Posts from — December 2007

Does anyone ever keep them? I’ve thought of a couple: one, keep my “yard” neat and clean (looking at the videos I took of Gel weaving made me realize it looks like trailer trash lives there); two, train my dogs every day, even if it’s only five minutes a day; and three, keep my mouth shut so I stay out of trouble. They all seem to be reasonable changes. Maybe I can keep them, well, maybe not about keeping my mouth shut.

Monty went home today so it’s just Fern and Gel now which is a good thing. It’s hard taking care of a dog that has been living under different rules. I run a pretty tight ship with my dogs.

There was an interesting discussion recently on the Clean Run mailing list about running contacts. A poster stated that she believed that teaching running contacts was as simple as starting with a puppy whose strides are smaller so you have a 100% success rate, click for a certain foot position and gradually work this into full-sized equipment. It sure seems like she’s correct, in theory. This poster has trained one dog: a Sheltie. I think training running contacts for a small dog would be a lot easier than a large dog. Monica Percival replied to the post stating that the difficulty or ease of training running contacts really depends on the dog and its particular stride length. She also said that to her, a running contact is the dog moving over the contact obstacle at the same running stride he uses to move across the ground, which I agree with.

The kicker with running contacts, or any contact or performance on other equipment is that it may look good at home or in training class, but once the dog has been to a few shows and gets pumped by the experience, the behavior deteriorates. I discovered that with Gel’s weave poles at the last show.

I stated a while ago that I felt that I didn’t need to train contacts because I felt they were solid. Well, guess what? Gel has done a few teeter fly-offs while in training and his contact performance can be slow, so I guess I should be training contacts at least once a week. There have been times in class where his contact performance is fast, but when that is the case, he doesn’t stop at the end. I think to myself, maybe I could do a running contact with him, I’d really to because I don’t like him stopping at the end of the dog walk and especially the A-frame. His directional commands are pretty solid. Maybe …

Given her structure, I think I’ll train a 2-on; 2-off (”2O2O”) contact with Fern, teaching her to stay low in the 2O2O position.

I expect a lot of people have no clue the amount of training that goes into a competitive agility dog.

In the afternoon on Christmas Eve I came home from running a few errands and put the sheep (lambs really, they are all sheep less than a year old) out into the back pasture that I rent. The pasture is not fenced, but I’ve done this many, many times over the past six months and the lambs know the area and where they live. Under normal circumstances, I would have my ElectroNet fencing set to contain them, but because we are in a drought, the ground is too hard to get the stakes in and the electricity doesn’t work correctly with the ground being so dry. Without a proper current running through the fence, the lambs push through it, get tangled in it and ruin it.

I went back in the house for a few minutes, then came out and was videotaping Gel’s weave pole training. While doing the video taping, I looked out into the field and didn’t see the lambs, so I cut the video taping short and went out in the back fields with Gel and the two puppies. The sheep were not in the pasture I left them in so sent Gel up towards my neighbor (Red’s) house. He was gone for a while so I started to walk up that way thinking the sheep had gone into a paddock or a building and Gel was having trouble getting them out. The sheep have the tendency to head up to Red’s because my landlord runs a Christmas tree farm there and during the season, I bring sheep and goats up there for the children who come with their parents to feed bread to. They are a big hit with the children. After the Christmas tree farm is closed for the season, I bring the livestock home, but whenever they get the chance, they go back up there looking for handouts.

Gel came back to me a couple of times after I sent him, without the sheep, and each time, I resent him thinking he got distracted while up there. When I got up to Red’s, I discovered the lambs were not there. Gel has retrieved sheep from Red’s house many, many times so I know he’s more than capable of doing it. I left Red’s and went back around through the other pastures looking for the sheep. There is about 100 acres of fields and woods behind where I live. Some of it owned and just open pasture land, the rest conservation property which abuts the South Fork River.

I walked through all the pastures and circled back up to Red’s house thinking I had missed the sheep somehow. They still weren’t there. Red pulled into the driveway the second time I arrived at his house so I asked if we could go out with his four-wheeler and look for the sheep. I put the puppies up in a run at his house and we headed out again with Gel looking for the sheep. By this time, I was starting to worry. It was full daylight so I wasn’t worrying too much about predators, but …

The last pasture we went into is the furthest one away from my house. You have to enter into the pasture via a roadway cut through woods which normally are swampy, but because of the drought, they are dry. The pasture hasn’t been mowed in several years and except for a few pathways cut through the field, is full of brush and thorns well over my head. Right about the time I sent out looking for the sheep, my landlady had gone down in the pastures to walk her dog (a Great Dane) and this is where we ran into her. As we approached my landlady, Gel ran past her into the woods, which was odd in itself because he usually greets her enthusiastically. She said he’s after something, but I thought he was simply going down to the river for a drink.

