Tell Me Thursday

1. How do you teach recalls to your dogs?

I usually call their name when they are already coming to me (when they are puppies). Then I hold my arms out so they come right in straight to me. They get lots of praise when they come in so they like to be with me. The only one of my dogs that this didn't work with is Mike. When he was a puppy and I called him he would run the other way. He has always been very hard headed and stubborn. I didn't have a good recall on him till long after he was working stock. Over a year old.

2. What is your favorite Restaurant or type of food? Clearly I have food on the brain much of the time.

We (my daughter's and me) don't really go to restaurants much anymore. When we do go, we try to eat something healthy, so its usually Panera Bread or Lemon Grass (Thai). My favorite type of food is tacos. Beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and salsa...mmmm


3. What is your favorite interest outside of dogs/livestock/sports?

It would have to be music. I grew up in a very musical family and we all played some instrument and (tried) to sing. My Mom had a lovely voice and my Dad was a professional musician, Trombone. My Mom used to tell us how he'd blow that horn right over our bassinet when we were babies. We always had bands in the house. My Dad also had a very extensive album collection, mostly Dixieland jazz, but lots of other stuff to. So we all grew up with a great appreciation of music.


4. Describe your path from where you started out to where you are now! (For example, how did you get from Novice to Open? How long did it take? Train dogs? Buy dogs? I'll take answers for any sort of discipline, or even how did you go from wild dog that didn't listen to well behaved dog - interpret this however you like.) This question was suggested by Pippin.

I think I answered part of this last week, but I'll repeat some of it. I got Seth in 2000 and after he got in with the goats I realized I needed to learn how to work with him. I wasn't really interested in trialing so didn't do much of it. I was in maybe 1 novice trial with Seth before moving to Pro-novice. I got Meg a year later and the day I was to start her in novice, I was asked to put her in nursery as a filler dog. She barely had a 50 yrd outrun, no driving at all, no penning etc. but not knowing any better I entered her. I was told to just send her and after she did her "outrun" to just call her back. Well I sent her and she ran straight down (325yrd outrun) and when she got to the sheep she lollipopped around them, lifted them, fetched them thru the fetch panels, went around the post and DROVE THROUGH THE DRIVE PANELS! Then she crossdrove them to the crossdrive panels, missed them but hey I didn't care, I was still in shock. She then brought them back up and penned them. She got a score of 43 and I think 4th place? That was the highlight of her trialing career however as I left my husband and started on the long road of rebuilding my life so all my dogs kinda got put on hold. I did a small bit of trialing after that, the last one was about 4 years ago at Pat Shannahan's in ID. Seth placed 8th out of 16. That was his 4th trial and the first in about 3 years.


5. Is there a dog that you raised that, if you knew then what you know now, you would have raised them differently? Question posed by Jodi.

Oh yes. I would have done a lot of things differently with Seth. I was a complete novice and used some very questionable training techniques that I would never use today. I didn't understand a dog like Seth (still don't completely) and lets just say the trainers I had back then wanted me to be a bit more harsh than I ever would today. It set Seth and I up for a lot of head butting in the past 11 years.

Tell Me Thursday...on Thursday!!

1. Who is your newest dog? Where is he/she from, and why did you choose this particular dog/breeding? This question posted by Jodi.

My newest dog is Crue. He is now 2 yrs old. I got him from Jenny and Scott Glen and he is out of Megan, by Scott's Don. I didn't so much choose him as just asked Jenny if she had an extra pup out of that litter, could I have one and did she think they would be a good match for my abilities. So far Crue is turning out to be perfect for me and I LOVE working with him!

2. What traits drew you to this dog or breeding? (also by Jodi)

Again it wasn't so much traits that drew me to the breeding as availability and trust in the breeder to give me a dog that I could work with.

3. What's on your feet right now?

My very old and grungy work shoes. Too ugly and beat up from not taking them off before mucking out sheep pens or kicking jolly balls for the dogs for me to post a picture like Laura did of her very colorful,fuzzy and comfortable looking slippers. And I don't think I could have gotten anything more in that last sentence. Grammar/Joan = oxymoron...emphasis on the last syllable.

4. What are you reading right now?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I just finished Donald McCaig's "An American Homeplace". I'm still in the middle of Diana Gabaldon's "the Fiery Cross" which I have started and almost finished several times. I love the series, but get stuck on that book for some reason.


5. What upcoming trials are you looking forward to? If you don't trial dogs I'll take whatever activity that you're looking forward to.

I'm looking forward to Jan Thompson's trial in OCT. I am only going as a spectator as I have no trial dogs right now. My old dogs are just too old and rusty and my young dog isn't quite ready for trialing yet.

