Desert Happenings

Today we went out to the dessert to work the sheep on BLM land. I was a bit nervous not being sure if I would ever see sheep or dog again, but I need not have worried. Rave performed beautifully. And I was surprised that the sheep did not seem a bit nervous or flighty about being dumped in a strange place. They did stay grouped well but went to grazing and looked relaxed.

My first few outruns I stayed pretty close and went half way. All went well. Rave of course not going out anywhere near as wide or far as the BC's. They truely went WAY out. But Rave was able to approach the sheep without disturbing them or causing them to get nervous. We drove them around awhile with me staying real close. Did a few more outruns and retired before something went wrong. We then watched the BC's run. Pretty amazing. There is one young dog that they are very excited about. I guess he has tons of potential and it was fun to watch him.

On our second turn I got a bit braver and asked for a longer outrun. staying just in front of her as I sent her. She handled it well, not as wide as I would like but she stayed calm in her demeanour and the sheep trusted her. Maybe to much. We got quite close to them on the drive which made it a bit hard to steer. I pulled her back some and one sheep challenged. She met it without busting to bad and we where able to drive around. Again I was to chicken to get to far from her. I asked Dianne if she thought Rave had it in her to do a bigger outrun and she said without a doubt. So I will continue to ask for more distance, if I can figure out how

Accomplisments, Goals and Plans

• Ask more of Rave
• Work on squaring the inside flank
• Trust her more
• Work on the stop