, I'm going to one day trial on fields that are rolling as well so I might as well get used to it. Once my panels are in PVC frames, I'll put them in the wagon that attaches to the ATV and move them to different fields for practice.

After we worked panels, I thought I'd try to get the sheep into the pen we made in the same field. It's made out of two cattle panels hinged together and set in a semi-circle with two heavy steel T-posts holding them in place. I got half the sheep in, but the others bolted to one side. The ones that were left in the pen started looking for an escape. The cattle panels moved when they ran into them, which added to their panic (sheep!). I can see that type of pen isn't going to work. I need something more rigid. I think I'll make a basic square pen using heavy T-posts and field fence and put a good gate on it. I want to be able to separate my sheep so I can occasionally work smaller groups, but it's hard to separate sheep without any kind of sorting apparatus. A better pen may be something I can do this weekend myself. We'll see.

The running order is up. There are 17 people running in Pro-Novice. That's a pretty good-sized class. Here's hoping we can have a better run than the last time I trialed in USBCHA. I feel much more confident and Gel is running quite nicely. Gel is never going to be a super-star. He isn't "oozing" stock sense or talent, but he's a good solid dog that I know isn't going to make a mess of things out in the field. As a younger dog I couldn't say that, but now he's very reliable. He's a good dog.

Red Creek Trial

2008-03-27T16:47:00.002-04:00

I can't believe I'm actually excited about going to a USBCHA trial. I am usually either terrified or dreading it, or both. For the first time I feel comfortable with our abilities to run in a USBCHA trial. I'm anxiously waiting for the running orders to be posted. Carol Anne told me this morning that the Pro-Novice class had the most entries. The great thing is that she's going to run Pro-Novice after Beginning Novice, Novice/Novice and Nursery which will mean it won't start until around 11. That's great because it means I won't have to leave so early in the morning to get there. As of right now, the weather forecast is sunny and a high of 60 degrees. It keeps changing back and forth between sunny and showers.

Now, making panels, not sure we'll be able to do that so well. I have a horrible time "seeing" panels. My depth perception is horrible! I was told this was normal in women. I wish I could go to the post with binoculars so I could see better. The good thing is that Gel is what they call a "line dog" meaning once a line is set, he'll hold it. That's a good thing, but it can be a bad thing too. There was a time I couldn't pull him off a line. That seems to have been straightened out. The other problem we may have is his tendency to over-flank. I'm working on teaching him half flank whistles. It will come. Gel is not even four years old yet. He's been EXTREMELY slow maturing. I used to say I wouldn't see the real Gel until he was four, but I'm thinking it may even be older than that. We've come so far in just a year.

The great thing is, Gel is used to working at Red Creek and the sheep are really, really nice. There are going to be strong draws given the sheep are being run at home, but hopefully I can figure out the draws prior to running. I don't know what field she's going to use for Pro-Novice and Open Ranch, forgot to ask that this morning. Carol Anne doesn't allow her stock to be abused and it shows. I'm honored that she lets me come to her farm and work her sheep without her supervision. She knows I respect sheep and won't abuse them.

There was a time that I didn't care much for sheep. That has changed. I like them very much now.

The best laid plans ...

2008-03-27T11:38:00.006-04:00

When I wrote yesterday that I'd try to take some videos of Gel's work in the side pasture, I forgot that I had to re-set my ElectroNet (see a photo of ElectroNet below). Normally, I wouldn't need to move it so soon, but (1) it was blocking my Landlord's access to their cabin and the pond (they are due home today); and (2) grass isn't quite growing up enough to sustain the sheep for too long a period of time. The good thing is my agility area is now "mowed" so I don't need to do it myself.

It didn't help that I had to work late either. I work as a Commercial Real Estate Paralegal for the largest law firm in Charlotte. We close multi-million and billion dollar loans from major National and International banks. When a deal needs to close, I have to be here to take care of it. We have had some lulls in workload lately, but it looks like we are going to get busy again, which is a good thing.

It didn't take too long to set the ElectroNet because I didn't have to mow a path first. That will come soon enough. I need to figure out a way to measure where the net is going to be set, mow the path, then set the fence. One roll of ElectroNet is 160 feet long. I am not setting it where I can go in a straight line as there are many natural obstacles I need to go around. I think what I'll try when I have to mow is to use a piece of clothesline rope that is 160 feet long. I'll lay the rope on the ground in the configuration I want to set the fence, mow the path and then set the fence. Hopefully that will work. When I do have to mow, it always seems as though the path I mow doesn't quite fit where the fence needs to go. I love my ElectroNet though. It allows me to rotationally graze my sheep which cuts down on parasites. I have not had to worm my lambs yet and they are over a year old now.

While I set the fence last night, Gel and Fern ran around, played in the pond and waited for me to do something with them. Because when I finished the fence it was getting dark, I decided to just take them for a run on the ATV. There was no reason why we couldn't take a day off from training.

Why the WTCH

2008-03-26T12:14:00.002-04:00

You may wonder why I'm so intent on finishing Gel's WTCH (ASCA Working Trial Champion) title when he isn't an Australian Shepherd.

About five years ago now, I researched what breed of dog I wanted to work with. While I considered Border Collies, I thought they'd be too much dog for me and settled with the Australian Shepherd. I knew I didn't want a foo-foo show-bred Aussie and had been studying pedigrees and knew what lines I would be interested in.

I came across an advertisement for a six month old Aussie puppy who had a very nice pedigree so I contacted the breeder. She was from a mid-western state so we agreed to meet in Kentucky which was halfway for both of us. At that time, I had a five year old Aussie bitch from show lines that I had previously arranged a pet home for because it was quite apparent after several months of working her that she was not going to cut it as an agility or obedience dog and surely wasn't going to be a herding dog. The home I had lined up for her wasn't quite ready to take her at the time I was going to go to Kentucky to get the puppy so she went on the trip with me. We'll call her "Red" to avoid naming real names.

