I brought Mossimo along, and it was a lot of fun working him. We worked on the usual stuff, outruns, driving, inside flanks, etc. He was pretty good! I worked on using my whistle as much as possible, which is tough because:
A) I'm not that good with it, and
B) My tone is a bit different than Dianne's, so Moss doesn't always know what I mean.
But we're getting it. He kept getting "stuck" on the crossdrive, so after struggling for awhile, I walked up closer to help him. He was about 100 feet or so away from me before, and I walked up to about 30-40 feet. That helped a lot, since I was able to get more finesse and really show him what I wanted. I think he had a light bulb moment or two.
I really want to focus on saying as little to him as I can get away with... I tend to be, erm, quite talkative on the field and I need to learn to relax, trust my dog and let him learn to make decisions on his own. As a bonified type-A micro-manager, this is understandably difficult for me. But I'm loving every second. I really missed doing stockwork... we haven't done much since the spring. Thankfully I've figured out a regular time slot that works for both me and Dianne, so at the very least I'll be able to go out once a week. That makes me feel better. I am thinking about signing him up for beginning agility (starting in October), just for something else fun to do. Thoughts? Will agility take away from his herding training?
My happy boy :)
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