OMG It's wet down here! See the pic!

Well, we've finally tipped it for 10 inches of rain, that's around 250mls, which is about 220mls more than I think we need right now!

Once again, my drain is flowing like a flooded river, with rapids and white water throughout, and it is continuing to rain. By the look of the radar, it isn't going to let up any time soon either!
Check out the latest radar photo.

Needless to say, none of us are impressed right now. Not only do the dogs not want to stand out in the rain to eat their breakfast, but I'm not too wrapped with the idea of standing out in the paddock waiting for them to go to the toilet!
The joys of being a dog owner I guess.

Now that Jock has decided water is fun, I'm going to have to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't jump down into the drain. I wouldn't put it past him, given how he loves to explore lots of new things, but if he did get into the drain, I'd have to retrieve him from my neighbours place about a kilometre down the road!.

Plans for the day include a lot of sitting down and watching DVD's with Jock on the floor at my feet. Should be a good day I think!

What a night! Earthquakes!

At about 8.30pm last night the house was starting to settle down. Most of the kids were in bed, the dogs were sleeping in their pens and everything was ticking along as usual.

8.55pm all of that changed with the house beginning to shake! For about 40 seconds everything was shaking; we were experiencing another earthquake, with a small aftershock around 5 minutes later.

The kids panicked, and I must admit, I wasn't really happy either. Poor Jock was horrified, and the old Boxer looked on it all as a huge inconvenience!

The epicentre was about 10 kilometres from where I live, but it shook houses hundreds of kilometers away. No damage done, that we can see at the moment. The barn is still standing, and all of the sheep are fine.

This morning, however, we were blanketed with white. Not snow but frost. The grass (and mud unfortunately) was crunchy underfoot. I shivered through it unhappily, however, Jock decided that it wasn't too cold to play with his watering can.

Ahh, to be young and innocent again!

Babies on the way!

Well, I wandered down to the barn this morning to check on our sheep and realised that the dates I'd written down for when my ewes are due to lamb might be off by about 2 months! At least 5 of them are heavily pregnant to my bottle ram lamb. By the look of the ewes, they are most likely carrying twins, so it's going to be double the fun again this year! Hopefully this year we'll get some ewe lambs.

For the last two years, we used a ram that I had called 'Cec' as in 'Cec the stud ram' from the NZ Animated movies 'Footrot Flats'.

Every ewe that Cec covered produced ram lambs! His son (Reginald) also produced ram lambs, so this year we hope to strike it lucky by getting a ewe or two. Either way, if the mums rear their babies, rams or ewes, I'll be happy. The last few years we've had a lot of bottle fed babies (usually given to us) so it would be nice to see our girls take care of their babies and leave my kitchen free of lambs for a season!

Ram lambs will be marked (turned into wethers) for future dog training, and hopefully the ewes will be of a suitable quality that we can retain them and breed on. My old ewe (Violet) will probably be separated from the ram after this season as I believe she's getting a bit too old for breeding, and would probably appreciate retirement.

I'm not too sure what Jock would think about having lambs running around his kitchen either.

On another note, Dog Day is happening today, the one I mentioned in an earlier post, and I was right about the weather. It hasn't stopped raining since I got up, and if you go out from behind shelter, the wind drives the rain straight into your face. I'm not adverse to working in the rain, but trying to do it whilst fending off something like pneumonia is beyond me. I think that although Jock would probably benefit from training in a different environment, we made the right decision to stay home today.

It seems, however, that no matter how bad the weather is, he will still happily play with his watering can. I didn't get any photo's of him romping around the paddock this morning, I spent all of my time trying to walk without slipping over. If the weather fines up (I doubt it will) I'll do a bit more obedience training today. Key points to work on will be 'stay close' (walking at my leg), 'stand' (stop and stay stopped!), and 'steady' (slowing pace when required). I'll let you all know how we go!

The 'stands' are coming!

Well, late yesterday afternoon I took Jock for a run in the paddocks. He's desperate to work the sheep, but after a session later on today, he's having about 6 weeks off.

Whilst he was tearing around the paddock, I called out 'Stand' and he stopped in his tracks and dropped! We did this a few more times, and each time he didn't disappoint. He was quick to stop, drop and then wait until I gave him another command.

