Tues. Working Dogs

We had a very good session yesterday with both the young dogs. Owen did well as usual although still showing a certain lack of intensity at times. He works much too carefully for a young dog so I need to remember Peter Gonnet's advice to "work a fast dog slow and a slow dog fast". However I did take the 'magic' tool of a rolled up dog food bag to insist on some more precise lie downs on the fetch. ;-)
But the best news is that Jayne did not bust through! Yay! I really tried to use my voice to 'steady' her up in the places I know she feels pressure and it seemed to work. It may have helped that at the very start, the sheep were grazing and didn't lift their heads even as she came around the top. It was so surprising that Jayne even stopped short and kind of looked at me as if to say "Whaaat?" I gave her a soft flank with a steady and she got round to balance nicely with good pace the rest of the way. I used the magic tool on her stops during the session as well.
Then my friend Ruedi from the Island arrived for dinner and stopover en route to the Canadian Nationals in Alberta this coming weekend. I cooked him roasted turkey thighs, twice baked potatoes & steamed broccoli with a seafood cocktail appy. He supplied the wine for dinner. :-) We had a great visit and talked dogs til past midnight. Ruedi's Teak got to hang out in the house with my dogs too. Her daddy Blair wishes her the best of luck in the upcoming trial; we all think a top 50% would be awesome considering the calibre of competition at this event. Every top handler in Canada plus a few from the US including Bev Lambert in a field of 67 dogs. And on a big course on some challenging sheep hand picked by Louanne. <> Hopefully we will get some of Jenny Glen's great reports on the trial each day.