Posts from — July 2008

I knew I shouldn’t have given those lambs wireless Internet access.  I mean, giving goats access is bad enough, I knew they’d do nothing more than surf the porn and joke-of-the date sites; but the lambs, they take Internet access to a higher level.  They must have read the post  that I wrote yesterday wherein I raved about how Gel and Fern were able to manage the flock of lambs without a hitch on Monday.  Well, today was a different story.  Darned lambs!  We got everything settled and all of them down there, but they did not make it easy.  I might have to pull the plug on the lambs’ Internet access if this keeps up.

We brought the 14 lambs and 9 goats down to the back pasture this morning.  I mowed the paths last night and had the fence all set.  All I needed to haul down there this morning was water.  I am truly amazed at how easy it is for my dogs to work these lambs.  Last year at this time Gel and I had a horrible time with the lambs.  Last year, I kept the adult sheep with the lambs for several weeks so that the lambs could learn the ropes.  This year, I brought ten lambs into an environment that they’ve never seen, mixed them in with four strange lambs and nine even-stranger goat kids.  Not one has hit a fence (yet!).  That’s progress.  That Fern is working them as well as she is pleases tremendously. 

This morning on our trek down I was going very slow on the ATV because I was hauling water in a barrel in my wagon.  I go slow so as little as possible sloshes out.  Mustn’t waste water!  Because I’m going so slow, I can turn around a lot and watch how the dogs are working.  As they’ve been doing for as long as Fern has been assisting with this task, Gel brings up the rear and Fern stays out at 10:00 or 2:00 maintaining eye contact with the lead sheep so that the flock doesn’t go on ahead of me.  One of the dogs has to bring up the rear to keep the goats going.  Goats think nothing of leaving the group and going off on their own.  This morning, however, I saw that when Gel and the goats got too far behind, Fern went back and nipped them in the butts to get them going to catch up.  I wish Gel would do that.  He won’t bite unless I ask him to and then he’ll head which is quite ineffective at getting stock moving forward. 

Getting the group into the ElectoNet was a bit tricky because the lambs were frightened of the fence, but we got it done without any muss or fuss.

Gosh, when I think back to the trouble Gel and I had early on even with older (dog-broke) sheep I realize how far we’ve come.  I do think Fern has a lot of talent, but I also think she’s learning a lot from working with Gel.

If all goes well, I’ll have a load of dirt to fill in the holes in my agility field.  Yea!

Stacey  asked via comment: ”It’s interesting to think about the differences between Fern and Gel. I know many differences in stock dogs are attributed to their breeding, but how much of a difference do you think raising and training had in your dogs’ current working styles? If you had the knowledge that you have now, if you had raised and trained Gel in the same way you did Fern, how different do you think he would be? And how does this affect your thoughts on future dogs?”

First of all, even though Gel is Fern’s father, they are two very different dogs.  I got Gel at six and a half months old.  While he had been raised well, he was raised as a stock dog, meaning a lot of the foundation I put on Fern, wasn’t done with Gel.  He had basic manners when I got him, that’s it.  I quickly brought him up to speed, but I think the first few months that you work with a puppy makes a huge difference in the adult dog.

Gel is a bit quirky, most people would not have gone as far with him as I have; they would have given up, like the woman I bought him from did.  I am not a good or an experienced trainer, Gel is really the first dog I trained.  What you see in Gel today is due, in part, to his breeding and natural ability, but also to his willingness to do what I ask of him as well as my tenaciousness.  Gel was the result of an accidental breeding (as is Fern).  Gel’s mother was (she is now deceased) a well-bred imported bitch, but I understand she was quite quirky as well.  Gel’s father was from westen ranch dog lines.  He was purchased by a lady in North Carolina to train to do goose dog work.  I understand he wouldn’t work and was placed as a pet.  That’s all I know of his father.

If you breed two solid working dogs together does that mean all of the puppies will work as well as or better than their parents?  Maybe, maybe not.  I do think the early upbringing plays a part in how they turn out as adult dogs; perhaps not so much in stock work because it is instinctual, but I look at the whole dog.  As I’ve said before, you can put up with a certain amount of quirkiness, phobias, etc. when the work that the dog is doing is instinctual vs. shaped or trained.  Quirkiness and phobias are harder to deal with in sports dogs. 

