Rainy Day Games

It started raining very early this morning. We didn’t get to go play frisbee. The weather affects the dogs as well as me. I overslept and the dogs didn’t seem to mind.

I decided to try to find the dog park in Conroe. It was not right close to us but I thought just getting out and taking a ride would be better than sitting home. As it turned out, I didn’t find the park. We did take a nice, long ride though.

Now I’ve set out the dog’s treat toys. Moss has been getting into this game just as I’m ready for bed. I’ve had to start picking them up at night, and giving them back during the day. Right now, Doc is really into it, but Moss is hiding in his crate. It’s raining with sporadic bouts of thunder.

The toy is a hard, plastic peanut butter jar with a few holes drilled in it just big enough to let a kibble or two fall out. I fill it with kibble and the dogs get to bash them around and eat whatever they can get out of it. The trick is to get the holes at the end of the jar offset enough to let food fall out. Doc has been working hard for about half an hour now.

The dogs are well and we were invited to go to a farm that was hosting Herbert Holmes for private lessons. My friend was taking two dogs and invited me to tag along. At the last minute, I got a spot for Moss.

It was a gorgeous farm and beautiful house. There was a cool breeze all day and the sky was overcast so it didn’t get hot until midday.  Holmes was on a nice looking dun horse with dapples. The horse was very quiet and walked quietly with the sheep and didn’t mind dogs around his legs.

My friend was very excited about her lessons and said she had a lot to work on. When our turn came, I did our usual sloppy and fast little outrun and Herbert immediately showed me a way to correct Moss’s diving in. Within minutes Moss was better but tired. There was a lot of pressure on him to move out. I was instructed to keep sessions very short, before Moss would actually turn off. He said Moss would start to anticipate being pushed out and that was the goal.

I can’t wait to see if this is going to work on my friend’s wild sheep. We are going to be house sitting at a farm with goats and quiet sheep available to work for two weeks. That should give us lots of time to get Moss settled down.

Dog Games

We haven’t been doing much herding practice. It has been just too hot to leave my chair in front of the AC. The dogs have had a stomach upset too. I spent some money I couldn’t afford for medication only to see them with the runs again in a couple of days.

I’ve been making toys for them for entertainment. I bought a really cheap set of muffin tins. (One of the things I always seemed to have around before I moved.) I put a few kibbles in each depression and plopped a ball over it. I’m short of enough balls but I figured it would help them learn the game.

They would rather use their feet to dig out the balls than to remove them by mouth so there’s chaos for a few minutes. At first Doc was more interested in the balls. He’d get one out and go play with it. That was OK too.

It took them several days to learn that there was more food under the balls.

I also took a hard, plastic peanut butter jar and drilled a few holes in it. I put some kibble in it. They had a blast bashing them around to get the food to fall out. Somebody got the lid off of one jar.