This morning I thought I'd check to see if it was just a fluke or not, so we did it again. As with last night, he hit the brakes and stopped. I threw in a 'come-bye' and 'away' just for good measure, and stopped him when he was about half way round the circle, and again, he stopped.

It seems it wasn't just a fluke after all.

I wonder what will happen when there are sheep involved though?

Will update again this afternoon (hopefully with photo's) on how the session went.

Photo's from out and about on the farm

Putting a stop to training for the time being has left at a little bit of a loss, so I decided to cruise around my computer looking for photo's that I could share.

Below are random photo's, complete with explanations.

This Koala decided that this was a pretty good tree to sit in. Although not common on our property (due to the lack of trees), we have been visited by two koala's in the last two years. An hour or so after this photo was taken he had moved on.

The water is just a small hint of what it can get like on this property after a decent downpour. This property doesn't appear to have a 'name' so I'm now calling it 'The Basin'!

Note the old shed in the background, this is our barn, and the sheep love going in there to get out of the weather.

A couple of bottle fed lambs from last year. This was their first afternoon out of my kitchen and into the sunshine. They don't exactly look impressed!

"Sheldon" coming in for a close-up!

This is not a black and white photo, just a picture taken late in the day, with the sky looking rather unsettled!

Same bottle babies, playing this time!

Gabby, now one of the ewes that I work Jock on (she's brown these days though!). She has the white patch on the top of her head, and also has a white top lip! Kind of cute I think.

We are very lucky on this property. Not only do we have the occasional Koala and Kangaroo, we also have a large family of Hares, the occasional fox, wood ducks on the dam, and our old hedge is full of blue and yellow wrens. We have a resident Tawny Frog Mouth Owl in the barn (who is busy building a nest), as well as Two Wedge Tailed Eagles that float over almost daily, and a couple of hawks that find the pickings rather good. Oh, and in the off season (now) we have lots of little frogs in, and around, the swimming pool!

It does't get much better than that. Actually, get the tiger snakes, brown snakes, red bellied black snakes, and copperheads off the property and I'd be much happier!

A morning run...... with photo's!

This morning it was absolutely freezing, so after feeding Jock, and letting him digest his brekkie, I decided to take him out for a romp in the paddock. I took about 20 photo's, but only one of them shows him actually holding still! He has way too much energy for that hour of the morning lol

This is fun mum!

Finally, I get a shot of him holding still! And no, I didn't have to tie him to the post to do it either!

"What's this white stuff mum?" - "Can I eat it?"

It's amazing what he can find fun in. This is part of a drain that runs the entire length of the property. About a week ago there was a lot more foam there, and he showed absolutely no interest in it. Today, however, it just screams to be pounced on, bitten and played with.

Training day yesterday

Yesterday the weather was kind to us so we managed to get a little bit of training in.

With all four lambs in the training pen, I set about widening Jock out to give the sheep more room. I'm very pleased to say that the advice Andy gave me worked beautifully. Jock is now running right out wide (as much as the pen will allow) to get around the sheep, but he is still ducking in at the last minute. Also, he has gotten very slack on his stops, tending to creep up behind the sheep. He's also ignoring the command to 'stand' and will get within touching distance of the bum of the sheep. It's proving to be very annoying!

Maybe Andy will have a suggestion or two for me on that one?

All in all it was a fairly good day, but the state of my yard suggests that I've done my last training session in it until after winter is over. It's turned to slush and is very slippery, making walking difficult. Also, with the weather getting so cold all of a sudden, I don't want to be running condition off my sheep. They are only young, and although they have plenty of wool on them, I'd like to see them with just a little more covering for the winter.

So, after a quick training session on Saturday (where we'll be working on stops, in the barn yard) we are taking a break for the winter months. Jock will undergo obedience training in the meantime which will hopefully get him a little more responsive when out working. If nothing else, it'll be something for him to do, and give him new things to learn as well!

More updates coming in the next day or so!

A decision to make.........hmmmm

Well, I now have a slight dilemma.

Every month (or thereabouts) I attend a sheepdog training day. It's a good day out for Jock and myself, and we get one-on-one instruction for a little bit.

However, a couple of things are holding me back from going this sunday.

