12-22-09

Acton (40°)

MO
2 runs and she went full out for both. Got the sheep off the sticky fence with her usual style, a difficult thing to do, and she would single out one sheep and just run it down like crazy, like a cutting horse or something. Developmentally the next thing to get is some focus, but for now she’s showing tremendous progress and we’re going to let her keep coming up on her own schedule.

Stevie
The first time we went out when she wasn’t in heat or sick with a stomach virus and she was on fire. We practiced outruns which she did well except for cutting over at the last minute. Even though she crossed over she would still get nicely behind the sheep and turn right on 12 o’clock and head back, except after the turn she would start to speed up and basically just get to a flat out run. She’d get going so fast that she would pretty much overrun the sheep and end up completely off balance and if the handler doesn’t run up and into her she’d probably keep going until she passed everyone in the ring.

We worked on moving the sheep around and coming off for “That’ll do” and she did great. On her second run we practiced “lie down” which she picked up quickly (long story short, up until now “lie down” meant stand and “stand” meant stand).

We also did a little practice on keeping out of the sheep – circling around clockwise and counter-clockwise. She keeps her head out most of the time, but is a bit resistant to moving far out from the sheep.

We need to work on timing a bit and giving a well-timed “there” as well as getting her to “take time” much better. Once those are going well and the “lie down” is consistent I think we’ll start practicing courses and see about squaring up her flanks.