Setting a solid corner stone for the foundation

Lilly tuning on Cecil

This weather is nuts, rain in the morning, then we get a few hours to work before the humidity sets in followed by oppressive heat finishing the day with more rain. The pastures are toast, Wayne brought home a load of hay today, the sheep, horses and ponies are back confined to their drylots. I've been watching the hay market, the price dropped about 25% from last week to this, our hay supplier expects it to drop again. I suspect we will be back into the $1.50 - $2.00 a bale range by the end of the year, a load better then the $4.00 plus that folks have been paying. Today's load ran us $120 a ton, comes out to about $3.00 a bale, first cutting alfalfa/orchard grass baled just last week.

Today Barbara Jean and her Aussie Timothy came up to visit. I helped her to find places where he was blowing her off and not factoring her in. The pair came up for the first time a number of months ago, another owner at her wits end fearing that her only option was to have her dog euthenized. There's nothing really wrong with Timothy, he's just pressure sensitive and tends to be anyplace except where he should be. He had developed a habit of fence fighting with the neighbors dogs and tends to try to get aggressive while on walks on leash. Strong and firm leadership takes care of all of these issues, I've gone down to Des Moines to work him through his issues at home. The issues began to manifest, I stepped in letting him know it was not going to be accepted and the angel hallo appeared. Barbara Jean and him still have a long way to go, but they are gaining. She was thrilled to go to her first agility competition last week and ended up being embarressed by his sillyness wanting to visit with everyone, not a bad problem compared to what he used to do. He used to bark at any dog that walked past his crate, now she does not even have to cover it up. Granted he still ran off to do his own thing during her agility run, but he was far from dangerous, just being a silly Aussie that needs more discipline.

We took all the pups out for another leash lesson, what a bunch of monsters. The work I'm doing with them at this point is to help teach them that pressure is a teaching tool or aid to help them find the right answers. Seek the release and you will find the answer to your problem, feel no pressure from me and you are doing a good thing, please keep going. This is the cornerstone for the entire training program, the more solid I get it the clearer we will be able to communicate.

Cecil is a hoot, not going to be a dog for just everyone, if you give him an inch he takes a mile. Barbara Jean had him in her lap on his back, he just wagged his tail with this big happy smile as she rubbed his tummy.

The tri-color smooth coated male that still lacks a name sure seems like he going to be nice pup, has a lot of try and is willing to look to you for answers.

Meg, she's a bit strong minded and will get huffy when you correct her. Today she was being sassy, I held her muzzle for a second, she told me she didn't like it, I released and rather then thinking about her lesson she lunged to bite me. So she was met with a correction. How dare I correct her, she sat back and retreated giving me a dirty look as she went. I called her and she told me where to put it, so she got her first walk down. I'm not going to leave her be in that mindset. Yup, I made her mad, and I worked with her until she got glad. She is also showing signs of turning onto to livestock, at one point I saw her covering the head and trying to hold ground from a distance while watching the sheep in the pasture...at nine weeks of age, oh my.

Rosie, she's also showing some signs of being interested in livestock. I'm handling little Rose with kit gloves, she lacks concentration. Her littermates all feel strongly about wanting something, a piece of sheep poop, a corn cob maybe a piece of bark. When they are wanting something it gives me an opportunity to unlock them and ask them to go somewhere else. Well Rosie just is not that interested, she doesn't stay hooked long enough on any one thing, hopefully this will not be the case when she goes to livestock.

Jay: We made some nice progress today. I think it is the first time that I was able to help him with his placement around the sheep. Typically he is in such a hurry that by the time you get him stopped he is majorly out of position. Not today, as he was walking up he started to flank, I was able to stop him on the first wrong step, growled at him and he came back to the walk up. I about threw a party!!! Granted, it took me about 10 minutes of dry work just to get him flexible, I would not let him go to stock until he showed me that he was going to work for and with me. That warm up time paid off yielding me a nice training session. Hopefully when I work him tomorrow he will be willing to give sooner so we don't need to do so much dry work.