Hiking at Mt Macedon

I started this post a few months ago and never got around to finishing it, so rather than deleting and starting again, here is a now out of date post - bit like computer technology, buy it and it's already becoming obsolete. 
End of Autumn, beginning of Winter is my favourite time of the year at Mt Macedon.  As agility trialling has been very quiet for the kelpies, we have been doing some walks with them on Sundays, usually alternating between Mt Macedon, Kyneton and Anglesea.  Hopefully it's getting them back in condition for eventually returning to agility.  So here are some photos from our last Mt Macedon hike.


View from the trail



The hydrangeas are amazing this time of year - pity I can't spell them though

The gardens are magnificent, with lots of interesting stone pots and sculptures

And I'm always a sucker for holly

The Autumn leaves are pretty awesome too

We came back through Woodend and had another walk around the town, much to the dog's delight - as there were plenty of good interesting smells for kelpies on the oval obviously.

And they were even tired enough to sit and pose for the camera for a brief moment, so a good time must have been had by all.  The Border Collie is still rearing to go though ! Although they are all happy enough to walk all day, the kelpies have at least had the good grace to discover 'couch potato-ism' when the mood suits, a concept that we are still having a lot of trouble selling to Ivy.

And now back to agility.  Atilla is about to make comeback number 3 for the year, so lets's hope that third time's a charm. After recovering from the back problem and the sprained toe, he then collided with Cruz running around in the yard and came up limping again, this time with a pulled thigh muscle.  So back to trick training and not much else.
We've been doing a little bit of agility at home over the past few weeks, and I took him to training last night for the first time in over a month.  Ran 2 jumping rounds on lower height jumps than usual, but he ran 2 clears and was keen to do more although I wouldn't let him.  I have him entered next weekend in one Masters agility and one Masters Gamblers run only, so we will see how he pulls up.

Cruz has had a couple of runs at the last 2 trials and seems to be fine.  No passes, but a lovely agility run where the wrong end of a tunnel discrimination caught me unexpectedly when he decided to speed up and left me behind and a couple of Masters Jumping runs that weren't too bad either.  He has been doing some nice work at training and I am happy with his progress considering he has also spent most of the year on the sidelines with Atilla. 

I have come to accept that a couple of runs is really enough for Cruz at a trial - after this he tends to switch off and lose a bit of focus, so I am going to enter him sparingly so that he remains motivated.  I don't have a problem with doing this, especially now that I am trying to get Ivy up and going.  Running too many dogs does my head in, especially as all 3 of them are so different to run and I feel like I am switching from one handling persona to another. 

I also feel as if I have lost a bit of spark with Atilla because we haven't been able to run together for most of the year - last night at training he did everything perfectly but there wasn't the connection that we normally have and I just felt like he was going through the motions in a point and shoot kind of way.  I don't want to feel like this when we run so I think a new training project might be on the cards where we work on a new way of doing something.  I am leaning toward trying to train a running dogwalk with him at the moment - I feel as if I have nothing to lose if he starts missing a few contacts and I would really like to speed his contacts up a bit more too.  So we will see if we can teach an old dog a new trick.

So What's New?

Not much on the agility front, that's for sure.  Agility bites - or lack of agility does anyway. After missing the last part of the trialling season last year I have been looking forward to getting back out there but so far it's been almost a non-event.

First Cruz developed a limp which turned out to be a strained shoulder and took a long time to heal.  So far this year he has had a run in Gamblers and one in Agility and that's it.  The good thing is that he pulled up well after his last run, has been fast and enthusiastic at training and appears to be ready to give it another go - now I just have to transfer his speed and enthusiasm to trialling and we'll be right.


I will guard my Kong against marauding agility dogs!


