alund

Thank you Denice and Debbie for the thoughtful responses! It seems I am on the right track and have prepared well. It is always good to hear from people that have done this before though.

Yes the litter is spoken for. I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to whelp the litter, Maid actually belongs to a friend of mine and I am getting to keep a pup for doing the work. I will hopefully get to keep a girl!! My luck is she would have 5 boys haha.

Of course...prepare to be inundated with puppy pictures.

Hello All, I am expecting puppies some time next week and would love some advice/tips from experienced breeders on this board. I have done tons of research and feel comfortable with what to expect but I thought it might be fun to hear from you all. This is her first litter and her x-ray showed 5 pups. Her and the male have had all health clearances and are excellent working dogs. You can see mother of the pups, Maid, in a video here . Thanks in advance for any advice.

Some handlers do stop their dogs on their feet but I find that a lot of people especially novice handlers have a hard time enforcing that stop... a lie down is very easy to visualize and correct if the dog doesn't do it. Where as with a standing stop, the handler maybe a little late correcting a few steps here and there and then all of a sudden the dog is walking through the stop.

I believe the sheep were Mayo Blackface. I would be happy to share the contact information for the clinic host with anyone interested in attending, just send me a PM.

He will be here in October in Tennessee. Might be quite a drive for you though.

This run tied for first at the 2016 North of Ireland Sheepdog Society Nursery Finals. The tie was broken by OLF and James and Maid got second place. She was only 15 months old for this run and did amazingly well. I really enjoy watching her work and James is an excellent trainer/handler. This dog is now owned by a handler in South Carolina.

I apologize for posting something in haste.. that wasn't well thought out. The point I was trying to make was there are rescues that are willing to take a dog and invest resources that you aren't willing to spend due to your own personal reasons which you have stated in previous posts. It seems wrong to not give the dog a chance based on what you "think" might happen. We only have your side of the story, none of us have seen this dog so we can only assume your judgements of her behavior are correct. So once again I apologize for hurting your feelings but in my opinion your got giving the dog a fair shot.

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A well written article on heartworm treatment and various alternatives to HeardGard. http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2008/05/billion-dollar-heartworm-scam.html

Sorry I missed your reply. He is slow and hesitant leaving my feet and gradually picks up pace and then slows himself down at the top. We worked yesterday in a huge field that had rolling hills and set up some tricky outruns; he did beautiful work. He was confident leaving my feet and found his sheep every time without my help; because there were several hills I could not actually see him once he was behind his sheep so I left him alone and he did lift really nice. The handler that was holding the sheep for me told me that the first time he was lifting he stopped himself and seemed to be waiting for me to tell him what to do but when I didn't help him he figured it out and brought the sheep down the field. I think we just need more trial experience because in non-trial work he doesn't show any confidence issues and I think getting him to more fields on different sheep will also help. Thank you everyone for you replies! These boards are always helpful.

I have been working on getting flanks to correct the lines on fetches. He has really nice pace and can be a little pushy some times but usually with a steady whistle he settles in. He is not a dog that I have to hold back if that makes sense; he usually paces himself and lifts nice enough that I usually don't stop him. Because the sheep were so heavy at the last trial I actually purposely didn't stop him on the lift and kind of let him figure it out on his own. If there is one thing he lacks its confidence and that probably isn't helped by having me as a trainer/handler. I am going to try for awhile to just let him go and to stop micro managing every little thing; I will probably have to put tape over my mouth though haha!

Thank you for all the advice. We are definitely going to be working in some new fields throughout the Spring and going to several trials so hopefully getting him out more will help his confidence. He actually takes redirects really well on his outrun; during our most recent trial when he hadn't seen his sheep and started to come in early I blew a redirect and he kicked out and picked up his speed to almost normal which was nice to see. I do "shhh" him on his outruns to get him to speed up; and maybe like you said Julie I use it too much when we are practicing and have slowed him down unintentionally. He can tend to run a little too wide as well when we are training; I haven't had this issue at trials yet but I have been practicing calling him in on his outruns or re sending him if he starts out too wide. I was also thinking another reason I only see this behavior at trials is he is sensing my nervousness. I don't get extremely nervous or worked up before trial but I can feel an increase in my heart rate when we walk up to the post and maybe he is picking up on that?

Hello! I haven't posted very often here but enjoy reading the boards regularly and have only recently starting trialing my young dog for the first time. He is 4 years old and we have run in 3 trials at the Pro-Novice level. At each trial he tends to start on his outrun very cautious and unsure when he leaves my feet and then slowly picks up speed however he never reaches his full potential at trials. I don't have this issue when we are training at our normal location and the other various fields I train in regularly. So I have been pondering on what may be causing this. I discussed this with my trainer/mentor and we both agreed that he probably just needs more experience on the trial field. Also at our most recent trial he did not spot the sheep until after I sent him and once he spotted the sheep he did increase his speed. So I was also thinking of setting up some blind out runs to help his confidence when he initially leaves my feet. Any suggestions for other exercises that might help this or if anyone else has experienced something similar with a green dog feel free to discuss whether or not the dog improved over time or not. I am concerned that when we do eventually move to open his slower pace on the outrun will kill our limited time on the field and we will never have enough time to finish a course. Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions!