I (not by choice) haven’t taken any [...]]]> Now I know what happens to an adolescent Kelpie who has had restricted exercise for 3 days. I will spare you the gory details, but barking figures prominently. I think I still have a husband…hmmm. I also unequivocally found that mental stimulation is no substitute for a good run.

I (not by choice) haven’t taken any of the dogs for their regular off-leash exercise this past week. All they’ve had is (hot) walks in the neighborhood and short (hot) training sessions in the back yard. It became more and more obvious with each passing day that Tess was beginning to loose her little Kelpie mind. Suddenly we had an emergency exercise situation. I piled everyone in the car at 6:30am. But, AUGH!!! Our usual exercise area was having a rain-delayed visit by a big mowing machine! Oh god, not today! I drove around for awhile (Tess pretty much barking the whole time), but it was soon too hot for the Aussies and the mowers still weren’t done.

Back home Tess proceeded to self-remedy her under exercised situation. All the dogs needed to run. But I have first hand experience… it’s actually not *safe* to play with one dog (or even all of them) when they are all out together. Or, even to restrain the under-exercised nearby (like indoors in crates) while trying to interact with just one or two in the back yard. That only works when everyone has their ya-ya’s out already. Instead, we all went in the back yard while I sat on the patio to chaperone the self-motivated activities. The weirdest thing Tess did was attempt to climb the 6ft privacy fence. I finally realized that she wasn’t really trying to get out. She was trying to retrieve a leaf-bejeweled twig that had fallen from an overhead tree and lodged in the top of the fence. I got it out and she happily destroyed it. The chasing of over-flying birds, racing up and down, leaping straight up in the air, and the climbing on every elevated surface are all normal.

The good result of Tess’s wacko condition was that Tess discovered water is fun. She’s been afraid of it. Really. No problem drinking it of course, but she’d even avoid that if she saw me filling a bucket with all that scary splashing water. Elli, on the other hand, is absolutely ga-zongas about water. I never saw a dog love water so much. That includes all the Labs & Retrievers I’ve ever known. I thought Mesa & Kaia were dead serious about water but, compared to Elli, they just kind of enjoy it. Mesa’s specialty is running water, but Elli will take it in any form. For Elli, running water is not to be played with, it is to be immersed in. Elli goes out of her way to trot through puddles on chilly days. You can only imagine what heat does.

When we do the off leash stuff, there has been a spray hose involved to ameliorate the heat. No matter how much fun ALL the other dogs were having, Tess wouldn’t come near it. If someone shook off near her, she’d dodge and run. No amount of provocation by her best friend (Elli) would entice Tess to join in the fun.

Until now.

Elli jumped into the recently rain-filled, defunct water barrel pond. [Defunct because we can't figure out how to keep Mesa from removing and dismembering the pump (running water!).] Ew. It had a load of leaves & dirt, then mixed with water….just, ew. I got out the dog’s metal water tub and started filling. Joe, Elli, & Kaia went nuts over the sprayer. They were playing, snapping, splashing…then here comes TESS. (“Wow”, I thought. “Good girl Tess!”) Tess came up close. Observed, investigated, circled ’round. Tess STUCK her nose in the trough! WOW! I cleaned & refreshed the water barrel so there was room for more canine fun. Next thing I know Tess is IN it…barking, jumping, splashing, digging, bitting. It was hilarious!

I missed the shots of her standing with all four paws on the edge, jumping on Elli’s head, laying down….amazing. The Kelpie turned into a kelpie.

You see Elli in the first shot? “Cumon! Everybody’s doin’ it!

Honestly, I still had to go back to the field to take her for an off-leash run. The speckled Aussies can’t handle the heat and were laying around in the shade, but Tess was still trying to dismantle the back yard. I took Tess and summer-hardy Mesa out in the hellish heat to chase tennis balls for as long as they could stand.

Mesa is FINALLY blowing her coat. All these long months she’s been carrying this weird heavy fine coat [...]]]> Poor Elli. Joe seems to have gotten a lot more heat tolerant with maturity. But poor Elli is panting heaviliy. She has her own dedicated fan. That doesn’t stop her from periodically romping and going stir-crazy from laying about.

Mesa is FINALLY blowing her coat. All these long months she’s been carrying this weird heavy fine coat of curly puppy-like fur that’s standing straight out from her body. This week it finally let go. Masses and tufts of clingy fine fur are dropping everywhere and blowing around the room in front of the fan. Brushing doesn’t seem to hurry it any. Every few hours I make rounds picking up tufts that just won’t come off in the brush. There’s a fine layer of the sticky stuff on everything. Really nice addition to the humidity…

I spent Monday and Tuesday last week at an excellent Herbel clinic hosted by Mary Lou Hayden. I worked Mesa at the clinic proper. Really nice people to hang out with, some really good larnin’, and a lot of confidence gained. The really amazing part was the private lessons [...]]]> Hey! It’s time for my monthly blog update:

I spent Monday and Tuesday last week at an excellent Herbel clinic hosted by Mary Lou Hayden. I worked Mesa at the clinic proper. Really nice people to hang out with, some really good larnin’, and a lot of confidence gained. The really amazing part was the private lessons I had with Mesa & Joe. Major, major leaps in understanding and execution on my part. WOW it was a good day.

