Busy Weekend

As always, it was a busy weekend. On Saturday I went to a local agility show and go (fun show) and ran Gel in both a Jumpers and Standard course. A friend of mine went with me to video tape, but darned if the battery for the video camera was not charged. I had it on the charger, but it wasn’t plugged in. Minor detail. Note to self: buy a spare battery.

Gel ran well. He was pumped to be there and his responses to my commands were very, very fast. He knocked a couple of jumps (he was a bit too ramped up) and gave me some trouble with the weave poles (not surprising given I had just finished training weaves when we stopped practicing agility six months ago), but all in all, I was very pleased with his performance.

Got back to the house around 1 or 2:00 and brought the puppies and Midge inside, did some cleaning, played with the puppies and I guess that’s all I did, but I think I’m leaving something out.

Sunday was the real busy day. My friend Wally picked me up around 7:00 and we went for breakfast. While we were at breakfast, we left Midge and Wally’s Border Collie, Kessie, in the fenced-in area to play. After breakfast, we went back to Wally’s house to pick up the small chain link dog run. After loading the run into his truck, we wormed two goats that he bought at the auction this past Thursday, then went out into his large pasture to round up the herd of goats so we could worm the four steer goats. Of course, we could have lured the goats up to the top of the pasture with grain and possibly caught the goats we wanted to worm, but why do that when you have a Border Collie? The back of Wally’s pasture is dense woods and as soon as the goats saw Gel coming towards the pasture, they high-tailed it deep into the woods. Once Gel brought them up to the top of the pasture, we easily caught the four steer goats and wormed them. Gel did his job keeping the goats near us until we were finished.

We headed back to my house with the intention of setting four rolls of ElectroNet fencing down in the back pasture where there was still some green grass. That pasture (about a half mile away) is close to the river and floods whenever there are heavy rains. The close proximity to the river and past floods enabled that section of the property to remain relatively green. We loaded up the ElectroNet and other tools we needed for this project and put all five puppies in a large crate to bring them down with us. Their first vehicle ride was not a smooth car ride on the road. They cried, but they all did fine. Once we got down to where we were going to set the fence, I let the puppies out to run around and play. After playing for a while, they all fell asleep under the truck where it was cool. It took us about an hour to set the fence. Gel and I moved the sheep down to that pasture and then we went to my neighbor’s house (cutting through the back fields) to get their truck which had a water tank on the back. I road in the back of Wally’s truck with the puppies in the crate next to me.

Wally went back to the house to put the puppies in the run (it was getting very hot) while I filled up the water tank, then drove it down to the sheep and filled up their water troughs.

After we were through with that project, went in the house and took down the cattle panels that I had been using to keep the puppies confined and set up the small chain link dog run. It works much better than the cattle panels did. We ended up setting up the run in the living room rather than off the kitchen as that’s where I spend most of my free time. Brought the puppies in the house then went outside to put the dog walk back up. The bloody sheep rub on it and knock it over. The ground is quite uneven where I have it set up so it doesn’t take a lot to knock it over. That took us about a half hour.

Wally went home around 2:00 and went back in the house to do some more cleaning. Then I took a few pictures of the puppies and a video of the puppies playing with a new "toy": a paper bag. I have been using auto focus on my camera, but this evening when I plan to take more photos, I am going to switch it to manual focus. The camera has difficulty focusing on black puppies and I end up missing more photos than I get waiting for it to focus.

I dug out a tripod that I purchased many, many years ago. I’m glad I didn’t sell it! Now I will be able to set the video camera out on it and video tape training sessions with Gel, Midge and the puppies. I used the tripod to take the video I mentioned above.

I am hoping tonight to construct a wobble board to put in puppy pen for them to play on.

Three of the puppies are scheduled to go to Canada on September 24. Just 14 more days! The time has flown. It seems like just yesterday they were blind and less than a pound in weight. Their personalities are starting to emerge and they are so much fun to play with! Poor Gel and Midge are being put into the sidelines so I can play with puppies. I am looking forward, however, to having more time to focus solely on Inferno (the puppy I am keeping). I’ve not had the opportunity to be around puppies this age nor have I had a puppy to work with who has had such a good upbringing. I'm looking forward to the experience!