Prior to my committing to the puppy, the breeder had taken him to sheep and wrote back enthusiastically that this puppy was "WTCH Material" which he may very well have been. My plans for this puppy were to show him towards his ASCA versatility championship which would have meant I would compete in agility, obedience and herding with him.

The "versatility" awards and showing are extremely contraversal in the working Border Collie World where they believe Border Collies should only be used for stock work. Border Collies are extremely versatile and I am of the opinion if you want to compete in agility, obedience, stock work, etc. then all the more power to you. I can understand where the opinions of the working Border Collie World are coming from, showing BCs to versatility awards may very well dilute the innate ability of the BC to work stock, but that would only happen in the wrong hands. There are people who compete in herding trials (not so much USBCHA-type herding events, AKC herding events are the primary culprit) who have no clue what real stock work is about. I am not one of those people. I strive for the highest level of stock work in my dogs.

Anyway, back to the story.

You know how you think back on things and you see the warning bells that went off that you failed to listen to at the time? Well, the warning bells went off and I ignored them. We met at a restaurant that had outside seating (picnic tables) and were having a discussion about dogs, etc. when I got up from the table and went to my car to get something. When I returned to the table, the breeder's spayed bitch that she brought along came out from under the table and bit me on the leg! The breeder blamed me saying it was my fault for returning to the table too quickly! I probably should have got back into my car and went back home, but I didn't, I took the puppy and headed home.

When I got into Tennessee, the major highway that I was traveling on had been shut down due to a severe accident and it was unknown when it would reopen. I elected to get a hotel room and would resume my trip home in the morning. Prior to checking in to the hotel room, I stopped at a grocery store to get some meat for the dogs' supper. Red, being a typical bitch, was not happy sharing the back seat of the car (this was during my "pre-crate" days and the dogs were riding loose) with a puppy who had been cooped up in a car for most of the day.

I took the dogs for a long walk and then brought them into the hotel and fed them the meat that I had purchased for them. I then called the breeder to let her know that we were in a hotel and would not be arriving home that evening as planned.

Psycho Breeder then emerged. I told her the puppy had been fidgety in the car to which she replied "that's a stressed puppy." No, that's a puppy who's been cooped up in a car all day. I then told her that the "stressed" puppy had eaten his ground turkey dinner with gusto and was happily chewing on a beef bone.

Prior to my agreeing to purchase this puppy, I told the breeder that I fed a raw meat diet and vaccinated minimally. She agreed with all of this and thought it was a good idea, that if she didn't have so many dogs, she'd feed raw too. She also thought dogs were over-vaccinated and that it was causing them health issues. However, now that I had the puppy in my possession, feeding him raw was "ruining all the time and effort she had put into him" (her exact words). She was screaming at me on the phone, I was tired and was trying to deal with an energetic puppy and a cranky female dog in a hotel room without crates so I hung up on her.

Then the onslaught began. I came home to find several threatening e-mail and voice mail messages from the breeder. I ignored them. As per the contract, I brought the puppy to the vet's the next day for a check-up. He checked out fine, except he was growling at people in the waiting room. That was troubling.

The breeder continued to send threatening e-mail saying I was endangering the life of the puppy and that she was going to sue me. She also contacted the breeder of "Red" and told her the dog looked awful and that I was abusing her! I took digital photos of the dog and e-mailed them to her breeder. She looked better than she did when I got her! Unfortunately breeders seem to believe each other over outsiders and she started to carry on about this "heart dog" that she placed in my care that I was now abusing. This "heart dog" had previously been stuck in a crate and was one of about 16 other dogs that the woman kept. It was with this dog that I discovered that not all "holistic" breeders are truly holistic. While the dog may have been fed raw, it was not a properly balanced raw diet as it consisted primarily of chicken necks and backs, some chicken organ meat and alfalfa pellets to "keep them regular." When I first got the dog she did not look like a raw fed dog at all. Her coat was dry and brittle, she was overweight and smelled awful.

I faxed the note from the vet saying I had taken the puppy in for a health check and he was fine. The breeder accused me of sending her a forged note and called the vet to see if I had indeed taken the puppy in. That was verified, but all I did was take the puppy in for a health check. I did not have any vaccinations or other medicines administered. The breeder said that she told me during our meeting that the puppy was due for his rabies shot (he was), a combo-canine vaccine booster and heartworm medicine. Well, she knew darned well that I wasn't going to give the puppy any more vaccinations and while he was due for rabies, I wasn't going to vaccinate a puppy who was still adjusting to a new environment. I would have done the rabies at a later date. Technically, the puppy was due for a rabies shot while in the breeder's possession so by law, she should have done it. We never discussed heartworm medicine and given that it was still quite cold outside, I wasn't going to start heartworm medicine.

The threats to sue me continued. Her contract was governed by the laws of the state she lived in so if she filed suit against me, which would have been very easy to do, I would have had to go to her state to defend myself. On Friday I brought the puppy back to the vet's, had a rabies and canine-combo vaccine administered, started him on heartworm medicine, dewormed and de-fleaed him (just in case) (all of which cost me over $100) and called the breeder and told her I was shipping him back.

When she got him back, she said he had fleas, worms and explosive diarrhea (the diarrhea was no surprise given all the drugs he was given in one day). If he had worms, he had them when I got him given I only had him in my possession for four days. I did not receive his purchase price of $600 back. Between the vet bills, the trip down to get him and his purchase price, I was out over $800.

After things died down, I contacted the breeder of the puppy's mother. The mother was placed with the breeder on a spay contact, which obviously wasn't done given she got bred (accidentally) and delivered a litter of puppies. She was to be spayed because she carried a genetic eye defect. In addition, I found out that there were only two puppies in the litter and one had to be euthanized due to temperament issues.

To this day I don't know what happened to that puppy after she got him back.

After that experience, I wasn't going to come any where near another Aussie breeder.