I’ve worked with Fern since the day she was born.  I believe the early neurological stimulation and all the environmental and surface work I did with all of the puppies before they were seven weeks old and all I’ve done with Fern since then has made her essentially bomb proof.  Like Gel, Fern is the same dog no matter where she is.  Because of this, I don’t know that I could buy another puppy from another breeder unless they did the early neurological stimulation, etc.  I’d opt instead to breed Fern and raise the puppies as I did with her litter.  Not that I have any intention at this point in time in breeding Fern, but I’m leaving my options open because down the road I will want to get another dog.

Fern’s mother, Midge, was well-bred and it looked like she was going to turn into a nice stock dog.  She worked very differently from Gel and the wonderful thing with Fern is that I can see both parent’s working style in her.  It’s as if Fern got the best attributes of both parents.  She’s also inherited chronic disease symptoms from both parents.  I see a bit of the rabies vaccinosis symptoms I saw in Midge and she’s got Gel’s poor appetite and tendency towards constipation.  The symptoms are less severe in Fern than they are in Gel (and were) in Midge.

I regress here, but I believe I mentioned this before, the homeopathic remedies that I’ve responded best to are ones that are commonly used to treat rabies vaccinosis.  The remedy I am on now is Lyssin which is a homeopathic nosode made from the salivia of a rabid dog.  This is interesting to me because I am so sensitive to and despise the symptoms of rabies vaccinosis.  I cannot tolerate it in a dog.  If it cannot be treated homeopathically, I will place the dog.  That is one of the reasons why I decided to sell Midge and why I placed the puppy I bought off a breeder in Connecticut a couple of years ago now.  I see more rabies vaccinosis symptoms in the two puppies from Fern’s litter that I still see than I do in Fern.  Fern’s symptoms are really quite minor; which is likely due to her homeopathic treatment.  A raw-fed, minimally (or non) vaccinated animal is going to respond better to homeopathy than one that is fed commercial food and vaccinated.

Has what I’ve learned from Gel helped in my training Fern?  To some extent.  I’ve developed a lot more stock sense than I had when I first started out with Gel.  I have a better idea of what the finished product is supposed to look like and how to get there.  But that Gel and Fern are so different in their working syles means that I’m going to have to train Fern differently than I did Gel.  The things I did learn with Gel is that I’ll start driving with Fern a lot sooner than I did with him, but I am not sure that would have made a difference with Gel.  Some dogs take to driving better than others.  Gel is likely never going to be a good driving dog; he’s a strong gathering dog.  Fern is probably going to be a good driving dog.  I will start Fern on whistles right away instead of waiting like I did with Gel.  Putting Gel on whistles has made a huge difference in how he works. 

It’s all a learning experience and I firmly believe that the day you stop learning should be the day you die.

I was talking last night to my good friend who has just started trialing her young dog.  She is lucky in that she has access to her dog’s breeder who is a successful Open handler for lessons.  I wish I had that luxury, but if you look into the “stories” of how many of today’s successful Open handlers started out, they just did it, which is what I’m going to try to do.  I have no choice in the matter.  Given the price of gas, I refuse to drive three hours one way for a lesson.

Then again, the more and more I think about trialing, what goes on behind the scenes, what it takes for a dog to be a successful trial dog, etc., etc. the more I think I should just maintain my dogs’ status as solid working dogs (vs. trial dogs).   There are no upcoming trials for a while so I can figure out what I’m going to do at my leisure.

Anyway, I regress.

My friend’s instructor told her that she should not offer to “exhaust” at trials because it can make a dog so sticky that it may take months to correct it, if you can ever correct it and that it flattens out an outrun.  “Exhausting” means using your dog to pick up sheep after a competitor’s run and returning them to the pen with the rest of the sheep.  Usually the sheep know where the exhaust pen is and when they are released from the pen after a completed run (or released where ever they may be after a run is completed) they high tail it to the exhaust pen.  So, when you send your dog to pick up the released sheep, they are usually running towards the dog vs. standing still or running away.

“Stickiness” also referred to as “clappy” is a way to refer to a dog that gets transfixed by livestock.  They stand (or lie down) and stare at the stock, refusing to move or take commands.  They have too much “eye.”

There is some pretty strong evidence  that autism is caused by vaccine damage, specifically from the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.  There is also thought that autism could be caused by the mercury-based preservatives such as Thimerosal used in childhood vaccines such as the MMR vaccine.

