Girls Weekend In PA

  For those of you who follow this blog I guess it's not hard to figure out I have had little time for training this winter. To add to that, Diva tweaked a muscle in her right front leg at Thanksgiving time and spent 6 weeks on restricted exercise. By the time the holidays were over I was jonesing for some training time and to hang out with the girls! We ended up planning for the second weekend in January that involved spending Saturday at Amanda's working stock and then Sunday staying at Kelly's to work her sheep and ducks.

  Diva hadn't been on any stock since Thanksgiving so my plan for Amanda's was to give her some duck and cattle time. We worked the Call ducks first as a easy way to warm up and she did very nice. A bit fast to start but settled in well. My main purpose was to widen her out some and work on keeping her flanks square. This has always been a challenge for us on ducks. I almost hate to admit this but given how naturally she took to working ducks it's something I haven't put much training into. I know there is much debate about the weight that duck titles are given towards earning a WTCH and that many true stock people don't take them seriously. While I don't love working ducks I do appreciate it much more than even a year ago.

When it came our turn to work the cattle I asked for 3 head in the smaller PT field. I love working the cows in that size area as it lets me stay close enough to help and also gives plenty of chances for Diva to get them out of the corners. Diva came out all business with the cows and wasn't taking no for an answer. She did it by barking, as is her default way, but it was effective because her posture was authoritative. Amanda came by while we were working and made a comment about how much stronger she was and putting herself in the right place. It had been about 6 months since Amanda had last seen her on cows :-). Diva no longer hesitates to work on the opposite side of the cattle from me and she loves to get to the heads. There were a few spots where she was looking like she wanted to hit the heads but Amanda's cows are smart enough to know when to turn away ;-). All in all I was happy to see how she handled the cattle.

This sequence shows her confronting a challenge and then moving to drive the group off

 Always time for a "Barbie"moment. Say cheese!

  

   Unfortunately when it came to Sunday at Kelly's I had to bow out without working Diva. When I woke up that morning I knew something wasn't right and with in an hour I was certain that I was sick and only going to get worse. I made the 2 hour drive home with a fever, the chills, and stopped to be sick twice. It was the most miserable I have been in a long time. A trip to the DR. the next morning confirmed I had the dreaded flu :-(.