1. The weather forecast is horrible. 85% chance of rain, with a chilly wind. The pen that we train in is out in the open, and will get incredibly slippery. Not only that, there isn't much to cut the wind down.
2. (this is my number 1 concern) I'm desperately trying to widen Jock out, to give the sheep more room, but the pen we would be training in is quite a lot smaller than the pen I work in at home. There will be no-where for him to go to give the sheep more room, and
3. My mum is down for the day, and wants to come too. If either of us get cold, it'll take me hours, and her days, to thaw out and warm up again.

So, do we go or do we stay?

I think we might give this one a miss. Jock is going to be training today, have tomorrow off, train on saturday (in the barn pen) and then, well, it's anybody's guess what will happen after that.

So, we get a day off on Sunday. Sounds good to me, and to my mum, but I'm not sure Jock will like that idea hehe

Some random Jock photo's

After looking through all of the photo's that I've taken the last couple of days, I thought I'd add a few more to the blog. These are just random shots of Jock being, well, Jock!

The sun may be shining, but it was freezing cold when this photo was taken this morning. This is his smiley face after chasing the wood ducks out of the paddock.

Not exactly the best way of carrying, although it does the job!

This watering can is just so much fun!

Tearing around the paddock with the tennis ball in his mouth. This is when he is playing 'keepings off' me!

Play today? Sounds good

Due to Jock getting worked on the sheep yesterday, today he has a day off.

After yesterdays fantastic effort, today became a day of rest and play, and boy does he love to play.

I took him out to the front of the property so that he could run around and stretch his legs, without encountering sheep, or the horse. Sadly, I hadn't counted on the wood ducks wandering around, so he did get a bit of a chase in.

After seeing them off the property, he came back to me with that "okay, jobs done, what's next?" look. This was when I pulled the tennis ball out of my pocket. He hasn't had much to do with tennis balls, simply because my Boxer girl likes to destroy them, so there are never any around!

I managed to catch some good pictures of him, before the battery ran out on my camera, and he decided to come and lay down next to me for a while.

Enjoy!

This tennis ball is mine! I will hold it, and bite it, and subdue it.

Right after I take a nap, that is!

A bigger pen? Oh darling husband?????

At the risk of annoying my husband, I'm thinking of making the pen just a little bigger, and a different shape.

Okay, these are the sizes we've had so far:

Round pens
18-19ft
30ft
40ft
plus the square pen in the barn.

I think it'd only take a few more star pickets, and maybe another panel or two to make it just that little bit bigger.

I'm wondering if it would also give Jock more room to move out wider on the sheep, and stop him from darting in close all the time.

I'm not sure that the paddock space would allow it to be too much bigger if it was round, but maybe square or rectangle would do the trick. After all, Jock is now very good at getting the sheep out of corners, and the biggest problem I seem to have is that there isn't really enough room for Jock to go out nice and wide.

As my sheep are still somewhat wild, and he comes in so close, there isn't any hope of us graduating to a paddock any time soon, so another pen idea is a must.

The paddock that the training pen is in is only small. I think its something like 24 metres long by 14 metres wide. At the back is an old, very well established pear tree which sits in the middle about 4 metres off the fence.

(above): This is what the pear tree paddock is like now. The fences, although quite high, probably wouldn't stand having sheep run into them if Jock pushed too hard.

(above): This design would make the training pen a rectangle shape, and as stated in the picture, it'd be about 200m2, but it would also give the sheep corners to hide in. This can be counteracted by placing panels over the corners and rounding them.

Now, to approach my husband with the idea............

There are some good points. It will actually take less panels, and less star pickets to do the job. I might need to reinforce the existing fence, which would take more panels, but that's just a minor detail, right? hehe

Widening out, with photo's!

Okay, so I took Andy's advice and tried 'whooshing' Jock out to make him go out wider and give the sheep more room.
My husband managed to get some photos of it, and although they are small, you can see the exact moment when I 'whoosh' Jock out to force him out and away from the sheep.

Sorry for the small photos, and the low quality. It's late evening here, so the sun was setting and my happysnap camera just isn't up to the job.

As you can see, he's still coming in too close, however he is now starting to give the sheep more room. Had I been in between him and the sheep, I could have made him go even wider, but that's a lesson (for me) next time!