Atilla decided not to be outdone and developed a limp around the same time as Cruz.  This turned out to be a toe injury and also took some time to heal.  He has also only had a run in gamblers - lovely Masters gamblers run with plenty of points in the opening, but a 'thread the needle' type entry to the gamble, needing to send between the gap between 2 jumps and we just couldn't get it, which was a pity as the rest of the gamble was very doable. Think time is going to run out for us in regard to finishing this title, as most clubs don't schedule it any more, and we've missed 2 opportunites now thanks to injury.  Oh well, it's fun trying anyway, gamblers is definitely my favourite event.

I had Atilla entered a couple of weeks back as he appeared to be fine at training, but the day before the trial he collided with Cruz playing in the yard and of course came up limping again.
He appeared to be fine once again, came to training on Friday evening, had a couple of runs over a fairly straightforward course which gave him no problems - and on Saturday morning came up limping again.
And of course I have him entered in his 'comeback' trial this Saturday, which now may not eventuate. 
At least it has given me plenty of time to get Ivy out there to develop our teamwork - totally different to running the kelpies - but I miss running my boys.

We finally got the swimming pool up to exercise the dogs - then discovered that the outdoor powerpoint had a switch missing and was generally very unsafe looking.  It's getting replaced shortly but we've had to wait because a friend is doing it, and now the cold weather is well and truly here, I don't want their first pool experience to be in the depths of Winter - so the pool came down again and will be boxed up for a few more months.



Just to prove that it did go up ..... briefly anyway.

 The drought appears to be well and truly on the way out here, great in regard to water levels but not so great for training or trialling, with trials being cancelled all over the place.  Looks like shaping up to be a repeat of last year in that respect.  For the first time ever, our training area didn't brown off over Summer, this is what it looked like in the middle of February.

Usually at this time of the year I am running on dead weeds and dirt.  It looks even better at the moment, all nice and lush and green, but is really muddy underneath so not great for training.  Hanging out for a couple of sunny days to dry it off before the next downfall.

Training for the kelpies has been different over the past few months, both from their injuries and because they appear to be really enjoying a different approach to it.  I signed up for both Susan Garrett's Recallers online plus Silvia Trkman's Puppy training online which turned out to be a great idea when they were both injured as I had more time to devote to things like games and shaping. 



I'll teach you a game Cruz - it's called 101 things to do with Mum's knickers.
Who says Susan Garrett is the only one who knows good games ? 
Look how easy they rip when we get a bit of opposition reflex going - fun !


Atilla was a big surprise packet here.  He hasn't been exposed to the amount of shaping that Ivy and Cruz have been and has such a 'serious' personality that he doesn't usually get into playing games either so I didn't expect that much success from him, but was I wrong or what !  Almost overnight he seems to have turned into a dog that wouldn't offer much in the way of behaviours to one that embraces shaping wholeheartedly.  I was using Ivy as the demo dog for my Foundation and Intermediate classes that I teach but have now started taking Atilla and using him and he is loving it.  He pulls toward the building as soon as he gets out of the car and totally cracks it if I take one of the others out instead.  I have also discovered that he has a lot more value for me than I actually thought he did, so hopefully I can channel all this into his agility training as well.

Cruz has also been a surprise packet but not for the same reasons.  Because I trained him with a lot more shaping and what I would consider more 'up to date' methods I just thought that he would be a lot better than what I have found.  His shaping work is pretty good, but he doesn't appear to 'get' playing games and also appears to have very little value for being next to me - something that I intend to rectify.  And this is the snugglepot that tries to sit on my knee every evening and cuddles up next to me in bed at night.  No wonder our agilty results are so inconsistent when we don't even have the basics right.  So hopefully the new improved Cruz is coming this way soon ....... LOL.


Who says I need improving ?
I'm speshul just the way I am.

Beau - Pet Detective

Our neighbour has put 50 sheep on our property as we have way more grass in our top paddocks.  Atilla thinks all his Christmases have come at once and spends most of the day watching them and moving them off the fence line if they dare to come too close to the house paddock.

Currently there are a number of lambs in the flock - including 3 tiny ones born just a few days ago. 

