On The Road Again

    I dare not even try and calculate how many miles and hours I have spent driving around to work stock with Diva. What I have noticed though is the odometer on my truck is pushing the 120,000 mile mark and that it will soon be time for a new vehicle. When I bought this truck 8 years ago I owned 2 horses (didn't do dog sports) and had no children. It has been a good truck and with it's crew cab and covered bed our current family fits well. Of course with both children being school aged comes sports, lessons, friends, and vacations not to mention the fact that I will eventually be adding a new puppy to our menagerie. I think that it may be time for the husband and I to sit down and start talking over the options. For me the things I am not willing to compromise on are 4 wheel drive, 3 rows of seating, and it has to be on a pretty high chassis (I hate driving cars...to low to the ground). Key on my list of potential new "mounts" is the  Ford Explorer, Nissan Armada, and Toyota Sequoia. Anyway, enough about cars. Let's get back to the good stuff ;-). 


   At the end of last week I made plans to go up to Kelly's to work sheep and ducks at her place. I love Kelly's set up as it has much to offer and her sheep are very nice. I really needed to set up a center chute in preparation for open at Tee Creek and as you all may remember none of the other places I work have ASCA style obstacles. I have been running Course A through my mind nightly before bed hoping that the mental training would serve me well and help me problem solve. Having never done a center chute before I wasn't even sure what was the best way to set up for it. I chose Kelly's easiest group of sheep for my first attempt and sent Diva out to start the drive towards our imaginary panel 1. This she did well and she was also good on the cross drive but when I sent her into the corner on an away at the second panel to bring me the sheep I suddenly realized that her fetch truly was broken. Instead of flanking all the way out to the fence she tucked in and then moved back out to the 45 angle. The sheep of course went right on driving down the fence. I set this up a couple of more times with very limited success. Either I sent her on her flank to early (which would have made us miss the second panels) or she wasn't completing the flank enough to bring them to me. On Kelly's recommendation I did a little fetching with her just to emphasis my point and then set it up again. This time she did get the sheep to me but it certainly wasn't as smooth and fluid as I would have liked. To add to my frustration no matter how I worked it I could get the sheep at the mouth of the chute but I couldn't manage to put more than 2 or 3 through (out of a group 7ish). Diva was just being to pushy and quick probably as a result of the stress from trying to get that flank at the 2nd panel. 


   During a break Kelly and I talked about things I could do to get her watching the heads again and covering better. It's always nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and even better when that person is as supportive and encouraging as Kelly is. For our next attempt we used a much smaller group of 3 consisting of a ewe and 2 lambs. For whatever reason this group was easier for us to manage and I was able to get them through the center obstacle after a couple of attempts. Diva's away flank at the 2nd panel was better and I wasn't so upset. I ended the session with her holding the group to me in a corner while they tried to escape which forced her to cover. 


  To lighten the stress for a bit I decided to work Diva on the ducks. For her this is the ultimate in fun and she gets so focused. She was having such a good time that she was getting sucked into the motion of the ducks so we had to have a little discussion about listening ;-). After that though she did brilliantly and I left feeling very happy with how we doing going into the Tee Creek trial. I have a short video of the duck session to share. Enjoy!