Several months down the road, I saw an advertisement for Gel who was being sold because he didn't have enough herding instinct for the woman who owned him at the time. Gel was "pick" puppy from the litter, but he wasn't panning out so at six and a half months old, she was selling him as an agility prospect. I drove to Virginia to look at him and bought him. All the way to Virginia I was hyperventilating for fear of dealing with another psycho breeder, but the woman was (and has been) nothing but kind and helpful to me. I am so glad she decided to sell Gel because he's the best thing that ever happened to me.

So, the drive towards the WTCH with Gel, who is not an Aussie, is because of what happened with that Aussie puppy. Who knows if that puppy was really WTCH material or not. Gel certainly is. At the ASCA trials a lot of the Aussie people tease me by saying Gel has a better "Aussie" head than a lot of the dogs you see at the trials, am I sure he's not part Aussie? Well, maybe he is. Gel was the result of an accidental breeding. The woman who had Gel's mother at the time she was bred was running a goose dog business. She may very well have had an intact Aussie running around who caught Gel's mother. Then again, even though he has an Aussie head, he works like a Border Collie.

I am very much enjoying the ASCA trials. The people have been very nice and supportive. They don't seem to mind that this lady with her "dog with a tail" (a Border Collie) was coming to their trials and kicking their Aussie's tailless butts. They are there to have a good time with their dogs. The working Border Collie World looks down on titling events, but the atmosphere is much more relaxed at these trials because livelihoods and money is not at stake like they are at USBCHA trials where many of the handlers do this for a living.

Trialing in arena trials has done a lot to improve my timing and handling skills and it has made Gel more comfortable working close. It is all a very good thing.

An Aussie may be in the future for me one day. Time will tell.

Cattle Trials

2008-03-26T11:56:00.004-04:00

This morning, I put my entries for the USBCHA cattle trial in April in our out-going mail bin at work; then after thinking about it for a few hours, went to retrieve the envelope and tore it up. I said earlier that I was going to trial Gel in USBCHA cattle trials and I'm going to stick to that. I will continue to trial him on cattle in ASCA arena trials until he finished his WTCH, but I'm not going to put him in an open field trial with cattle for the sake of glory.

I don't work Gel on cattle on a frequent basis so we do not have the means to figure out the beasts. Cattle can kill or seriously injure a dog. In an arena trial, I am there to help Gel if necessary. Believe me, when that one calf at the trial in Georgia was running up over the top of Gel, I was right there with him to help back the crazy critter off. I called the run when it was apparent that calf was not going to quit no matter how many times Gel bit him. That's much harder to do when the dog is 200 or 300 yards away and a cow or cattle are running up over him. Tough dog or not, cattle are much bigger than a dog and if they want to injure the dog, they are going to.

There are people in this World who use dogs to move cattle on a daily basis. Their dogs are a necessity to these people. Trialing on cattle is not a necessity for me. I don't need to prove to anyone that my dog is tough or skilled enough to work cattle. Gel is much to precious to risk.

Videos

2008-03-26T10:00:00.003-04:00

Since I'm not going to agility tonight, which is probably a good thing given that I need to move my ElectroNet, I thought I might set my video camera up on a tripod and do a video of Gel's work out in the field. It's supposed to be a beautiful day, 70 degrees and sunny. The forecast for the next few days is supposed to be just as nice. As of right now, the high on Friday is supposed to be 79 degrees. Then it cools off for the weekend and goes back up to the 70's the beginning of the week. Rain is forecast for quite a few days in the ten day forecast. Even though there is rain scheduled for Saturday (the day of the trial) I really don't care. I have rain gear. After last year's drought, I'll take rain any way we can get it.

The sheep finished "mowing" my agility field so when I move the ElectroNet, I plan to reset my jumps and do more work with Fern over the next few days. I mentioned in the post I wrote earlier that it's amazing that Gel will still work after all I've done to him in my ignorance. Agility isn't much better, well, it is better because I had more instruction for agility than I have in herding. One "hole" in Gel's agility performance is that he's not terribly tight in his turns, because I didn't insist on that during training. Fern can turn on a dime and I plan to make sure that remains our criteria in agility training.

I enjoy training my dogs and am glad that I have such neat dogs to work with.

Just a couple of dogs

2008-03-26T06:53:00.006-04:00

It is so much easier just having a couple of dogs. It enables me to do more with each dog, to enter more trials and clinics, and, most importantly, to keep sane.

I scheduled another cattle lesson the weekend of April 12 and if all goes well in that lesson, I might enter the USBCHA cattle trial held at the same location the next weekend, just one day. I know I said earlier I wasn't going to enter Gel in cattle trials, but I think the cattle in this trial are going to be extremely light. Light we can deal with; fight we'd rather not. If after the lesson I don't feel like I can manage the cattle at distance, I'll just pull him. I'm sure there will be a waiting list.

The photo above was taken almost a year ago today. These were my first set of goat kids. I should not have taken the bite out of Gel when working these goats. Now that I've taken it out, I may not be able to get it back. In the next month or so I plan to pick up three goat kids for Fern to work. She's got bite in her and it isn't coming out until later when she can understand the concept. It's a wonder Gel still works with all I've done to him given my inadequacies as a trainer.

Fooled around with Fern last night with one jump. I can see I'm going to have to set another row of jump cups on all my jumps at around eight to twelve inches. Fern will probably jump 16" in competition. While she can jump 16" now, I'm not going to put that much pressure on her, at least not on a regular basis. When she's running through the fields and woods she jumps all sorts of heights and widths, so I'm not too concerned about occasionally jumping her at her jump height even though she's just seven months old. Jumping is a skill that requires muscle memory and she's certainly old enough to begin developing her jumping skills.

Oh and so much for the agility class I was going to put Fern Thursday nights in April. The instructor won't let me pay by the class. Given that I never know if I'll be able to get out of work on time to get to the class, I don't want to pay for a full series of classes and miss half of them. Unfortunately, my job is more important than dog classes. She's let me do that before, but not this time. Oh well. I can still go to classes in Salisbury on Saturdays, where it is pay as you go. These classes are more challenging anyway. Everything happens for a reason.

