New Opportunities

 When you don't own your livestock and lessons are few and far between it can be hard to make progress. I think this is something that everyone who gets into herding has to deal with. For some it eventually leads to a lifestyle change. Perhaps buying a new home, renting property, buying livestock, or just carving out more time in an already full schedule to get to lessons. For me most of those are not possible so I had to think outside of the box. 


 I know I have mentioned before what a great situation I have for renting sheep. It's close to home (11 miles), reasonably priced, kids friendly, and there is also an agility building there available for use. Without those sheep and the generosity of their owner Diva and I would not be where we are today. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate that! Unfortunately what I learned though is that all types of stock are not created equal and what you train on sheep may not be there on cows or ducks. I decided I needed a way to connect with people who owned livestock and pursue more variety in our training. My solution was to run an ad on Craigslist. I know that once again I was probably causing the heads to shake of many an experienced stock person but I didn't care. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. My thought was that at least if they contacted me they were open to the idea. I don't do well with rejection so this was much easier on my ego ;).


 As it turns out not only was I successful on that first ad but I have been successful several times since. Some of the offers I turned away because they weren't a good fit (safety first!) and others worked for a period of time and then faded away. Each of these opportunities has taught me so many things. Most of the time the stock I have been offered use of are not dog broke so to make this work you have to be comfortable around livestock, confident in your dog, and objective about your skills. I tend to be the type that likes a challenge and Diva doesn't stress to hard in new situations so it works for us. I would love to one day own my own farm and have sheep and cows at home but I also believe that in doing what I do with Diva she and I are going to be well prepared for trialing and handling any kind of stock we might encounter. 


This brings us to my latest find. I ran an ad a couple of weeks ago and got a response from a gentleman who has 6 cows on a farm only 6 miles from my house. He admits that the "girls" are only kept around to keep the property taxes low and so he doesn't mind me doing what I would like with them. They are mixed group of Brahma/beef crosses pastured in 2 lovely 4 acre fields. Sound to good to be true? Well, it is true and the best part of it is that he isn't charging me a thing! Shortly after I got that response I received another from a gentleman with a small flock of wool sheep and 200 head of dairy replacement heifers. We are planning on meeting up in a few weeks :). It's moments like these when I know that where there is a will there is usually a way!


These are the "girls". The one to watch for is the all black cow on the left. She is proving to be a pretty big challenge but we are making progress.