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Vacation ends (sad face)

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Watching my precious one week of freedom coming to and end, kind of like the ball that is about to hit TWooie in the face.

And what a glorious, hot, sunny week it was.

We did a little of this:

And a lot of this:

Quite a lot of this:

We even did a tiny bit of this:

That’s not Kieren, that’s Ghillie, who was adopted from me.  Keiren did some sheeping too, but I have been too lazy to upload his video.

I did make a short video of Dexter’s third (and probably last!) time ever on sheep, since his constant snapping and Ugly Facing at the sheep amused me.  The video is not very fancy, as I lack both the skill and patience to make quirky movie making software do what I want it to do, but you’ll get the idea.

The music is kind of sporadic as the stupid program would only let me use three songs.

The nice lady who tried our dogs out for us said “Dexter is afraid of the sheep.”  No, really?  Hah!  And of her, and of her rake.  Although this time he didn’t clamber out of the pen, or sit at the door with his back to the sheep staring at me to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF DOG LET HIM OUT.  Also, he was only scared of her in the pen – after they left the pen, he gave her a great big hug (“thanks for believing in me, sheep lady!”).  He’s such a weird, strange dog.

The trainer thinks that in a bigger field with lots of repetition, Dexter can get over his fears and work.  I think that at $25 a pop, Dexter can find a different (cheaper) way to get over his fears!

Kieren did very nicely – his tail was up much of the time, but he was super keen to please and a very sensitive guy, and really wanted to work the whole group and not peel anyone off, or go in for a cheap shot, or (*ahemDEXTER*) make Mad Teeth™ at them.  This is all good news, as I have someone who is interested in him for working her sheep on her small ranch.  If it pans out, I will be very sad to see him go, but the reality is that no matter how good he is on sheep, I cannot afford another hobby, so he should go to a home where he can do what he loves to do.

So … a wash out on sheep, and not so awesome at agility … it’s a good thing Dexter makes nice photos!

And nice smiles too :)

I’d love to stay and babble some more, but I was depressingly uninteresting for my whole vacation, pretty much.  I didn’t get my deck built, or my house painted, or my garden planted.  I didn’t even go very many places or do very many things to photograph/blog about.  I am a boring person!  Plus, SOMEONE would like me to throw the ball some more…

Piper gets what Piper wants!

Awkward Family Pet Photos

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Have you seen this website?  There are some very funny photos on there.  There are also some deeply disturbing ones!

Dexter doesn’t want me to submit this one, but I kinda think I should. Poor Dexter.  Stacks of old truck tires are slippery.

And speaking of “poor Dexter,” yesterday I decided it was high time my working bred border collie met some woolies again, so we went out to Auntie Cheryl’s farm to harass her “fat and lazy” sheep (her words, not mine!  Don’t be hatin’ on me for dissin’ someone’s sheep.)

This is Dexter’s second time meeting sheep.  It was only marginally more successful than the first time.  This time he didn’t climb anybody, perch atop their head and use them as an escape route out of the pen, but it still wasn’t pretty.  Most of the time he was out there with them, he looked either like this:

or like this:

Le sigh.  So much for my mighty stockdog ;-)  Of course, I put a lot of effort into putting solid foundations on Dex for playing agility – lots of eye contact, following my body, keeping in tune with me … all of it completely antithetical to stockdog work, where I would ask him to pay very little attention to me unless taking a command, not caring about where I was except as related to the pressure on the stock and making decisions on his own.  Never the twain shall meet, as it were.  But I am okay with him not being a stellar working dog … I have no intention of having sheep of my own, something I think is of paramount importance to being really successful at stockdog work.  And I really didn’t want him to be a jack of  all trades, master of none kind of dog.  I picked a sport, and we’re sticking to it.

And Dex is probably grateful, because as you can see, he really doesn’t like sheep except as a possible entree.



Piper, on the other hand, says sheep are Serious Business, and she are Serious Dog.


She’s not been on sheep for a couple of years, or nearly anyway, so we are both mightily out of practice.  However, it’s nice to see she is still as enthusiastic – if not particularly talented – as ever.


