Working dogs Thur: Something a little different

This is what happens when you go away to AZ and leave your real dogs up country til next week: you are so desperate to work a dog that ANY dog will do.
Seriously, we bullied Margaret into working her long-retired 10 yr.old Boomer
And by golly, he didn't do half bad!
Not to be outdone, in a moment of tomfoolery I asked to give Wyatt a spin too. What follows is what happens when a dog has not worked sheep in...4? 5? years: here I am at the gate attempting to establish some control by reminding him what "lie down" means.
Obviously I wasted my breath. As you can see he was so excited and going so FAST that he is a blur!
You can't see it, but my mouth is wide open and screaming at him.
More wasted breath as he zips around again. Why is my crook ass backwards? I figured if I connected it would do less damage. ;-)
See...that end of the crook IS more threatening!!
FINALLY! A moment of memory of how to properly work stock enters his brain. Wyatt is 8 yrs. old and did the all-breed trials for his first 2 yrs. before retiring after developing some sort of chronic lameness that was eventually diagnosed as conformation related.(I took 10lbs. off him over a year and he has never had a lame step since) But he got me hooked on this sheep thing and the rest is history.

And yes I did work Jayne and Owen earlier. It was cold but we braved it. Actually in my long johns and turtle neck sweater under my Cowichan vest, I was quite comfortable. Rose supplying us with hot coffee & snacks as usual helped too. :-)
All photography by Rose McLeod.