The "Four Dog Shuffle" and herding chickens

2008-03-25T13:31:00.004-04:00

I mentioned earlier that I'm taking care of the Landlord's Great Dane and Monty (Fern's brother) until the middle of the week. Monty was supposed to go home on Monday, but that got delayed until Wednesday. Hmmmmm, four dogs and three kennels, what do you do with the fourth?

Yesterday I left Monty out knowing he'd stick with the other dogs in their kennels, which he did. The property is almost completely fenced-in at this point so he was safe being loose. He was the one I thought would get in the least amount of trouble loose. It was a bit of a pain last night when I got home because I wanted to work Gel first, but didn't want to leave the dogs in the kennels any longer than they are normally in them during the day and of course, Monty needed to be put up. I have a 50 x 50 "fenced in" (term used loosely here, it was my first fencing project and it isn't terribly secure) down in the lower part of my property, so I put Monty, the Great Dane and Fern in there while Gel and I brought the sheep out. Fern promptly found a hole in the fence and tried to get out, but I stopped her.

I have a securely fenced area, but the chickens are in there moving manure around and I didn't want to move them out and of course the dogs would have a grand time chasing chickens if I put them in there with the chickens.

After I worked Gel, I let the dogs out and started up the ATV to take them for a run. The Great Dane doesn't know to follow the ATV like the Border Collies do and she couldn't keep up anyway. When I tried to catch her planning to put her back in a kennel until we returned, she avoided me and headed towards the area fenced in by ElectroNet. Fine, I thought, that will hold you just as well and "herded" her into the enclosure. I turned the power on just in case she decided she was going to run through the fence.

When we got back from the ATV run, I put Monty in a kennel and gave him his dinner and did the same with the Great Dane. At 9:00 I came out and brought the Great Dane down to my Landlord's cabin and crated her for the night and then brought Monty, Fern and Gel back in the house with me.

This morning, I planned a bit better. After our walk this morning, I put Monty and the Great Dane in the securely fenced-in area (the chickens were still up in their nighttime pen) until I got ready for work. When I came out, I brought both Monty and the Great Dane out of the fenced-in area, tied them in separate places and gave them their breakfast. The Great Dane has expressed a preference for meat over her kibble and my dogs think kibble is a tasty treat. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I also tied Fern so she'd stay out of the way. Then Gel and I brought the chickens out of the fenced-in area, which is no easy task. Chickens do not herd well, especially meat-bred chickens who can barely move on a normal basis. Gel is very gentle with the uncooperative chickens. If they don't move, he gently nudges them forward with his nose. The rooster, being a rooster, always has to go a different way than the hens go so we did a lot of "looking back" to retrieve the rooster.

After we got the chickens out, I put Monty and the Great Dane in the fenced-in area, put Fern up in her kennel, then went out into the side pasture to bring the sheep in. It's a three-ring circus around my house under normal circumstances, adding in two additional dogs, especially one who has no manners and is big enough to drag me all over the property or run me over if I get in her way, makes it all that much more difficult.

I don't know how people manage more than a few dogs at a time.

Over hill, over dale!

2008-03-25T09:28:00.005-04:00

Last night, after doing the "four dog shuffle" (see above) I brought the sheep into the side pasture. I've been working quite a bit in this pasture because there's quite a few natural obstacles available and there are many dips and valleys and draws to be had. I mentioned a while back that in the Ask the Expert column on the Border Collie Boards, Beverly Lambert said that instead of practicing straight outruns at home, she works on obedience and will sometimes stop a dog on his outrun and make him cross the field in the opposite direction. I did that with Gel and was able to cross him back and forth three times before he reached the sheep. He probably thought I had gone mad making him cross across the handler line like that, but he took his whistles as directed, not always on the first whistle, but always by the second without verbal back-up.

His lifts and fetches have been pretty slow lately and at this point I'm not going to worry about it. I'll see how he does in the trial on Saturday where I know the sheep will lift much quicker than my group is. When they are out in this pasture, they are much more interested in eating and less likely to run like scared deer which is the norm for this group of lambs. It's been an excellent opportunity to work on Gel's driving because he has to lean into them now to keep them moving. Gel is not used to having to lean into stock and I don't think he thinks much of it. He's used to stock moving off him just by his presence and he's not comfortable with having to back that up (yet!).

After the first fetch, I had him drive the sheep up one side of the field, between two trees and then around another tree and back to me. The terrain can be a bit rough in this field so both sheep and dog were doing a fair amount of ditch and brush jumping. It is so much fun to watch him moving those sheep around with nothing but whistle commands and he's getting so much more confident in his work. I spent a good half hour out there with him traversing the field.

I don't fool myself, Gel isn't perfect, he still has a lot of holes in his training and abilities and I'm sure these holes will become clear as day after the trial on Saturday. I haven't trialed USBCHA in almost a year now. I'm glad we took this time off, that we were able to get together with an instructor who can help us both, and that I've been doing the arena trials. It should all pay off in the end.

A restful weekend.

2008-03-24T13:26:00.003-04:00

It was awfully nice to have a pretty free and easy weekend for a change. I was even able to take a couple of short naps on Sunday. I still got quite a bit done too.

I am taking care of my Landlord's Great Dane until Thursday of this week. Gosh, how can anyone live with such a big dog? Her crate is set up in their cabin which is down by the pond, but last night, I tried to bring her in the house with the plan to put her in my x-pen with a dog bed to lie on, but she couldn't climb the stairs to my house. She stumbles and falls a lot too. I don't know if it's because she's still young (eight months old) or there's something wrong with her. The Border Collies run circles around her when they are out together. In addition to the Great Dane, I have Monty until tomorrow. This morning I had to play musical dogs to get them settled for the day.