Piper works too close and too fast.  She has a real problem with pressure in all aspects of her life.  In flyball, the pressure of other dogs running in the lane beside her was too much.  In agility, the pressure of being asked to work away – but also being asked to work too close – is too much.  And on sheep, she has a lot of push for a little dog, and she has never been able to find her comfort bubble – too close and the sheep take off because as soon as she gets close she gets frantic.  Too far and she is worried they are getting away and she is too frantic and comes flying in to slice at them.  And don’t think it’s just because I suck at playing shepherd (and I do – oh how I suck) because several years ago I sent her away for training for a month and her trainer said the same thing.


But that’s okay too, it makes her incredibly happy to work the woolies, however poorly she may do it, so from time to time I will indulge her with the help of Cheryl and her fat, lazy sheep :)


Now that sheep day is over, we don’t have time for anymore nonsense as the Zombie Adogalypse is coming.
Be afraid.




This is their leader, and he wants your brains.


And they will of course not be proper, slow moving, shuffling zombies, they will be modern, fast moving zombies:


Oh shit.  I’m so outta here.


Spring is so funny.  Now that I have lived with her a while, I am leaning toward her maybe being a whipjack – whippet X jrt.  For while she may look like a whippet, she behaves like a terrier.  Her newest trick is to fight with me for a FULL HOUR every evening when she wants to get into my lap whilst I am watching Game of Thrones and eating my dinner of popcorn and tea.  She stands on the arm of the sofa, and places one paw squarely on the arm of my recliner.  I push her away.  She air snaps at me and puts her paw back.  I go to push her away and she bites my hand and playbows at me.  I do a Brenda Aloff “Emergency Shut Down” by firmly taking her collar and holding her in place until I see her body language relax.  The minute I let go, she playbows, barks, air snaps and puts BOTH paws on the chair arm.  This goes on for The. Entire. Show.


Attitude.  My whipjack has some.


Sometimes Piper comes to my rescue by launching herself across the living room and taking Spring OUT.


Never a dull moment at Casa de Food Lady!


Now I must run, as I need to buy new winter/rubber boots.  The vicious pokies at the back of the property actually managed to slice one of my boots open at the back, which means my foot gets wetter with every blessed step I take.  I found some that have heaters INSIDE THEM which made me positively giddy with delight, but alas they are way out of my price range.  So budget boot shopping is on the menu today.


Before I go though, I should at least give you a much nicer group shot of the Wootube Six so you are not left with nightmares.  If anyone says I am a shitty dog owner, I’m going to tattoo this to their face.  How many of you can get 6 dogs to pose in a sit stay and look right at the camera lens? ;-)  And a caveat – I am not holding up any toys, cookies, or dead bunnies either.  These are just my good dogs being their good selves!


Happy Friday ya’ll!

Rent this space!

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There’s supposed to be a video in here of Dexter having his first go at working the woolies this afternoon at the Llama Farmer’s.

Alas, the video is too embarrassing to show anyone so I refuse to upload it.  In fact, the evidence was so shameful it broke my Outlook mail (incidentally, if you can fix my Outlook mail, feel free to email m- … oh … nevermind.  Dammit)

Often young dogs when first introduced to sheep go batshit crazy, bowling through the sheep and grabbing wool left and right.  They are unstoppable locomotives hell bent on causing a stampede.

But not Dexter.

Some young dogs are nervous about the sheep and don’t know what to do, so they wander around the paddock eating poop, sniffing wool, or just generally being oblivious.

But not Dexter.

Sometimes, you have to put a more experienced dog in with the young dog to generate some interest for the baby in the woolies.  As the older dogs moves the sheep around, the newbie starts to show some flicker of interest (see first example).

But not my Dexter!

MY puppy is *terrified* of the sheep.  Balls out, flailing at the end of the line, crying to get away, escaping the paddock under the gate and scaling any human within climbing distance, begging them to take him back to the car.  Even when I carried him into the paddock and sat down next to the sheep with him, he tried to get away, tried to bite Issac in the face and then scurried away as fast as his stilts could transport him.

It was humiliating!!  My little prairie bred, hard headed, cattle-working parents of a puppy was a total wash on the woolies.  Le sigh.

Instead, I worked Miss Versatility, Princess Piper.  Not very much, because I have not worked sheep for so long and I am way out of practice.  But I had to redeem my dogs’ reputation a little bit!

That’s my girl!

(No worries, Tweed was confined to his crate and did not work anything, sheep or otherwise, so try not to spaz out, call me names, swear at me or otherwise get yourself all worked up, mmmkay?  I was a good Food Lady, and very strict with myself)