Monday, September 20, 2010

Back to Herding

After taking a year off from herding with Noel, to be a new mom again, we started up again last week. Sheep herding with dogs is extremely hard work. The more I do it the more I realize how little I know. There is so much to teach the handler and the dog, as well as learning about stock in general. We had a wonderful time at our first lesson back. We worked in a trial size arena and both Noel and I seemed pretty comfortable in that space, even after a year off. In fact, I think we came back more calm than when we left (this is a "we" effort!). Our second run we practiced in a pasture area with more sheep. I won't give you all the details but just mention that the sheep ended up down the driveway and we decided neither Noel nor I are ready for that much space to handle. The difference between obedience practice and herding practice is that in obedience we can go out and have a perfect practice - that never happens in herding. This has been a difficult obstacle for me to overcome, because I'm a perfectionist by nature and I'm slowly learning to let things go, accept the good and work harder on the bad. But when things do go well, there's not a better feeling because I know we worked HARD for it.

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