For the first time in a long time I was able to put the sheep in ElectroNet with the charge going! I was so pleased that it's working. I wasn't able to use it much of last year due to the drought. I couldn't get the posts in the ground and the charge wouldn't work properly because the ground was too dry. I watched as the sheep walked up to the fence, I'm sure with the thought in their rotten little minds "you think this is going to hold us?" and one or two touched the fence with their nose. They bounced back in a group from the shock. Yes! Life is good!

The five chickens are in the fenced-in area where I was keeping the sheep with the task of moving old hay and manure around so the grass will eventually grow back.

There's a chance I might be able to get three just weaned bull calves to keep for a few weeks. A friend of a friend has three that need to be weaned and then grained-up prior to being sold. I told him I'd be happy to keep them at my place, grain them and then I'd have daily access to cattle so that Gel and I can figure out the beasts. He'll have more that the same thing will need to be done later on so I could have a steady supply of test subjects. Heck, I might even buy one off him and have it butchered for meat for the dogs and cats.

Gosh, when I remember almost two years ago now when I got my first goat kids: seven high percentage Boer steer goats, what a mess that was! Gel knew more about stock than I did, but he was a young, pushy dog so it was usually disastrous whenever we took the "kids" out for a walk. A couple of times, they even ended up in the pond! Who knew goats could swim, but they can. Sheep can too. We've come a long way since then.

Training

2008-03-23T06:37:00.002-04:00

Lately, I've been focusing almost solely on Gel's training and except for manners and occasionally letting her go around sheep (which I'm not doing much of now), I haven't been doing much with Fern.

It's time to rectify that situation.

Smart dogs, give them an inch, they'll take a yard, Border Collies take a mile.

Fern is enrolled in a beginning agility class starting the beginning of April. I really don't want to go, but I'm going to force myself to. I need to work with Fern ...

She isn't necessarily being bad, but her obedience isn't as sharp as it once was. I used to look down on clicker training, but it is a great way to do obedience work. It used to be, when I was working her, when I asked for a sit, she'd do it quickly with focus, looking for her treat. Now it's more, "oh, I'm not sure I know what you want me to do, looking at Gel, what do I do?" Fern has inherited Midge's tendency to be overly submissive, meaning she does a lot of squirming on the floor, curling and looking at you as if you are going to beat her, even though she's never been beat in her life. I don't like this and hope she grows out of it. She's not like this on stock.

So, the goal today (Sunday) is to get some of Fern's sharpness back and make it a point to keep it there. I will be an over-achiever in our upcoming agility class, meaning, we'll do the homework so that we can progress. It wouldn't hurt to try to get Fern ready to compete in agility by the time she's two. Given her structure, that shouldn't be a problem for her.

Productive Saturday

2008-03-22T06:25:00.000-04:00

Saturday was a very productive day. Took the dogs (Monty is here too) for a run as soon as it got light, then put the puppies up in the fenced in area and worked Gel in the big field. He's getting so much more responsive on his whistles.

Then I came in and got a bit of cleaning done. I had to drive to Statesville for rabbits and planned it so I could catch a butcher shop in Taylorsville (May's Meats) right as they were ready to close. May's Meats has very good chicken and often on Saturdays right before closing they mark the chicken down half price. It's hit or miss, sometimes there isn't a lot of chicken left and they don't mark it down and sometimes there's lots of chicken. I hit it right and left with a huge box full of chicken breast at about $1/pound and a good-sized box of beef bones.

I meet my rabbit supplier in Lowe's parking lot in Statesville. Prior to meeting her, I went into Lowes and bought 15 bags of drainage rock. Fern has dug a few holes in her run and I wanted to fill the holes with rock (if I filled them with dirt, she'd just dig it out again) and intended to put some rock at the base of the stairs going into my house to cut down on the amount of mud being tracked in. When it rains (glorious rain!) puddles form at the base of the stairs.

Putting 15 bags of rock into a sedan is not a good idea! Luckily I was going back home through back roads in order to get to May's Meats so I drove slow.

Got home and put the rock down. It looks good! Unloaded the meat and rabbits then started picking up and organizing outside. It's been very windy lately and stuff was everywhere. Then set three rolls of ElectroNet ... can I tell you how nice it is to be able to set my ElectroNet? Ever since May of last year, it has been so dry and the ground was so hard, I was unable to get the stakes in the ground. I set it around my agility field so I can put the sheep in there during the day when I'm at work so they can mow the area and I won't have to move equipment to do it with the lawn mower.

Then my landlords came over and dropped off their Great Dane whom I'll have through Thursday of next week. I can do without Great Danes. The only benefit of a dog that big is that you don't have to lean over to reach her collar.

As I write this, Nettie (one of my cats) is resting her head on my wrist (it's hard to type with a cat on your wrist), Gel and Fern are lying at my feet.

Life is good.

Fleas and ticks and worms oh my!

2008-03-21T10:54:00.001-04:00

It's funny how things happen. I meant to ask one of my friends who is more up on various drugs than I am if there were any new drugs out for flea and tick prevention on dogs and cats. I had had read on various mailing lists that fleas and ticks were becoming resistant to the brands of flea and tick preventatives that are available. Last night I saw on television a commercial for ProMeris, a new flea and tick preventative. ProMeris uses metaflumizone (a compound that fleas have not become resistant to [yet]) to kill fleas and Amitraz (not a new compound, but previously only available as a collar or dip) to kill ticks.

And talk about timing, I saw on a mailing list today that there's now a new drug for worming livestock because worms have become resistant to the three major classes of wormers normally used. Good thing we have scientists who are researching new chemicals to kill worms, fleas and ticks.

You have to wonder what the long-lasting effect of all these chemicals is going to be. It seems a much more viable approach to work with the underlying health of the animal, to make it more resistant to worms and parasites than to douse it with chemical after chemical after chemical. Parasites are not going to go away, no matter how many new chemicals are developed.

Happy Spring!