I know this is a stretch, but the above chart shows the similarities between autism and mercury poisoning.  Note that “staring” in the behavior row.  Staring aside, there are a lot of other symptoms in the chart that dogs suffer from today.  One big one in Border Collies is oversensitivity to sound. 

Thimerosal is used as a preservative in many canine vaccines. 

Measles and mumps viruses are paramyxoviruses, just as the canine distemper is in the dog. These viruses are pantropic viruses, going into all tissues, but have a real affinity for the central nervous system.  Dogs have been vaccinated, many on an annual basis, for distemper for a long time now. 

Again, I realize it is a little far-fetched to blame stickiness or clappy behavior on vaccine damage, but maybe not.

What got me thinking about this concept was the instructor’s comment that exhausting at a trial could cause damage to a dog that would take months to correct, if it ever could be corrected.  How could a day or half-day’s worth of work cause that much damage?  Maybe it could in a dog who already had brain or nerve damage from vaccines.

I know I’m going to have some training issues with Fern because of the amount of eye she has, but I am confident I can work through it.  That she hasn’t been vaccinated (except for what is required by law) means that she isn’t going to have the nerve damage that vaccines can cause; she’s going to be clearer than another dog who has been vaccinated.  With Fern, I simply need to get my butt in gear and start training her.  She’s learning a “get up” and “walk up” command from her daily work and I can already see a difference in her willingness to move when she’d like to stare down stock.

Gel is four years old today.

We switched out the adult sheep for the lambs on Sunday.  It was more work than I expected it to be, but we got it done.  Gosh sheep are dirty!  The lanolin in their coats attracts dirt and when you pick them up or get in contact with them in any way, you end up a greasy, filthy mess!  I had Gel and Fern (who helped in the sorting and loading process for the first time) hold the ewes and lambs in the corner in Wally’s barn while I went in and fished out lambs.  Once I caught one, I brought it out and held it while Wally tagged it.  Once the tagging was completed, I loaded the lamb onto the trailer which we had backed up to the barn.  Some of those lambs are heavy and boy do they fight.  One of them got her foot stuck in my shorts and almost disrobed me!  Wally would have been in for a thrill!

I thought about all the other times Wally and I have caught and moved livestock and usually he’s the one doing the physical catching and lifting, but Wally’s knees have been bothering him so I took over the task.  I was wondering if I was going to hold up to catching, restraining and lifting ten lambs, but I did.  I’m getting stronger!

Fern quickly figured out her role in the holding and loading process.  When one of the ewes (that darned St. Croix!) charged Gel, Fern was right there to back him up.  Faced with two dogs with teeth, the St. Croix decided charging wasn’t such a good idea.  I was glad to see Fern handled the pressure and didn’t back down.  Gel couldn’t have done what she does at her age.  She catches on almost immediately to new tasks.

We loaded the lambs first and brought them to my house.  When we got there, I had to sort the adult sheep from the goats and the four lambs that belong to Marcus.  I was able to get the goats separated, but wasn’t quite as successful separating the lambs.  I do not have any kind of sorting equipment at my house so it is all done by hand.  Lambs can be slippery as eels!  No problem, we could load the adult sheep and pull out the lambs as needed.  We tried to free load the sheep, but they kept getting away from us, so I took a panel and we made a chute.  Gel easily pushed the sheep onto the trailer, all of them in fact, when we only wanted six per load.  We pulled out the six extra sheep and the lambs (who were quite happy to climb in the trailer with the adult sheep) and brought that load over to Wally’s.

By then it was getting really hot and I was covered in sheep crap, dirt, hair and who knows what else.  I suggested to Wally that we might want to stop in at one of the local churches for some enlightenment or perhaps go to the mall to do a bit of shopping, but he didn’t think that would be a good idea.  We off-loaded the six sheep at Wally’s then went back for the remaining six.

Gel is a good dog, but like his caregiver, he likes the more exciting aspects of life.  The lambs were calling for their mothers and Gel knew they were new and exciting and he thought he’d much rather go in and work the lambs rather than load the remaining six adult (boring!) sheep.  I put him in the pen where the adult sheep were, but Gel was giving me the canine form of the middle finger and kept looking at the lambs and ignoring the adult sheep.  He was over flanking and loosing the sheep, who were, by then, wise to the chute and trailer.  I could have forced the issue and made Gel do his work, but I figured it would make more of an impression on him if I took him out and used Fern.  I will give Gel a bit of the benefit of doubt in that I know he was trying to gather all the stock, but I made it quite clear he was to ignore the lambs and bring up the adult sheep.