Shortly after Gel went into the woods, he returned with the sheep! How the heck they ended up there was beyond me. In thinking about it though, I’m willing to bet a single deer or herd of deer got scared out of their cover, ran through the pasture the sheep were in and the sheep followed. Where Gel found the sheep was a logical place for deer to have run. The deer would cross the river, sheep, under normal conditions, would not have.

Unfortunately, as Gel brought the sheep out of the woods, my landlady’s dog started chasing them. They went into the field (remember, brush and thorns over my head) with Gel trying to head them. My landlady managed to call her dog off and Gel got the sheep turned around so that we could head back home.

Unfortunately, while on the road that cuts through the woods out of the pasture, three of the sheep decided they’d rather go back into the woods. Gel went after them. We waited for a while for him to bring them back out. I called him numerous times, but go no response. We decided to continue on into the next pasture with the hope that Gel had come out the other side with the sheep and to make sure the rest of the flock went back home.

Gel was not to be seen so we pushed the rest of the sheep back home and into their fenced-in area.

We went back for Gel. I called and called and called, with no response. By that time, Red had to leave to go to dinner with his family. We went back to my house to see if by chance Gel had returned. He didn’t. By then, my landlady and her daughter were at my house with their golf cart. We put up the Great Dane and headed back down to find Gel. By this time, I was starting to get worried that the sheep had gone down to the river and fell in, Gel was in there with them trying to get them back out. We got to the place where Gel went into the woods after the three sheep. I went in there to try to retrace his steps while my landlady and her daughter went further up the road into the brushy field to call there. A few minutes later, Gel came out of the woods. He saw me and when I asked him where the sheep were, he immediately went back into the woods. I followed him, but had to call him back to me numerous times because he was traveling through the woods much faster than I could.

Finally we found one of the sheep. She was stuck fast in a thicket of thorns. We managed to get her untangled and carried her back to the golf cart, hog-tied her and put her in the back of the golf cart. Gel went back for the other two and brought them back out. By then, both the sheep and Gel were exhausted and trying to move two lambs (even though they are pretty well dog broke) by themselves is difficult under the best of circumstances. Instead of trying to get them back (which would have meant traveling through the field with the tall brush and thorns and then the path through the woods where they originally escaped) we caught them. By this time, Red had returned (he missed out on going to dinner with his family) and helped us catch the two sheep. We hog-tied the second sheep and put her in the back of the golf cart and I held the third in my lap. These lambs are approximately six-month old Dorpers so the one fit in my lap pretty well. Luckily, they were so exhausted that they didn’t struggle much on the way home. Luckily, the golf cart didn’t get stuck or run out of power before we got home.

Gel could have left the sheep that was suck in the thorns and returned home with the two loose ones, but he refused to leave the stuck one and somehow managed to keep the other two from leaving the proximity. I know he was trying to get the stuck sheep out, but I don’t think she could have escaped on her own. We had to cut the thorns away from her. If it were not for Gel, I don’t think I would have found those sheep. As a Border Collie, this is really all in a day’s work, but that doesn’t make me appreciate his help any less. He really is a useful dog.

Here are two photos of Finn and his housemates taken December 24 in wintery Canada.

Okay, I took a few decent photos, mostly of Fern as she was much more cooperative about photo-taking than Monty. I intended to take more, but we spent the afternoon fishing sheep out of the woods. More on that later. Prior to sheep hunting, I took two videos of Gel weaving (with Fern and Monty screaming in the background). Glad Blogger now allows video uploading so I don’t need to deal with Youtube. Gel is starting to drive nicely through the weaves and runs them equally well no matter what side I’m on. There was a time when the weaves lifting off the ground when he went through them bothered him, but not now. In due time, he should become a weaving fiend.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go and pick the briars out of my hair.

Rarely will I go to see a movie in a theater, preferring to wait for it to come out on videotape. On Sunday, I went to see I Am Legend starring Will Smith. This article which I received on Friday caught my attention and solidified my decision to go and see the movie rather than wait for it to come out on DVD.

It was a good movie, not excellent, but good. I cannot remember the last time I went to a movie theater and it will be a long time before I go again! The previews of coming attractions was bad enough, but now they have commercials on before the previews totalling at least 30 minutes of programming before the movie started playing. I hate commercials!

I’ve always been fascinated by story lines featuring a man-made virus wiping out most of mankind. Steven King’s The Stand has been a long time favorite of mine. I truly can see something like this happening given mankind’s need to muck around with Mother Nature. I’m glad I do not have children growing up in this World.