2008-03-20T14:42:00.003-04:00

Spring has sprung! We got a good amount of rain yesterday afternoon into the evening. It is so nice to see puddles and green grass growing. Last year's drought was hard on everyone. I hope it doesn't happen again any time soon. This year, as soon as we can get it, Wally and I will put up as many bales of hay as we can fit into his barn. Handling square bales is much easier than those huge 800 pound things.

I sent in another entry for a USBCHA trial held the end of May in Lawndale, NC. This is a nice trial, especially nice because it's only 25 miles from me. If gas keeps going up like it has been, I'll have to cut down on long trips. My car gets about 33 miles to the gallon, which is good, but having to spend $35 to fill the tank is getting pricey. I can only imagine what people who drive diesel vehicles or SUVs are paying. USBCHA trials are still filling, at least the Open classes are, but I don't know if that will continue if gas keeps going up. I don't know how they can afford it.

I cancelled my April sheep lesson in Sanford. I need to come up with the entry fees for the next ASCA trial and then the clinic and private lesson fee for the end of June so I need to conserve funds. I think after the clinic in June I'm going to take a couple of months off from traveling and trialing. I am a home-body. I don't like being away from home. While I have enjoyed the past few trials I've done, it is exhausting for me. I don't think I'll ever develop a tolerance for long road trips. I don't like sitting still for that long.

In addition, if all goes well, I'll have a new puppy around the middle to end of June. A local woman asked to use Gel as stud. I am not actively studding him out, he isn't that good, but the bitch that the woman wanted to breed him to is impeccably bred so I agreed. Her father is a USBCHA National Champion. Her mother was a hard working farm dog owned by a hard-core handler, one who only accepts the very best of working dogs, everything else is "petted out." The bitch has produced at least four dogs who made it to the National finals. Both dogs are dead now so the lines are no longer available. The bitch Gel bred is eight and this will be her last litter. I had a puppy off her before Midge got pregnant that I sold because I knew I couldn't handle a four month old puppy and a litter of new puppies. I wish I hadn't sold her, but now I have the opportunity to get the lines again, assuming the bitch took. The woman who owns the bitch really should have gone out to an Open (USBCHA Open trial) dog, but she wanted to use Gel so that was fine with me.

I am hoping to get from the cross something similar that I have in Fern, a bit more toughness and resiliency, intensity and tenacity, tempered with Gel's biddability and temperament. The bitch has a very nice temperament. I've only seen her on stock once and she is a strong, driven dog. She had a good amount of style too. The bitch is white-factored so I expect the puppies will have a bit more white on them than Midge's litter did. The great thing is, the puppies won't be vaccinated in the customary manner. In her last litter, one puppy suffered a severe vaccine reaction which scared the woman enough such that she won't vaccinate another dog or puppy, except for what is required by law of course. The puppy (now a year old) still hasn't recovered completely. They will be weaned on kibble, but if I take the puppy at seven to nine weeks old, I can get him on raw right away.

We'll see what comes of it.

Sunday Trial

2008-03-18T15:29:00.003-04:00

The weather was much nicer on Sunday. If only the cattle were as well. They had plenty of hay to consume overnight so they didn't look quite as thin on Sunday as they did on Saturday. Unfortunately, one of the cows died over night. It's quite disconcerting to come to a trial arena early in the morning and see a dead cow lying there. I feel bad for the cattle and sheep to have had to stay in the same area with the dead cow all night.

The first cattle run didn't go well. We couldn't get the group away from the exhaust. Oh well, another one bites the dust. Our pattern has been the morning cattle runs go bad and the afternoons go better so there was still hope that we'd obtain another Open leg.

The duck run didn't go all that well either. I think Gel was a bit tired, or maybe he was feeling my fatigue. His work was not as sharp and precise as it should be. We still qualified (although we didn't need the leg) with a score of 107. They did the duck runs back to back so that the trial wouldn't go as late as it did Saturday night. Gel didn't work much better on the second run and we received a score of 91.

Because there were duck runs available and the ducks were fetching nicely (in general, ducks don't fetch, they need to be driven) I decided to put Fern in Started ducks. They were not pretty runs, well, they weren't as bad as a lot of the other Started runs, but Fern had a ball. We qualified in one run and missed qualifying by one point in the second. The judge for the first run wrote in the comments section of my score sheet "nice puppy, great sense of group" and sought me out afterwards to compliment her.

When it came time to go in for the sheep runs, I decided to use my whistle rather than verbal commands. I'm glad I did. The first sheep run was picture perfect. I don't think it could have gone much better. We received a score of 121 (the highest score you can get is 125). We got 117 on our second sheep run. Sunday was a good sheep day.

It was not a good cattle day. In the last cattle run, the cattle came out of the take pen and bolted to the hay that was left over in the arena. While I understand it is common practice, it seems to me leaving leftover hay in a trial arena is not good practice. Gel hit those cows numerous times and we moved them off the hay, but we didn't get them going very far before they bolted back for the hay. It's awfully hard pushing starving cows off food. Gel came out of the arena with cow hair in his mouth. He actually went up over the top of one cow and bit it at the top of its head. It didn't matter, the only thing that we could do to get them to come off that hay was to open up the pen for them to go back to their buddies.

Even with three botched (no scores) cattle runs we still went high in trial for the weekend. We went high in trial in sheep in all four shows and ducks in two of the four. In addition to a rosette, I received a gorgeous hand-tooled leather belt buckle. It has a Celtic design of a cow and dog. The neat thing is, the dog looks more like a Border Collie than it does an Aussie. I met a lot of really nice people and had a wonderful time. Even though they tried to get through with the trial early, I didn't leave until 7:30. I drove for a little more than an hour, then decided to get a hotel room and finish my return trip Monday morning. I stopped at Red Creek Farm on the way home and rented sheep which was fun.