Fern has never loaded stock (we won’t count the short attempt to load cattle a couple of weeks ago); but she did a fine job.  Fern has nice, square flanks, but she’s much more precise in her movements than Gel is.  She got those remaining six sheep into the chute and onto the trailer in no time.  Good girl!

We took the last load back to Wally’s and sat around and drank a couple of beers.  Wally had purchased some llamas at the sale a few weeks back and his wife’s cousin who lives down the street had bought one.  He called while I was still there to make arrangements to pick his up.  Wally said that he had the trailer still attached to his truck and asked if he wanted us to load and deliver the llama, which of course he did.  Gel had been dying to get into where the llamas were and he got his wish.  Llamas are interesting creatures and I think I might like one myself, if I could get it at a young age so that I could halter break it.  We caught up the one to be delivered and put the second in with the sheep where she will remain.  The one to be delivered was the smaller of the two and was light enough to carry and put on the trailer. 

Now, in addition to sheep dirt and crap, I had llama hair all over me.  By the time I got to take a shower, it took about ten minutes before the water ran clear off me.

I rested for a while, then decided I was going to take the lambs and goats down to the back pasture for a trial run and re-set my ElectroNet.  By then it was about 93 degrees and quite humid.  We got the lambs and goats down to the pasture without issue.  Keeping track of them while down there proved to be difficult, especially given the grass was well over their heads in some sections of the pasture.  The new lambs went off in search of their mothers while the goats and four lambs that knew the routine went in a different direction.  I sent Gel and Fern to retrieve them several times while I was mowing, but both dogs were getting overheated as were the lambs.  After getting two lines mowed, I decided it wasn’t worth continuing to work on the fence.  We rounded up the stock and headed back up to the house.  I went back down there this morning and set the fence where it needs to be.  I’ll mow the remaining paths tonight.

I found an individual to deliver dirt so that I can fill in the holes in my agility field.  If all goes well, I’ll have it by the middle of the week and can start the slow process of filling in holes and dips so I can use the field.  They will also deliver crushed rock which I’ll get a load of in the next couple of weeks to put in the dogs’ runs to cut down on the mud in them.  Getting dirt and rock hauled these days is expensive and it’s hard to find someone willing to do it.  Can’t say I blame them given the price of diesel fuel.

There’s a bit of a discussion going on Sheepdog-L which was started by an individual posting looking for a female Border Collie.  She said she wasn’t interested in a dog older than 6 months, wanted it to be small in size, rough coat, prick ears.  She further stated that the dog doesn’t have to be a good stock dog; just a nice, sweet natured, gentle, energetic girl.

Of course, people posted back saying check out rescue.

Why is it if you are not purposely looking for a stock dog people suggest going to rescue?  While I’m sure some very nice dogs end up in rescue; many of them have personality or health issues, some of which are severe in nature.  In addition, any puppy or dog younger than six months old gets snatched up pretty quickly.  Why?  Because a young dog can be shaped into what you are looking for in a dog.  It takes a lot of remedial work to correct behavior issues in an older dog.

Unfortunately too many people get puppies, not just Border Collies, on a whim.  Because they saw that breed of dog on TV or heard about it from someone else and thought it would be a good idea to get one of their own.  Then they figure out raising such a puppy is more work than they thought it would be.  The puppy ends up running free in the back yard (or worst) until he becomes too much to manage and ends up in rescue.

I have to give people who pull dogs from rescue and rehab them enough so that they are able to compete in dog sports a lot of credit, but that project isn’t for the faint of heart.  It takes a competent, committed trainer to overcome the issues many rescue dogs come in with.  Proof in point, there is an extremely active list at Yahoo Groups called baggage agility.  If you could get a dog from rescue and easily train it to be a competitive sports dog, why would there be the need for such an active list?

I agree that Border Collies should not be bred for anything other than working stock, however, of a litter of puppies bred to work stock, not all of them are going to make useful stock dogs nor are there enough stock homes available for the number of litters being produced.  If an individual wants a Border Collie to compete in sports there is no reason why that person cannot buy a puppy from a litter bred to work stock.  The Border Collie people get so up in arms about breeding for anything other than working stock, and to a certain extent I agree with them, but if someone is going to buy a dog with the intent of breeding it for whatever reason, there’s nothing that is going to prevent that.  All anyone can do is take care of what is within their control, which comes down to the dogs they are keeping for themselves.  You can sell puppies with limited registration privileges, but that isn’t going to stop someone from breeding the dog if that’s what they want to do and there’s plenty of Border Collie breeders in the United States with good working lines who will sell to whomever has the money.