I needed help, again

So, I messaged my mentors (Andy and Gill) again to let them know how Jock was going. Basically I was bragging about how well I thought we did today. One thing that Andy did point out to me though, which I have noticed as I go back through the mountain of photo's, is that Jock is in fact, way too close to the sheep. I knew he was getting in close, but I didn't realise just how close until I saw it in the photo's.

Rather than Andy turning around and stating that he wasn't doing as well as I thought he was, he gave me a way (with explicit instructions) to cure Jock of this habit.

Him coming in too close is the reason that he can't control the sheep out in the paddock! So, we must master giving the sheep room before we can move on to the next stage.

Oh, and I must say thank you to Andy for giving my orange training stick a new nickname. It shall forever be called the 'fly swat' hehe

So, out to the training pen we go to see if I can get Jock to give the sheep more room. Maybe it'll also have the effect of slowing him down just a little. Hubby says he's taking the camera to get more shots, but I wont be bothered by that for now, I just want to see Jock give the sheep some room.

Look out sheep pen, here we come!

Will post photo's, and training results if and when (god help me!) we get them.

Photo's and explanations from training day today

Below is a long list of photo's from our training session today. It was, by far, the best training day we've had to date. This training session lasted 10 minutes. The first photo was taken at 1:23pm, and the last at 1:32pm.

Oh, and these photo's are out of sequence, but they have explanations, so you should get the idea what I'm on about.

Holding the sheep - a lesson is patience

Stopping on the point of balance, even though the sheep are still moving, this is something that he is only just learning - second lesson stopping on the point of balance.

End of the training session, a nice pat for a job well done.

Bringing the sheep to me

Calling off - as you can see, he doesn't need much encouragement.

Note the tail - that is one happy puppy!

Calling off so I can cast him a different direction

Away command given.

Changing position again so that he needs to circle the sheep and bring them to me.

Another change in position so that I can give the 'come-bye' command. Nicely done by Jock. Not too close this time!

Stopped on the point of balance, again.

And again

Gently bringing the sheep to me, before I walk through them again to change position

Reinforcing the 'stand' command using the stick.

All in all, this was a really good training session. I didn't need to reprimand him at all, he listened well, reacted quickly, and is starting to pay attention to my 'steady' command when I need to slow him down.

We're both happy, I think!

Training today - 12th June 2012

Today I harassed my husband to take photo's of Jock training, so that I could refer back to them at a later date, and to post them on my blog.

Let me start by saying, what a fantastic young dog I have here! Not only is he a beautiful addition to my family, the clown, the cuddler, the cutie, but my god is he really coming into his own as a sheepdog! (okay, so I'm just a touch biased, I admit it! lol).

Anyway, the training started as per usual, with the sheep in the pen (it's about 40ft across now) and Jock and I on the outside. Usually I start him outside just to make sure he is paying attention and listening to my commands. It also gives him a chance to burn off some pent up energy. Today, due to the sun playing havoc with photo's, we kept this to a minimum.

Off lead, I took him into the pen and put him on a stand whilst I fiddled around closing (and securing) the gate. He waited patiently just in front of me, watching the sheep.

I repeated the 'stand' command, walked into the centre of the ring and sent him come-bye (not his favourite side). He started in too close, so I flicked him out and he widened out beautiful. In one fluid motion, he picked up all four sheep off the fence, jogged them towards me and stopped on the point of balance. I didn't even have to tell him to stand when he got to that point, he just did it!

Anyway, so I got him circling again, widening him out, changing direction etc. I spent a lot of time walking through the sheep today and putting myself in a different spot in the yard. At one stage I was running to a new spot, but Jock must have realised because he spun the sheep around and had already put them there. That stopped me in my tracks.

I called him off, put him over to the opposite side of the yard, and cast him 'away', again I had to flick him to widen him out, but he didn't put a foot wrong. He circled in behind them (quieter this time) and brought them to me. 

At one stage, after I called him off and put him on a stand, I was standing in a slightly blocking position when I sent him, but he went anyway. I sent him 'away' and he thought about going 'come-bye', but that wasn't the command I gave him, so he kept going on his path.

He's still very excitable, and rushes in too much in the beginning, but when he settles, he does really well. One ewe is causing him some grief at the moment, constantly wanting to argue the point, but he puts her back in her place (without biting her - although he will snap) and then gets on with the job. He doesn't like it when they split up on him, and will do his darndest to tuck any stray sheep back into the mob. 

