Strike Training day 3

Tess
photo by Diane Pagel

It's day 3 of the strike and so far I have spent

most of it at DeltaBluez.

Today I started the day out by brushing out Emma's mane.

She is such a good horse. Diane told me she use to be a show horse

and was used to folks fussing over her. Today, while I was brushing

her main, she rested her head on top of mine and then on my shoulder.

And while I was brushing out her back, I swear, she had a smile

on her face. My next task is going to be her tail and that is going to

take a little while.

After the horse, it was on to working Mig, my Kelpie

Today I used Tess to sort and act as a back up dog.

Tess and I put 25 or so head into the round pen and then we

took out 5 at a time after working them 10-15 minutes or so.
In the hot weather you don't want to work the stock
more than a few minutes, so every 10-15 minutes
you change them out.

Today, we worked on Mig's push. She likes to work too close

to the stock and this wont do if we a working very light sheep

as they will tend to run and scatter. I've been trying to stop

her from running out of her "lie-down" after I release her
from it. If the situation needs her to walk up to the stock
in a straight line, I use the command "Walk-Up".

We are also working on letting her learn to read the stock better.

I've been trying to not give her any flank commands and let

her figure them out by herself by what way the stock is moving.

One plus for the afternoon....Instead of tying Mig up after our

session and using Tess to put the stock into the exhaust pen,

I felt she was working pretty good and calm to let her put them away

and she did this great!!! (not driving them in...but fetching them in)

After our work, I let Buck and Mig run around in the appropriate

play areas on the farm and they were joined in by the others

while I was cleaning dog stalls and a host of other chores.

I'm not sure if I can appropriately put it into words or not

but working my dogs and being on the farm is sure

"mental floss" for me. I would rather be on a farm
than anywhere else.

Jeff and Mig (Kelpie)
Photo by Diane Pagel