It’s all one big rat race.

The Piedmont Border Collie newsletter editor asked for a photograph of Gel to use in their upcoming newsletter.  I have a million photographs of Gel, but do you think I could find one that I like when I needed it?  So I went out and took a few last night.  Got one I liked a lot, it catches the essence of Gel:

And here’s two of Fern:

As always, click on the photograph to see a larger size.

I brought the goats and sheep down to the back pasture this morning.  I brought down four steel T-posts and a tarp and made a shade (rain?) cover for them to use today.  Hopefully it will stay up.  I just re-set the ElectroNet late last week and already I need to remow the path.  Johnson grass grows quickly!

On Saturday morning, we went to Salisbury for an agility lesson.  I haven’t taken agility lessons in quite a while now and it was fun to be back.  Gel’s class was at 9:00 AM and it was a Sheltie Convention.  Gel was the only “other” breed.  The jump heights went from 16″ (for the Shelties) up to 26″ for Gel.

Gel did well, but he was a bit slow.  That could have been due to several reasons.  One, he worked quite hard that morning shuffling the sheep and goats down to the back pasture; or two, he was a bit sore from being kicked on Wednesday.  I expect the reason was number two.  I asked the instructor to watch him closely for any signs of lameness, and she didn’t see any, but he was popping out of the weave poles at about three-quarters of the way through, which is unusual for him.  Then again, I’ve done virtually no weave pole work with him for months.  It was also quite hot and humid, even at 9:00 AM.  I elected not to press it and took it easy on him.

Fern was on fire!  It was as if we hadn’t been away.  She picked up all the exercises after the first time trying it.  She had a ball.

When I got home I decided it was time to move my agility field.  I took down the fence that had been called the “lower fenced in area” a/k/a my first (poor!) fencing job.  The fence came down very easily.  I’m surprised it held livestock for as long as it did.  I pulled up all but the heavy steel posts which will have to be taken up after it rains.  Most of the posts that I used were the light-weight five foot high variety and pulled out easily.  Then I mowed.  The area is at least 100 x 100, likely larger.  Some of it had been bush-hogged recently, but the area that had previously been fenced it was pretty high.  It took me quite a while to mow and it was bloody hot out.  I kept hosing myself off to cool down.  After I was through mowing I hooked the wagon up to the ATV and transported all of my equipment down except the A-Frame and dog walk.

On Sunday, Wally and I went to breakfast, then he came over and helped me move and set-up the A-Frame and dog walk.  I have to admit, it all looks darned good down there.  There will be shade both in the AM and late PM there which will be beneficial.  I have a fair amount of holes to fill before the surface is safe enough to run full courses on, but for three or four obstacle sequencing, it will be fine.  In addition to moving the A-Frame and dog walk, Wally helped me carry my panels out into the back pasture.  He was impressed with how nice they came out.  It’s going to be too hot to do much stock work over the next couple of days so we didn’t set them up.

Saturday night I noticed there was smoke coming from underneath my ATV.  I looked closer and saw some liquid was leaking out from a valve.  Great, I thought to myself.  I just had it in for service and for the first time since I’ve had it, it was running well.  I brought it up to Red’s for a diagnosis: it was oil leaking.  Not good.  I brought it back home and parked it.  Wally took it home with him on Sunday and dropped it off to the ATV store this morning.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get it back today.  While I’ve survived without an ATV, now that I have it, I’d miss it.  I didn’t take the sheep and goats down to the back pasture on Sunday or today.  Picking them up on Saturday on foot was rough.  The pasture that they are in is quite high in grass and thorny growth, not pleasant to walk through.

I thought I was going to loose one of Marcus’ lambs late last week.  She wasn’t doing well when he dropped her off and he gave me the heads up to watch her.  I elected to treat her homeopathically and she has slowly improved.  I think she’ll be okay now.  I spoke to Marcus this morning and informed him my “fee” for lamb-saving services was a load of dirt to use to fill in holes in my agility field.  He agreed to get it to me before the end of the week and I’m going to hold him to that.  I feel certain if that lamb had stayed with Marcus, she wouldn’t be alive today.  She had been wormed several times and was still failing to thrive.  Right before she left his house, she had stopped nursing and developed diarrhea.  Not a good sign.  He had already lost a young adult ram the week before.  I know the intense rotational grazing that I keep my stock on is what keeps them doing as well as they do.  I have sheep who are now over a year old and have never been wormed.  They are fat and sassy.