I think that he thoroughly enjoys his work, and he seems to love 'working for me'. He's always happy to come off the sheep, I never need a lead at home (on dog days on different properties its a different story) to take him to or away from the sheep, and as long as he's not in full flight, he'll respond to my recall instantly!

So, I have a couple of things to say (talk a lot, don't i? lol)

1. Thank you to Andy and Gill for your advice, tips and encouragement,

2. I have myself a beautiful sheepdog, and 

3. I'm rather pleased with myself! hehe

Oh, there were over 400 photo's taken today, and I'll post a couple of them in the next post!

Just for the cute factor

Enough of the technical stuff, here's some photo's for you all to enjoy.

This dog is a real laugh and a half. He's incredibly gentle with my kids (and there are plenty of them in this house), he tries really hard to be the Big Dog in the house, much to my old Boxer girls' annoyance, and it seems he can make a game out of anything.

These photo's are taken of him when he's on his chain. He's just been fed so is looking rather pleased with himself, and he's just about to be let off to go romp around the paddocks with me.

In the last photo he's looking straight at the sheep. They've noticed me and are hoping that I have a bucket of food handy!

My training tools, complete with Photos!

This next series of photo's shows you a little bit more about what I'm talking about.

The first is of the sheep that I am currently using for training:

My sheep have names, so here goes:

Left back (rear end view) is Jasmine (10 months old), front closest is my 8 month old white dorper ram lamb (bottle reared), black lamb is Gabby, also 10 months old, and the other ewe is twin sister to Jasmine, known as Kimberley. Only Sheldon knows his name, the others are named purely for my own purpose.

These guys are all around the same size, and behave in a similar fashion, although Gabby is showing signs of wanting to do her own thing!

This is the square pen in the barn that I use for all sheep handling, and for training on wet days. The white sections are actually old chaff bags that I've stapled in place to cut the wind down. The floor is packed earth, sand and then hay. Approximately 5m x 5m it is big enough to work a small number of sheep in (no more than 5 or 6) but not too big that they can get too far away.

Outdoor training pen. Made up of:
10 star pickets,
5 mesh panels (6m x 1.1m)
A small mesh panel gate.
It is approximately 40ft across and is basically round.
The white tap is a visual aid for sheep, dog and handler
The gate is covered in wind mesh (see photo further down) to stop sheep from crashing into it

This photo just shows the actual wind mesh that we use. It runs down the open panel side of the barn pen. It does three things:
1. Stops the wind from howling through, especially good for lambs and lambing ewes,
2. Stops sheep from getting their feet caught in the mesh squares,
3. Makes the fence appear solid to the sheep, reducing the risk of them wanting to try and go through it.

The garden rake is the thing I was told to use as a training tool for my dog. Although it is great for blocking the dog, I found it too heavy, and uwieldy to use. Also, if you don't keep the flat side of the rake towards the dog, it is possible that they will hurt themselves if they crash into it. Although a good idea for some, it's not for me.

This is a training stick purchased from a saddlery store. I used it originally when breaking in horses (when getting them used to having their hind legs handled without putting myself in kicking range) and found it to be lightweight, easy to hold and with a good grip on it. The leather flapper at the end is perfect for threading a plastic bag through for effect. I now use this when training Jock. He is not afraid of it as I have never hit him with it, but he does know that if I swish it at him, he should pay attention. It's also handy for waving in front of the sheep to stop them (especially if it looks like they are going to run over me, again!).

No matter what training aid you use, if you use one, it should be a 'training aid' and not a form of punishment. Never use it to hit your dog or your sheep.

So, these are the things that help me with training my Jock. So far, they've done me well, and I will continue to use them (other than the garden rake, that is).

Within the next week, I will be removing the bag from the end of the training stick, as there has to come a time when I only use voice/whistle commands only to have Jock work for me. But that's in the future, and after I've watched Andy and Gill's DVD a few more times.

My kingdom for a Watering Can!!!

Well, even though we've been absolutely drenched, Jock has decided to help with the watering!

"I got it!"

"And this is how I run with it"

"Oh, and this is me POUNCING on it!"

"I may be grotty, but I'm ever so cute, just need a quick breather after subduing the watering can"

"Right, back to it!"

"Gosh I'm cute, see, see, this is my 'cute' side"