Rarely do I post on Sheepdog-L these days, but I couldn’t resist this morning when an individual wrote asking about feeding a product that contained copper to his sheep to which RS (a/k/a the most knowledgeable novice sheep herder, Border Collie trainer, etc. that ever existed) responded that no, added copper isn’t good.

The general consensus among those who have sheep or know sheep is that sheep do not need copper in their diets. That’s akin to the belief that dogs don’t need taurine in their diets, but recent research shows otherwise.

Before I purchased my sheep, I did research into natural sheep health and stumbled upon the Liberty Farm’s Blog and this post in particular. I bought Pat Coleby’s book, Healthy Sheep Naturally, read it and decided it made a lot of sense. I bought the materials for the homemade supplement she recommended in her book and offer it to my sheep. I replied to Ms. Novice’s post with a quotation from Ms. Coleby’s book citing how low resistance to parasites and other diseases was due to copper deficiency. Darned if I didn’t get the attention of several well-known sheep farmers warning me about sharing such potentially dangerous information. I suppose it’s much safer to medicate and worm than to try to supplement sheep with vitamins and minerals that may be lacking in their diet so that they are more resilient to parasites and other diseases and much better for me not to try to deal with close minded clams and keep my mouth shut about my new age beliefs.

Here is another post contained in a Blog written by a woman in Georgia discussing her sheep, the problems she had with parasites and how it is linked to the condition of the soil. It is unfortunate that more people are not paying attention to the condition of the earth. It is in a very sad, depleted state.

I’ve since received an e-mail from an individual stating that unless I’m having the livers of my slaughtered sheep analyzed for copper toxicity, then I’m likely slowly killing my sheep. Just like I’m slowly killing my dogs by not feeding them food “specially formulated” for them. I wonder if these individuals have the livers of their slaughtered sheep analyzed to see if they are feeding them properly. Likely not given that they are, like sheep, blindly following the leader.

The shortest day of the year; the longest night of the year … I prefer to celebrate the Winter Solstice rather than Christmas. In fact, I really dislike Christmas. It is far too commercialized. People run themselves ragged buying gifts, cooking, trying to please everyone and running themselves into debt. I used to do it; I don’t any more. I have a set group of friends and family that I buy gifts for every year and that’s it. I refuse to get caught up in the insanity that is Christmas.

That said, I’m looking forward to four days off because of how Christmas falls this year! Mother Nature has decided to give North Carolina the gift of moisture. While I wish it were going to be beautiful and sunny, but I’ll take moisture any way I can get it these days.

Monty (formerly Heatwave) will be with us over the holidays. The in-laws said Monty could come for the holiday festivities, but that he had to sleep in the garage. His caregivers decided he’d be better off with me. Fern will be happy to have her brother to play with.

Monday is supposed to be sunny and I hope to be able to get out and take some photographs and maybe videos. I’d like to take some videos of Gel working the ducks. I’d also like to set my camcorder on a tripod and take a video of Gel weaving. His weave poles are now fast and furious, it’s neat to watch. I also hope to get all my expenses entered for taxes so that I can get those done as soon as possible. I usually leave it to the last minute. I don’t want to do that this year.

Lots to do and four long days to do it in!

“Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through.”

Due to the drought, there is a severe hay shortage in North Carolina and other southern states. Some people are shipping in HUGE (800+ pound) rectangular bales of hay from Canada, the mid-west, upstate New York, etc. They are very expensive, usually around $120 a bale. This week I bought one to keep at my house. I bought one earlier this fall and it’s at Wally’s house. The bales flake off like regular bales of hay so we flaked it off and stored the flakes in a box stall in Wally’s barn. It had become quite a nuisance to cart hay back and forth from Wally’s house to mine. First we tried plastic bags, but the hay ripped them after just one use so that was a huge waste. Then I tried plastic garbage cans, which works better, but it still is a pain and I end up with hay all over my car.

I got two large wooden pallets and had the hay placed on top of the pallets and then covered it with two heavy tarps. Hopefully that will keep it dry for however long it takes my sheep to eat through it.

This morning, I saw the cats had discovered this new “toy.” They were having a ball chasing each other under the tarps and pallets. If I had known they would have so much fun with something so simple, I would have set it up for them a long time ago.

Another great cat toy is my teeter. I recently purchased a steel teeter base. I have not mounted the board to the base, but it is set on top of the base in position. The base is set low so there’s no danger of anyone getting hurt should they go up the teeter board even though it’s not attached to the base. The cats run up it and it slams down (as teeters do). The noise makes them run off like rockets, only to turn around and do it again! Crazy beasts!

This morning I put Fern in with the ducks. She thought going around them was great fun. There was no herding involved, her tail was up in the air. That’s okay, she’s starting to show interest in movement so it’s only a matter of time before the true instinct kicks in.