Yesterday we went out to Dianne's place and worked in the open field on young, dog broke lambs. It has been a long time, last fall, since we have worked in the open. We started with a short outrun and then did some driving around the field. Me paralleling and slightly behind Rave. It went better than I expected except that Rave had a bit of trouble getting the sheep to move, getting right up on top of them. I am wondering if this is because they where this springs lambs. They where weaned of course but still very lamb like in appearance. By the way, a Scottish Blackface lamb is about the cutest thing you can imagine! Rave may have powered way down for these guys as she doesn't see lambs as something to work, but as something to take care of. When we went through the flock this spring a Roy's house on our way to the arena Rave would stop to clean lamb faces. And although the mothers watched carefully they seemed to know that Rave meant no harm and didn't try to stop her. Maybe, maybe not. It will be interesting to see how it goes as we work them more often.
On our second turn we concentrated on outruns. Rave had to pick them up off of a dog and handler. She has done this only a very few times in the past and it was pretty much a new experience for her. Dianne wants me to be able to just use body pressure while standing still to push her out. I have been walking into her to do so. Not quite sure how to get this done. I need to get her much more responsive to voice corrections. Again not sure how to accomplish this. Well I will struggle on and see if we can 'get er done'.
Great Job Lindy and Rave, I was impressed by both the length of your outruns and the distance Rave maintained from her stock on the outrun, lift and fetch.
ReplyDeleteWay to go, Rave!! Did you get to any beef cattle? It would be so fun to watch you and Rave work. Enjoying reading your description of working and old man winter. Sounds like you both are doing really really well.
ReplyDelete