Jinger and I have been working hard on our cow herding skills. It feels sometimes like we've hit a wall, but laying in bed thinking things through in the dark last night, I may have found an idea for some of the issues we are having in training. I tried implementing my new plan this morning, and it seems like it might work.
I've tried for a long time to get some good pictures of Jinger working. Trouble is, I still need to really be on top of her and not distracted by a camera while working, and when I do decide to take the camera out, my pictures always seem to end up out of focus. I still like this one though.
I wanted to get a good collie stare picture, and her sneaking up on the chickens afforded a nice one.
I temporarily lost my head and ordered 25 chicks last week. Mostly Buff Orpingtons, with some Silver Laced Wyandottes. They ended up throwing in an extra Silver and 1 exotic something-or-other for free.
This is my 1 exotic something-or-other. Any guesses what it could be?
My ducks, and single hatched Lavender Orpington are growing extremely quickly. After I took these pictures, I moved the chicks to a separate pen as the ducks are playing in their water so much that the chicks hardly even get a sip unless I'm there to referee.
The goat moms are always so patient!
Jasper. I let him see the cows the other day, and he wasn't interested-I'm not too worried yet though. He looked really good on sheep a couple weeks ago, and this line is sometimes just slow to turn onto/start biting cows. And my stubborn cows need bit, or at least intimidated, to move, so Jasper just isn't ready for that yet.
I really like little Liz! She got to see sheep a couple weeks ago too, and looked extremely nice! The other day she got into the yearling calf pasture and started running that calf. I called her off, but it was beautiful to see, especially since she's so young!
The other day I ran and hid from her behind a tree, and she put her nose to the ground and worked my trail for 7 minutes or so, until she tracked me down, 100ft away! I was super impressed, as I love watching a dog work its nose! Now to just foster what she obviously already has an aptitude for and turn her into a great dog!
Jinger looks awesome! She is such as pretty dog :). I don't know anything about professional herding, but to my untrained eye if I didn't know Liz had never seen sheep I'd think that she had at least worked with them a lot before. She looked professional!-KryssaLee
ReplyDeleteShe definitely shows a lot of promise-maybe even more than Jinger did at that age!
DeleteHi Kailey! If you are interested in working fresh cows with Jinger you can come to my house. I have 14 head of yearlings who have never been worked with by dogs.
ReplyDeleteKryssaLee