How's that for cute, cute, cute ......... I swear I am going to rethink eating meat or at least may never eat lamb again cos I will keep seeing these babies in my head.



Look - even their wiggly little butts are cute

And who could resist this face ?

 We lock the sheep into a smaller paddock at night to keep them together and maximise their chances against any roaming foxes.  Then we let them out during the day to do what they do best - eat !

Last night when we brought them in, one of the tiny lambs was missing - L's favourite and the one he regards as his special charge.

 

A bit of a background story on this one first :

On the morning that this little one arrived, L was letting them out of the night paddock when he noticed it on the ground, not moving, and the mother taking off with the other sheep at a rush to get out the gate. He picked it up and found it was alive but very weak - I'm a sucker and would happily have taken it and bottle fed it, but L. decided that the mother was going to attend to her duties so started yelling up the paddock - get back here and feed your baby, NOW.  Of course this worked a charm, not !  So then he starts chasing them, in his work clothes complete with fancy shoes, and yelling in his best impression of a school teacher (thankfully he is not!) 'I mean it, if you don't come back now then I will chase you all down and lock you all back in the paddock again and none of you will get out until you start looking after this baby you bad mother.'  That's the way to do it, punish everyone until someone confesses.
And so that's just what he did.

At this point it begs for a video to be inserted of L in his work clothes running around the paddock rounding up the sheep - if dogs could cry laughing Atilla was doing it - but I was too busy laughing myself to think of videoing it, dammit.   Anyway his plan for sheep domination worked, the sheep were locked back in the paddock, mother finally started feeding lamb, lamb was able to stand up and we both went 'awwwwwwww.'
(Not sure what L's clients thought about the sheep poo all over his shoes as he was too late to change them.)
Anyway, a happy ending, until this little fella went missing.



The life of a modern day sheep man is indeed lonely !



Did someone mention sheep man ?



Oooh .... it's sheep man !

We searched the paddocks with our neighbour for ages, but couldn't find any trace of him.  At this point we were thinking maybe a rogue fox out in the daytime grabbing the opportunity of an easy snatch - although it seemed strange when Atilla had literally been at the fence watching them for most of the day and hadn't barked at all.  We chalked it up to happening on one of the occasions when he went off duty to eat or hang about with me.  Even though Cruz took over his shift at these times, Cruz is not a barker and isn't as hard wired and obsessive over the sheep as Atilla either.
Both the kelpies were crying for a bit of active service in the paddock to help look for the lamb (ACD and BC would happily have been in that too !) but there are too many hazards in the long grass at the moment, not just the fear of snakes but there is an old gully that runs down the middle of one paddock with a partly underground water course that goes into our dam.  There are holes opening up everywhere after all the rain and I don't want to risk the dogs running into one of the holes and injuring themselves, especially as once there are sheep in the equation, all care and self preservation goes out the window. 
It worries me enough having my horse roaming around up there as it is.  Speaking of which ..........

Enter Beau - my old horse and fellow paddock dweller along with the sheep.

Once he saw me in the paddock he came over for a rub and the chance that there might be food involved.

On many occasions I swear this horse understands exactly what I say to him - or maybe that's my rationale for carrying on conversations with him and not feeling like a crazy woman.  So I've explained the situation to him and promised him several carrots if he joins in the search and comes up with the goods.  And he did on both counts!

About 20 minutes later when L. was helping me move some agility equipment (Sheep Man also doubles as Agility Ken ) we heard Beau making a fuss up the top paddock and looked up to see him pawing (hoofing?) the grass.  Up popped a tiny white head - so sheep man headed up there post haste to rescue him.
And Beau was very pleased with his carrots as a reward.  And now expects one every evening without fail as payment for his services.

Agility training has been a little slow lately, can you tell ?

After having 2 and a half months off thanks to my accident, the kelpies are in desperate need to get back to normal training again.  All this lying around the house is making them soft.......