06/21/2018 A Slight Reboot
Life has been busy of late. That's my explanation for the lapse in posting
05/14/2018 Dillon’s Day ~ Slow, But Steady
One of the pitfalls of training alone is that it's sometimes hard to see improvement which, in turn, can lead to frustration and discouragement when we get to feeling like we're spinning our wheels. Thankfully, I have friends who turn up from time-to-time and aren't afraid to tell me what they're seeing. Such was the case over the past weekend. My original plan was to have one of them work Dillon because it's so much easier to see what's going on when you aren't in the thick of it. Yes, I could just video our session, which I have done in the past, but I really wanted to know if I'm the source of our problems. The only way to do that was have someone else handle him. Dillon, however, is apparently a bit of a momma's boy. No way was he working for anyone else. So much for that
05/07/2018 Expectations and Perspective
As babies who could barely manage to sit up, we must have looked at the kid already crawling and thought she was the most awesomely talented baby around. We wanted to be able to crawl just like her. So we worked at it until the day we finally made it to our hands and knees. Suddenly we were booking all over the place. Then we saw the toddler walking! Whoa! Are you kidding me?!!? Walking? Here was something new to aspire to, and so our perspective changed. Crawling was no longer good enough. We wanted more. We pulled ourselves up on the couch, grasped adult fingers, stumbled, fell, landed on our diaper-padded asses, finally took those first few steps and then
04/23/2018 Spring Has Sprung! I Hope
Sunday was a gorgeous day - finally - and I had every intention of taking advantage of the beautiful afternoon by getting in some training. First, however, I had to feed the bottle lamb. Done with that, I decided a quick walk-about was in order to check the footing in the pens and arena. The day before they had been slick and soupy. On my walk-about I noticed the duck-proofing was off on part of the arena fence. I don't have ducks this year, so could have just removed it. That would have taken more time than I wanted to spend, so I opted for a quick repair with baling twine instead. Before taking care of that, however, I needed to bring over several wheel barrow's worth of wood chips to fill in a soft spot in the roundpen, which reminded me that Cian's outside run needed a bit of
10/24/2017 Dillon’s Day ~ Getting Outside the Box
It's been a while since I shared an update on Dillon. Don't worry, I haven't been neglecting the poor boy. As a matter of fact, he's had to step into a new role as the chore/sorting dog while Jig and I focus on other things. It's a big job which entails not only bringing in and helping me sort the sheep, but bringing in the steers as well. He's a little ignorant about cattle at the moment, but he's learning, and he's getting more confident each day. I'm going to admit, however, Dillon has been a challenge. For a time, I chalked it up to youth, immaturity, and silly-boy-dogness, so I continued working him the same way. Only, we weren't being successful. I wasn't seeing the results I felt I should have been. Dillon's a smart dog that truly wants to work. One of the things I like best about him
10/11/2017 Jig’s Journey ~ A Bump in the Road
Okay, honestly, it feels like way more than a bump. It's more like a wall that I've hit at full speed. Or, better yet, the mother of all potholes with spikes in the bottom. No, really hungry alligators who aren't even going to spit me back out once they're done chewing me up. Or this