As the warmer temps arriveth, so cometh the blood suckers. Mosquitoes are everywhere! From now until the fall frost, I wear the enchanting summer cologne of DEET every second of the day and night. (When Hailey doesn't run off with it.)
The colossol six foot fence project is nearly complete and I'm finally hoping to get the field training under foot now.
I also had to remodel my entire bird barn to outsmart the coyote from hell that was climbing the 6' welded wire fence that was posted around the chicken yard; it took me awhile to comprehend that it wasn't going under. Then, when I started to lock my birds inside the hen house, it climbed the fence and dug and tunneled under the doors. I don't think it was a rookie as it never came within rifle range. It knew better. I've had encounters with just about every predator in Montana from tiny to huge, but nothing has come close to this tenacious, problem solving, wiley coyote. Honestly, I admire it as much as I hate it. The good news is that when you take away a coyote's food source, they go away to find food somewhere else. This one finally gave up and left the area.
As an aside, coyotes do more damage to livestock, property and wildlife than all other predators combined. Had it been a wolf predation, FWP would have been out in five seconds to help me and "Big Bad Wolf Kills Two Dozen Chickens" would have been on the front page of every Montana newspaper, panic would ensue and rednecks would be sleeping with their guns under their pillows and locking away their wives and children at night. Well, more than usual, that is.
Things to do: Cheetah, Ruby and Ice need re-steadying and steadying work, Hailey and Mia need started field and line steadying at the water, although both are retrieving EXTREMELY well and just need some shot birds. Both girls are pistols.
The main point is that I'm training again and starting to come out of the massive sadness (and shock) I had after losing both Maia and Ginger (and almost Mia) last June.
Toby continues to rock in agility and suck in obedience. What can I say? It's true that I'm a nOOb struggling with remembering all the training idiosyncrasies (and in obedience there are about a gazillion of them), but heel position just isn't his forte. The biggest problem with that, is that heel position is everything in obedience! I'm still hoping we can squeak through the rally obedience (much more fun) this fall and go for the CD in 2012. The more I hang out with german shepherd and malinois people, the more hopeless I feel we are, but continue on we will. Will also be starting both Mia and Hailey in agility next year. It really does improve handling skills for the field. Old dogs really can learn new tricks and I can already see improvement in Toby's attention to teamwork and he's a triple field champion. Not to mention it just makes you a better dog trainer, period.
Don't want to jump the gun, but I think Zeeza might be pre-heating as my males are starting to sniff and follow her around. I have absolutely no idea who to breed her to this year. I'll try to research a few dogs this week and come up with a decent solution. Singer will be bred to a dog back east, but have no idea when; optimistically, probably late fall at the earliest. She went 12 months between 2010 and 2011 heat cycles and her last one was in March, so you do the math.
I'll try a little harder to update my blog, but even uploading pictures requires sitting still, and have just been too busy to sit, let alone be still. Feel free to join me on Facebook as I update there and chit chat a lot more often...and it's free. :)
And now back to gate making. When that is done, and not one second before, expect more DOG pictures!