Lee Lumb Clinic

Late afternoon sunshine while Ruedi takes his dogs for a run in the field behind his little red barn. His sheep and goats are locked up in the 'nite' pen to the left of the barn. If you look past Ruedi you can just see the corner of his 'chicken tractor'.
Judy's big field for the clinic. The trees on the Island are in beautifull fall colors.
Ruedi holding sheep with Teak in between runs.
Left on their own, the sheep would run to the set out pens at the far end of the field by the blue tarp. Dusty and Lou are more than ready to take a turn holding sheep.
Another picture of the bright fall colors and Lee working with John in the distance.

I had arrived at Ruedi's pretty little farm about 4p on Wed. I took my dogs for a run while Ruedi gave me a tour of his barn and field. It is only about 6 acres but the lay out allows for doing plenty of good dog work. Plus he is lucky enough to be within 10 mins. of Judy's 50 acre farm where our clinic will be held Thur. & Fri.
We got to the field just before 9a on Thurs. - in time for coffee and home made muffins. It was threatening rain but held off til the afternoon. I worked Jayne in the morning hoping to get some help with her busting in on them. Lee had me hold Jayne off the sheep while driving and she was awesome! Almost a waste of time to work her as she did everything nicely. lol I worked Owen in the afternoon and we certainly got our money's worth out of that session! I wanted to work on his inside flanks so Lee gave me an exercise on the fenceline; me with my back to the fence and sheep just in front of me. Then I asked him to 'come by' between me and the sheep - which he could/would not do. I had to step out a bit & let him go behind me the first couple times then eventually got him through once. So I can work on that back 'home' at McLeods'. Lee also suggested having him hold the sheep in a corner and really PUSH on the sheep as he tends to fall off of it left to his own.
On Friday I worked Jayne on her 'lift'. Ruedi held the sheep for me so she really had to lift them. Her first one was pretty good so Lee had me do a 'silent' one so see what she would do on her own.......Jayne gave the sheep about 2 seconds to move and then she bust in on them. And then she wasn't taking a lie down so that became our task for that session. We learned that Jayne can take(and needed) a MUCH bigger correction than I have been giving. And that she can drop on a dime when asked. lol So that is also something that can be worked on close at hand.
I left the clinic around 3pm so as to get up Island to Pt.Alberni and my Mom's before dark. I had just enough time to take the dogs out for a run down by the canal on an abandoned part of the mill. Sat. was great weather; sunny but cool. We had a game of King's Cribbage and watched curling on TV. Then went out for dinner at a nearby Chinese buffet and ate way too much! ;-)
I got to Departure Bay on Sun. in plenty of time for the 12:30p ferry but missed it by half a dozen cars. So we had to wait for the 3pm. grrrr However I had a DVD to watch while I waited.