Quick update, more later

It's early Tuesday and it's been a whirlwind three days. Yesterday was the most exciting. We went to South Carolina for a herding lesson. I went there because I wanted a lesson on cattle in preparation for the upcoming ASCA trial. Gel worked cattle last year about this time, but he hasn't been on them since. I wanted pointers on how to handle the beasts.

The cattle were not push-overs, in fact, they were outright stubborn and at first Gel had some difficulty moving them. Carol Anne worked her dog Scout with Gel for a while and that's all it took. Once he got his confidence up, he moved those black beasts quite well. After the ASCA trial is over (and hopefully Gel will have his WTCH), I likely will not put him on cattle again. There's too much risk of injury. I love the above photo: Gel looks like a possessed black devil here. Look out cattle of the world! I took some photos, but I couldn't get much given I was trying to watch where Gel was and of course where the cattle were. I won't work him on cattle again for the sake of photographs. Hopefully I can get some at the ASCA trial.

The coolest thing was: Fern turned on to sheep! Up until now, she has been afraid of them! I took her into a 100 x 100 pen with about ten sheep. At first I had her on lead and all I was going to do was run around the sheep with Fern on lead, but after a couple of passes, she started tugging at the lead to go on her own so I dropped it. Off she went! She covered quite well. We had some problems with the sheep going into corners and along the side of the pen where there were two livestock guard dogs, but all in all, it was a fun experience. Carol Anne took some photos of us working.