Whisper Went Herding

Unfortunately I did not bring my camera along but I did bring Whisper along to herding lessons this morning and after working my other dogs, we gave Whisper a try at herding sheep. Honestly, I had little hope for her, she's a true hot house flower at home and after her long illness this past autumn, seems to have become even more "wimpy-ier" than before. Still, it's an 85 mile one-way drive to herding lessons and I always want the time and mileage to be worthwhile so I figured, what the heck, let's bring Whisper and see how she reacts.

I'm proud to say Whisper showed tons of interest and intensity on sheep. The instructor worked with Whisper mostly and at one point the sheep escaped from their pen and Whisper, on leash with the instructor, worked to bring the sheep back. Of course none of this means she will be a great success at herding, or even a little successful, but as a breeder I was very happy to see her sustained interest and intensity. It was especially heartening to see her being so physical and healthy after her ordeal at the end of last year. And good to know it was money well spent - because it was, after all, just a wee bit of cash spent to bring her around. I'll definitely continue with lessons for Whisper and see how it goes.

As for me and the other dogs, well, we were scolded as usual. I don't know, either the dogs and I can't catch on to herding or we're just not in tune with the instructor.

Speaking of instruction, I had the very good fortune recently to have a few private lessons with Connie Cleveland. You know, I've lived alone and made my own way in this world throughout my adult life and I've been successful at it but I do recognize it's made me a bit cynical and hard. There's just about no one I idolize. However, this lady is one class act. I brought her two dogs, one with a big time retrieving problem and another with a very serious aggression problem which had caused me to toss in my sleep more than one night thinking seriously of taking him to the vet for the final needle. Now, the one dog is on her way to being a good (not great - yet!) retriever and the aggressive dog, well, he's not only on his way to being an excellent obedience dog but most importantly, on his way to being a very nice house pet. And she did all this without ever raising her voice at the dogs or even at me, who certainly deserved it more than the dogs. I aspire to being this good of a trainer some day.

Geez, I guess I should talk a little about knitting huh? Let's see, yesterday I made a trip to the Target in Owatonna for all those things you buy at Target - toiletries, laundry detergent, batteries, kitchen stuff, I'm sure you know. I decided to take a side trip to Waseca and visit Smitten With Knitten. It was a nice shop, lots of great yarn and a big crowd of folks. Still, I left without buying a thing. Kind of hard to believe. I took the back roads home, mainly gravel, and am proud to say the Silver Slacker (Passat) performed wonderfully. Good thing too as I had forgotten my cell phone - something I haven't done since purchasing this d**n new car.



Today on the way home from herding I stopped at my favorite (not exatly local) LYS, Knitters Palette and picked up a set of short, size 2 dpns and just for fun, this cool sock yarn. I am so in the mood for summertime and thought this would look great knitted up as socks to wear with cropped jeans. I'm thinking of a plain sock with a nice picot or lace top. We'll see. I've still plenty of WIP before I start these.