I am going to stop on my way home tonight and get some high protein grain to feed to the goats and, if I can separate them from my adult sheep (who do not need grain), the four lambs that belong to Marcus, minimally I’ll get the one who wasn’t doing well on some grain.  Some of the goats are a bit young to have been weaned.  If I knew how old they were before he brought them over, I would have insisted that they stay with their mothers longer.  Then again, I think Marcus has a high worm load in the pasture where he was keeping his sheep and goats so maybe they are better off with me.  I’d like to try to fatten them up just a bit over the next week or so.  We will be swapping out my broke sheep for the lambs that are at Wally’s this weekend so it won’t hurt to grain the whole lot of them for a few weeks.  I prefer not to feed much grain, but the goats need a boost and it won’t hurt the lambs to have some grain as well.  The goats have figured out the routine of being moved by dogs and are working better. 

Ah, nine goat kids and fourteen lambs, that ought to make for some pretty exciting work for the dogs over the next few weeks.  I can keep the two wethers at my house, but I’m on the fence about that right now.  Both are slow and dumpy, especially the high percentage Dorper wether.  It’s hard enough keeping stock together when you have goats in the picture without factoring in crazy lambs and two poky wethers.

It’s going to be disgustingly hot over the next couple of days.  I toyed with leaving my dogs in the house in the A/C, but then I’d have to get someone to let them out.  On Sunday I put fresh shade cloth up around their runs.  They should be okay.  They can lay on the cool dirt.  If we can get through today and tomorrow, we’ll be okay for the rest of the week.  Hopefully I can get my ATV back today so I can transport sheep and goats down into the back pasture tomorrow morning, otherwise, they’ll have to stay up for another day.  I let them out to free graze when I’m home and they have a round bale to eat on; so they should be fine too.

I was very glad to go down to where the sheep and goats are pastured and find the missing goat kid was actually in the ElectroNet with the rest of the critters.  I knew the fence wasn’t working properly yesterday morning, but I didn’t have time to mow the grass down to prevent it from shorting.  There was some charge to it, but apparently not enough to stop the goat kid from going through it to get with her friends. 

Last night I went ahead and completely moved the fence to a new location so when I brought them back down this morning, they had fresh pasture to enjoy.  Before we went out this morning, I informed both dogs that we were going to do it without loosing anyone this time around.  After yesterday’s incidents, I wasn’t up to crawling through brush or hunting lost critters.  They both obliged and we got everyone down there this morning without incident.

 Tomorrow morning I am going to go to an agility class in Salisbury.  This will be the first time I’ve done agility in quite a while.  I’m very much looking forward to it.  Gel’s class is at 9 and Fern’s is at 10.  Gel seems to be completely sound, but I’ll watch him carefully during class to make sure his injury from being kicked Wednesday night isn’t troubling him.

On my way to work this morning I contemplated moving my agility field.  Right now it’s at the beginning of my property, adjoining the neighbor’s property.  This neighbor has six (or more) ill-mannered dogs that they let run loose on their 18 fenced-in acres.  It doesn’t take much for a pack of dogs to become fence-running, fence-fighting fiends and that’s exactly what they are; at least they are contained.  When these neighbors first moved in, they thought it would be okay to just let their dogs run free.  I lost several cats to these dogs and finally they fenced in their property. 

Whenever I go to where my agility equipment is and start working my dogs, the neighbor’s dogs start running the fence growling and barking.  It’s irritating, to say the least.  I can move my agility equipment to the far end of my property, but the footing isn’t going to be ideal.  I might be able fill in holes and improve the footing.  I’ll have to look closely at it this weekend and see if it’s possible.  It would be nice to move down there away from the neighbor’s dogs.  My landlord was going to install privacy fencing, but I know the dogs will still be up there barking and growling even if they can’t see us.  I could also move it into the back field that I am renting and the footing should be okay there, but keeping it mowed would be difficult.  A standard agility field is 100 feet x 100 feet, which is a good amount of mowing when all you have is a push lawn mower.  I could conceivably use my sheep as lawnmowers.  Decisions, decisions.