I toyed with entering Fern in the next ASCA trial in Started sheep and ducks, but after working her at Red Creek Farm, I've decided to shelf her stock work unless I'm working with an experienced handler for a few months. She's running much too hot right now and I don't want to put too much pressure on her. I don't want to take any of the keeness out of her and I certainly don't want to spend any more time in a field getting run down by sheep because Fern is doing everything at wharp speed. Fern will go back to agility for the next few months. I'll wait until after the clinic with Alasdair Macrae to really get her going.

Back to the drawing board for Gel and I as far as cattle are concerned. Last year at this time, I was saying I couldn't understand sheep and they drove us nuts. Now I feel pretty comfortable around sheep (and ducks). We'll figure out cattle in due time. I know the cattle in the next trial I plan to go to will be reasonable. I've been told so my reputable sources. Even though I do not need any more sheep or duck legs, I'll enter all the runs again. If I'm going up there, I might as well take advantage of the training opportunities arena trialing offers. In the next trial, they are running Course B on Saturday and Course A on Sunday. I haven't done Course B yet so that will be a new challenge. There is a gather in Course B and a center pen vs. a Y chute. Can I tell you how hard it is to get ducks through a Y chute?

I have learned a lot in these two trials. Trialing in an arena is sharping my handling skills. You need to be able to read stock and react much quicker in an arena setting where things can go wrong in a heart beat. They can go wrong on a USBCHA trial field as well, but generally you have a bit more time and space to correct the problem.

We are running in a USBCHA trial on March 29 at Red Creek Farm. I e-mailed the trial manager to see if I could run in Open Ranch noncompete. Hopefully she'll let me. Gel may not be up for that length of a drive yet, but he can handle the outrun, lift and fetch. He's familiar with working on that field and the sheep at Red Creek are very nice. I'd love to move Gel through Pro-Novice sooner rather than later and get him into Open Ranch and then leave him there for a year or two. He'll do better in a bigger field.

Germs and worms and the Boogeyman

2008-03-18T14:42:00.002-04:00

Last year a neighbor's Chihuahua tested positive for heartworm ("HW") and was treated conventionally. He survived the treatment. A few weeks ago, the same neighbor's hound dog tested positive and was treated conventionally, but didn't survive. The neighbor was very upset about loosing him. When I saw her this weekend, I told her that there were gentler methods of treating HW and should it happen again, to let me know and I'd point her in the right direction. She recently had their last dog, a Shepherd/Collie mix tested and she's positive. She's going in next week for conventional treatment.

Conventional treatment for heartworm is very, very expensive (close to $1,000), time consuming and hard on the dog. The Collie/Shepherd mix is a pretty high-strung dog and keeping her confined after the treatment is going to be difficult. I wish my neighbor would have at least considered alternative methods, but that isn't going to happen.

I do not give monthly heartworm poison (Heartworm medicine is not a preventative, it is a poison. It works by killing larvae (not the adults worms) in an infected dog.) to my dogs. My landlady was quite appalled by this. Mosquitoes and HW have been around for a long time. Healthy animals will have a natural resistance to HW. If not, then wild canines would not survive as a species given that they are not given monthly HW medicine. Should my dogs ever test positive, I'd treat them using either homeopathy or an herbal product or both.

Interestingly, my other neighbor who has numerous outside dogs had all of his tested at the same time and none of them were positive. He's not giving HW medicine, but that's due to the cost of the medicine, not alternative thinking. It is not cheap. Many farmers give their dogs monthly shots of the Ivermectin (also used as a livestock wormer) which works on the same principle as HW medication that that veterinarians sell such as Revolution. The problem with this is some breeds of dogs like Australian Shepherds and Collies are sensitive to Ivermectin and can die from taking it.

Here is an interesting article on the life cycle of the type of mosquito who can pass HW larvae from dog to dog.

I think, however, just to keep the peace, I'll call my landlady and tell her I had a change of heart and have decided to give my dogs monthly poison so they don't get HW. It's always better, whenever possible, to play the game.

Wild Ride!

2008-03-17T08:34:00.002-04:00

As I write this it is almost 9:00 AM on Monday, I'm still in Georgia.

I left for Georgia at 1:30 AM Saturday AM. I considered leaving Friday night, but given the weather forecast of severe thundershowers, I decided to leave Saturday morning. Given that Atlanta was hit with a tornado Friday evening (I had to drive close to Atlanta to get to where I was going) I'm glad I left Saturday AM.

As it was, when I got close to the trial grounds, I ran into a severe thundershower. It was so heavy, I lost the satellite signal on my GPS. I was on back country roads that were quickly flooding and of course it was still dark. Luckily I saw a sign for the arena and managed to get there.

You know those things that you do not realize how you lived without them once you have them? The GPS is one of them. They prices have come down considerably on GPS. I bought a Garmin Nuvi 200 and highly recommend it.

Once it got light and the rain stopped, I pitched my car tent (a Kelty car tarp, something I recommend as well) and settled in.

The first run of the day was on cattle. Oh, those cows, they looked like walking skeletons and some were obviously sick. It was a mix-match of all different breeds of cattle. I was told that the cattle were coming from a feed lot and were used to being moved daily by dogs and humans. Well, one of the cows in my group, a Guernsey bull calf, had issues with dogs. He kept running up over the top of Gel.

Gel is not the strongest dog in the world and he hasn't had a lot of experience working cattle. Nor have I. We tried, he hit that cow several times, but it didn't make a difference. I called the run. After that run, said calf (Butthead) was pulled from the trial. In hindsight, I should have asked for a re-run, but I didn't know enough to.

The first sheep and duck runs went very well. Gel obtained an ATD leg on sheep and ducks with those runs.

I was keeping an eye on the sky because I knew more thunderstorms were scheduled for the day. It was getting darker and darker and the winds were picking up. I elected to take my car tent down and I'm glad I did. At about 1 PM (I guess, I have no idea what time it was) sirens started going off. We were under a tornado warning.

