A Nice Day In Spite Of.....

Well, I made it over to my friends house yesterday. The camaraderie was great, it was a beautiful day to spend out doors, ( my sun burned face can attest to that) and all in all, I think we all had a good time. I just wished Id have brought some one Else's dogs!
All 3 that I brought, really had some issues that need to be addressed before we go harassing anyone Else's sheep.
Roy, I think is just a stock dog flunky. I feel that the vaccination damage has really made him way to hyper sensitive, so much so, that he just stays so worried about everything, that he cant keep it together. Despite this, he is a wonderful and polite dog to be around, and has his manners all in the right place. He will make a wonderful "pet" but useless as a stock dog.
I really don't know what had come over Stella. She did good, after she got her head together. But it was almost like a horse, she should have been lunged before she was ridden. In her defence, she really needs pretty dogged sheep, (knee knockers) at this stage of her training to give her a little more confidence, but she is a smart pup, and I think she'll come around just fine in her due time.
Chris now, she is a whole nother story. I was so ashamed of her little land shark behavior. She had several of the sheep showing blood, before my friend Julie took her in hand and gave her a good lesson in using her brain. Chris is a very reactive little dog, and as much as she aims to please, she kinda looses her mind when she gets into the "kill zone". Mind you, the sheep gave her what was her due, and she was the one that in the end came out of the round pen limping and bloody. She had dove under the sheep and through their legs, rather than to pick them up off the fence, and got stomped but good for it. She also ended up biting her tongue pretty good, which bled a good bit. Outside of a bit of a limp today, she seems fine, so no worse for the wear. I wonder/worry about the poor sheep though.
I have called a neighbor today who has lots more sheep than I do and arranged to do some packed pen work, as Julie and I concur that this little issue seems to stem from fear. I have every confidence that with help, Chris will work this out and continue on with her training just fine and hopefully she and I will be trialing by fall.
I brought my burdizzo (look it up!) so that Julie could try it out on a couple of her ram lambs. I thought my lambs were big last week when I had to pick them up, but hers, the same age as mine, are definitely bigger and stronger! It was all I could do to hold the one I held for her once she got down to business with the burdizzo.
Another friend Laura was there with her little crew. ( us gals and our dogs! ) Its so nice to see that she is starting to live again, and enjoy life. We both have had man issues and can so relate to each other, and its always good to have another woman you can complain about your man to and they understand.
After I got home, I took my Lexy girl out and gave her a break from the pups and let her work the sheep for a bit. It was very refreshing after the catastrophes of the day with the younger less experienced/less trained dogs. Though in their defence again, it is my lack of daily work/and training, that they suffer from the most. So, I had to take a long look at my training program, or lack of actually having one in place, and really commit to stopping this hit and miss, do it every now and then way of doing things, and start to make a real effort to get these dogs back on track.
Vacations over, time to buckle down. I actually had to promise my friend I wouldn't bring Chris back to her place ever again, till she leaned how to be kinder to her stock. In all the dogs Ive had, Ive never had to say that to some one. It wasn't a good feeling.
So, time to get off this computer, and go work dogs!