Vacation

My summer vacation is over and its back to the office :-(

During the vacation Riva and I had a chance to go work stock at a new place. They have both sheep and goats and so Riva has had his first experience working goats. I don't know if he noticed any difference, the goats are supposed to be a bit more independet and to challenge a dog more easily than sheep but at least so far none of them have thought about challenging Riva :-). However, the greatest thing about the new place is that we have a chance to train with larger flocks, 30-40 head at a time and even larger once all of their animals come home from summer pastures. Definately requires the dog to figure out how to keep the whole group under control. And hopefully helps us to find some steps between stop and 100 mps speed, which is at the moment the biggest thing holding back our progress. I think I have already seen some slowing down also at home...

Not really a topic for this blog but my smooth collie, Bardi, has also turned on and is working sheep. He's VERY different from Riva, working wiiide and nicely, no biting. He could have some more power though, my own sheep don't take any notice of him but with lighter sheep he is showing some quite nice moves, flanking wide, staying at balance and nice sense of group. We'll see how much he gains confidence and authority with experience.

We have also continued search training with Riva and I really need to get him to a trial sometime this year. Riva has been working really good, his motivation is back better than ever. I think at least some of our problems were caused by too easy practices, he was just too bored to give it his best. Now every time I set up something new and more demanding the challenge just makes him work better :-).