Most everyone went into the building on the trial grounds that housed a kitchen and restrooms. About seven of us decided to stay down under the arena cover with our dogs and the stock. I wasn't going to put my dogs in my car with a tornado coming. I have never seen it rain so hard or the wind blow like it did. I found out this morning that the tornado was four miles from the trial site. Even Gel was scared. I've never seen Gel scared of anything before. The heavy rain and wind went on for about an hour which delayed the afternoon trial.

After the storm, the ducks were very skittish and difficult to work, but we obtained our second ATD leg in ducks. Then we went back to the cattle. I drew another Guernsey bull calf (Beavis). This time, we managed to get our group around the course, but not with a lot of stand downs between Gel and that Guernsey. Gel is great, he will stand nose to nose with a cow and not back down. What he needs to learn to do is if the cow doesn't move off him, then bite the sucker on the nose! The Guernsey did turn off him and move on. Good for Gel. Beavis was pulled from the trial after that run.

Our sheep run was very good and we finished our ATD title in both sheep and ducks for that day.

We went HIT in both trials on sheep and HIT in ducks in the morning trial.

More later ...

Form Follows Function

2008-03-12T14:18:00.003-04:00

This is the term conformation people use to describe the differences between breeds of dogs depending upon what they were bred to do. It is also is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th Century, which states that the shape of a building or object should be predicated by or based upon its intended function or purpose. (Wikipedia).

The reality is that the dogs (and for this post I'm speaking of Border Collies, but the same applies to many different breeds) that you see in the show ring are not structurally suited to do the work they were bred for. If you look at the dog who won Best of Breed this year at Westminster and compare it to photos of the dog who won this year's USBCHA National Finals it is like they are two different breeds. What is most interesting is the link on Westminster describing the Border Collie features a photo of a working-bred Border Collie, not a puffy black and white thing like the dog who won Best of Breed. While a few of the Border Collies who are being shown in conformation might be able to move sheep around an arena (a/k/a obedience on sheep), most could not herd themselves out of a paper bag, or as was so eloquently put in the Blog, Lassie Get Help, a dog that couldn't herd lemmings off a cliff.

On the Aussie-Herders list at Yahoo Groups they are discussing whether working-bred Aussies should be showing in the conformation rings. Pretty is as pretty does and if you can breed a pretty Aussie who can work to the same level as one who for the past five or six generations has been bred solely based on the work it does on a farm or ranch, then so be it. Yes, a working dog needs to be sound and in any breeding program, attention should be paid to structure, but the structure of most show dogs is not going to hold up to a hard, daily work on a farm or ranch. The working-bred dogs, especially the Aussies, tend to be plainer in appearance than the show-bred Aussies who are bred for flash. There are some butt-ugly Border Collies out there successfully trialing, but I think any Border Collie, when it is working, is beautiful. There are also some very flashy Border Collies on the trial field. Alasdair Macrae's National Champion Ben is a perfect example of this. Interestingly, you won't see a dog colored like Ben in the conformation ring. They prefer the perfectly marked dogs like the one who one Best of Breed in Westminster.

I'm quite anti-conformation showing. Whenever an animal is bred for an appearance that satisfies the general public, it is to the detriment of the breed. When I think of all the years I showed purebred cats I shudder. When I compare my random bred cats to my ex-show cats it upsets me that I ever thought it was a good idea to manipulate an animal that is so perfect as it is to a form that suited humans.

I need a truck.

2008-03-12T13:59:00.002-04:00

On my way to work this morning I stopped at a feed store to get some hay. The grass is growing and soon I won't have to feed hay, but given that I'm going to be away this weekend and my sheep will have to stay up in their fenced-in area, I wanted to be sure there was plenty of hay available to them. Since putting one bale of hay in my car was going to make as much mess as four bales, that's what I bought. I can only imagine the mess I'm going to have to vacuum out of the car after I take the hay out. What I do for these animals.

As I mentioned a while back, I bought a Kawasaki Bayou 250 ATV the beginning of the year. I use it to exercise my dogs, search for lost sheep and haul things around in the wagon that attaches to it. It is a very useful vehicle, when it works. I researched the Bayou before I bought it and could not find any posted issues with the ATV. Well, this one seems to have issues. It's been back to the dealership three times now. I just got it back on Saturday and it seems to be running well. On Sunday I was pulling onto my property when I saw a hot air balloon in the sky. I stopped the ATV, turned the engine off and yelled for my landlady (who was down at the cabin) to come and see what was in the sky. We walked out into the field to watch the balloon as it passed by. I left the ATV where I stopped it, the engine was off, but the key was turned on so when I tried to start it last night to take the dogs for a run, the battery was dead.

I am too stupid to own an ATV.

Thank goodness for good neighbors. I walked up to the neighbor's house knowing he'd likely have a battery charger, which he did. We hooked it up and charged it overnight. Hopefully it will be okay tonight so I can run the dogs. They very much need the exercise.

The time has come to either tie Fern up when I'm tending to the stock or keep her out of their enclosures when I'm in there. She's obsessed with working and I'm tired of having to call her off. I knew eventually this would happen. Oh well, time to drag out the chains and put them in various places around the property to contain her as necessary. Either that or just tie her to me. This morning was a particular pain in the butt. I have the four hens and the rooster in the sheep pen. When I went into the sheep pen to let the chickens out and fill up their water, I left the gate open and of course Fern came in and started messing with the chickens. The rooster and one hen came out of the sheep pen at the same time the sheep came up to look for grain (greedy beasts!). I tried to get Gel to put up just the chickens and ignore the sheep, but that wasn't happening. Meanwhile, Fern is just getting in the way and everytime I called her off, Gel called off too. Gel seems to think his name is Fern. I gave in and let Gel put up the sheep and then sent him back for the rooster and hen. Then I went into the duck pen and filled up their grain feeders. When I came out, I didn't shut the gate all the way and five ducks got out. Luckily, these five were not ones who know about the pond and they stuck around until I got Gel to put them back up. Of course Fern didn't have a collar on this morning so I could tie her out which was a pain in the butt. Finally, I had everyone settled and could go to work.

I am too stupid to have Border Collies.