Tell Me Thursday on Friday (Sorry I'm late)

1. In sheepdog training (or lets call it *any* type of training), how do you keep from taking yourself, your dog, your lack of progress too seriously? posed by Ann

Well, I've done so many stupid things I just have to let it go sometimes or I'd go crazy. Like last week while working with a friends dog, one of my sheep busted through the gate and took off. The same gate that another sheep had busted through a few weeks ago and that I was supposed to have fixed. This sheep didn't just unhinge the gate though, she sent it flying about 6 feet. Good thing nobody was standing there. So all the sheep get out and I send my older, trained dog to fetch them back. He gets weirded out in his old age and singles one off and chases it around behind the kennels where it jumps into the fence and falls over. It finally makes it back unscathed and I put the old, senile dog up and get out his sister, who is no spring chicken herself, but usually has a calming effect on sheep. Well not these sheep! They all get panicked and they run down the side of my property which borders a forested area and they duck through the only completely unfenced portion and off into the woods they go. The dog I'm using having no real work sense can't get them back so I call her off. We spend the next 45 minutes walking the golf course looking for my sheep who could be in Timbuktu by now! We finally find them ON THE WAY BACK, and my dogs still must be on drugs cuz Meg crosses over on her outrun to gather them while Seth was going the other way and then she proceeds to go straight at them, single one off and run it away from the others. I finally get her to stop and Seth picks them all up and brings them home. These are my fully trained, albeit rusty, old dogs. No, I really can't take it too seriously. What's the next question?


2. How many crates do you have? For reals.

I think I have about 14 crates, but I own a groom shop, so most of them are at my shop.

3. How do you keep your dogs in shape?

I run them on the golf course behind me. I go for walks every morning and every evening and sometimes I take a nice long hike when my sheep escape there.


4. Who is your favorite movie/tv star eye candy at the moment?

Don't have any favorites really. But I guess I can always stand to look at Mark Harmon.

5. What is your livestock situation? Have your own? Borrow? Herd the cats? (You can subsitute other equipment for livestock if you don't work stock with your dogs).

I have my own sheep again, finally after many years of being sheepless. My dogs are doing their darndest to rid me of them, but for now they are still there. I do have one cat too though. The dogs don't really try to herd Kitty though. He's not very herdable (is that a word?)

A Happy Ending

Harry is one of my grooming customers. He has been coming to me for about 2 years. A few months ago he had his 2nd ruptured disc. He had two surgeries in the past year. He is now paralyzed in his rear end. I groomed Harry one time after his surgery at the vets request. I never heard anything more from his owner and wasn't sure if she had Harry put down. Then a friend saw Harry on tv with his new adoptive family! He is doing great and has a little cart to help him get around. He also has 2 young girls in his life now.

Here is a little more about Harry's journey.

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=176217

And this is where Harry is now!

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=176660

Today I groomed Harry for his new owners. He seems to get along really great and still has his same wonderful personality.

I love Happy Endings!

My start, or an answer to Laura's questions

(1) How did you get into border collies (or whatever your dogs of choice are)? What started it all? 

     I got my first Border Collie from a friend who had bred a litter. I had heard about the pups since the day they were born but had absolutely NO interest in getting another dog at that point.  I already had 3 dogs. I had raised goats for milk for many years and wasn't interested in getting another dog that I would have to keep away from them. Long story short, when the pups were 3 months old my friend drove down to my house to put the pups in a local informal dog event to try to find homes for them. I was taking the pups out of the crate and the last pup looked me in the eye and said "I'm yours" After I found out what he did when he got in my goat pen I decided I better learn how to work with him and found a trainer of sorts. After the trainer working him a few times in the small round pen, they persuaded me to sign him up for a clinic with a very well known handler. I had never worked Seth myself, and was a bit  scared sh*tless   surprised that I had to go in the (big) arena and work with the clinician myself ( they had told me he would work the dog), but that was it for me. I was hooked. I won't write how much of a  spastic idiot I was and how I found out really fast how out of shape I was trying to keep up with that clinician. 

(2) How many dogs do you have? All dog math variations accepted. 

       6, or using Laura's math theory it may be more precise to say 5 1/4

(3) What do you do for a day job? 

     I own a pet supplies and groom shop

(4) What questions would you like to answer (or ask)? 

     Coming up with a question or answer would require thinking. Not a good time right now for that.

(5) What was for dinner last night? 

     tacos

Guinea herding, not for the faint of heart

Seth is certainly up to the task however. My guineas have a bad case of wanderlust lately and today I heard them over in the brush off the golf course. I don't want them to wander too far away since the main purpose in having them is keeping the ticks and bugs off MY property. I took Seth over there and we found them in the extremely dense brush and berry bushes. It is totally impassible for humans, barely passable for a dog and the guineas were hunkered down under all that growth.
This is what it looks like in there.

Seth went in and took them out almost 1 at a time. They'd fly up and went mostly behind Seth downhill, he'd patiently go and retrieve the one and put it up on the golf course, which is now overgrown grass and weeds. We had almost all of them out when one decided to be extra stupid. Guineas are not smart at the best of times, but this one decided to make a new record and flew up and ran way off into the woods beside my property. I called Seth back and said we'd find her later. We had all the rest and I just walked home and waited for Seth to bring them all over the hill and through the opening in the trees and bushes back to my yard. You can't rush guineas or they'll fly and Seth knows this so  he just slowly kept them tucked in together and slowly moving till they were home. I threw them some scratch feed to make home the better place to stay.

We went and tried to find the remaining one that took off into the woods, but even though Seth went in and searched around we could not find her. I finally heard her way off in the woods later on and the others called her back and she made her way back to her flock.

I really don't know what I am going to do when Seth is gone. None of my other dogs will even look at the guineas. And Seth just had surgery and was neutered at the same time only 11 days ago! He's dedicated, that's for sure. Good dog Seth!