Next on the ticket was the obedience trial which we did not practice for at all. Yah, the dogs knew this stuff cold, but that was last year. I’ve been spending all my time raising puppies, taking care of business, and traveling all over creation to work sheep wherever I can—practice heeling? LOL! Joe earned his CD and Mesa was entered in Wild Card Open. Mesa was a trip. I entered her in wild card just for practice. She got really confused with her figure eights. I’m not really sure what’s going on there. All four trips around the posts over both days, she popped up on my right side when we did the right turn around the post. She was just absolutely sure that’s what I wanted her to do. All I can figure was it was a body cue she was reading. A long time ago she used to do that on about turns and that was the problem. I changed how I executed about turns and she cut it out. I’ll have to study the situation.

I’m getting up nutty early (for this family) to beat the heat. I’m taking the Aussies and Tess out for an off-leash run. Everyone is a lot happier for the more frequent, longer, more energetic outings. Tess’s recall is improving. Elli is learning to track on pavement. That’s all I got time for.

Go watch a World Cup game!

p.s. I’m working on getting some fresh pictures and top bars up. Gotta remember how I did that!

As I probably pointed out sometime before, my yard is not appropriate for dog-breaking ducks or duck-breaking a dog. The open part -not garden, patio, or side yard is roughly 42′ x 20′- too small for an inexperienced dog to stay far enough off them and just [...]]]> Mesa & I have started working the ducks again.

As I probably pointed out sometime before, my yard is not appropriate for dog-breaking ducks or duck-breaking a dog. The open part -not garden, patio, or side yard is roughly 42′ x 20′- too small for an inexperienced dog to stay far enough off them and just full of places for ducks to run and hide in the garden parts, patio furniture, & side yard. No room for mistakes, and this is me. I did one time try to make a duck round pen out of chopped down snow fence. Mesa wouldn’t stay inside it. She kept jumping out to work wider. Pretty cool problem for me, but a failure of the technology. My solution was to take them out to my dog training club. The club is on 5 acres of nice “flat” open grass with a couple of fenced training fields coveted for agility. The fenced areas are perfect for the above endeavors. The extra acres are great for real working space once everybody is under control. (Practicing B course?) I have to be very careful not to disturb the fenced areas in any way. Last fall I kinda got in trouble about using it. You know, ’cause working ducks could rip up the turf (really?) and the scent of old duck droppings are too much for dogs doing other sports (really?). Should I tell folks about the ass-end of a rabbit I found on the field this spring? Bits of hawk devoured bird or rodent I find regularly? And for godsakes people – who would put sheep or… cows out there?? (yes, this was really brought up). I completely understand the concern for keeping the fenced field in good condition, my field too yah know? And I never put ducks out there right before (actually a couple weeks before) a trial in deference to poop concerns. I even try to pick up wood shavings that get kicked out of the duck crate. Anyway, it was decided that, yes, I am allowed to use the fenced areas for this training. So now I have a load-em-up-and-transport system worked out.

Mesa is actually pretty freaking good with her ducks when she slows down and con-cen-trates. My primary goal is to get her to always be aware that she needs to be calm and thinking…most of the work comes naturally after that -translated from sheep. She lives for this stuff and doesn’t get to do it often enough. She can still get very excited. Once she puts her thinking cap on, it’s just a lot of practice reading ducks and putting them here and there. My ducks are very sensitive to a dog’s presence, but are getting blasé about the human involved. Can ducks actually get fetchy?? [I since figured out that I was the draw…because I'm the only familiar thing out there. At home, they do not fetch.] Once we were all on the same page, we worked on driving. Argh, field is too small for this. Mesa could barely go about 10ft without having to switch direction on the long side. Ok, out to the open field…..that helped quite a bit. After we’d walked about 50ft the ducks realized there was no fence. Whaah-hoo! They ran for it. Not so fetchy now! But Mesa’s now (almost!) reliable square flanks kept them in place. Oops, she didn’t cover far enough that time and they went barreling for the building…not a problem, she broke out far and wide to head them off. Yes! Now I can work outside the fences!

This is something I wrote in March, but just never posted. Since then, I’ve had some problems with the dog running loose on the neighboring property. One of my ducks was injured in the first meeting, but has since recovered. Yes, ducks can run so far, so fast that they sprain something. I also need to come up with a strong draw out there for training. I’ve never had much trouble keeping them away from the crate.