March was for Mistakes (and fun!)
Follow up from last post: the progesterone test was done Mar 9th and showed 19ng/mL which indicated the end of the fertile period meaning that the breedings should have occured during peak fertility. Despite this, Willow shows no visual indication of being pregnant so next steps are to perform a relaxin blood test and doppler exam.
On to the March break down. I am bad at slowing down, and I definitely project that onto my dogs. Most of the time, they oblige because they are workaholic lunatics that love a good time. Willow will always oblige: it doesn’t matter if she is tired, hurt, sick or whatever else she could be. I can usually tell something is off and wisdom calls for calling it quits but then my own “I can’t stop until” addicted brain starts convincing me I can’t stop until thing happens. It’s a horrible affliction and I have just started trying to improve upon this.
In many ways it has served me well, allowing me to accomplish my goals insanely fast. In other ways it causes burnout. With the dogs, not stopping at the right time can cause issues in performance as well as (according to some circles) potential issues with pregnancy.
I got a lot of conflicting info on whether a pregnant bitch should be put up for 4 months or allowed to live life like she isn’t pregnant. I chose the latter. This first month, I did training sessions on cattle and sheep (past her stamina point). Took her to a cattle trial pregnant, did home chores and some hairy close work… did some sorting work at a friend’s while pregnant, took her to the Kentuckiana cluster…. pregnant. I can say pregnant now because we recently just confirmed it (yay!). She seems no worse for the wear. Now I’m crossing my fingers hoping for a healthy and easy whelping.
The herding trial was weird. I had entered bandit with very limited stock time because despite being new he was showed excellent self restraint with the sheep. I had no concern he would go rogue on me. My biggest concern was getting him to stop since we didnt have a lot of practice. He favored his come by side pretty heavily and did some circling but he passed with flying colors.
For Willow, I went in with the intention of pulling her the first time she disobeyed (which she is in the habit of doing at trials). Instead I… just kept going (BAD!)… We lost more than half our points on the fetch each time because we had trouble keeping them down the line. The set we got is quick to want to run the fence if you don’t make them stay on line. Unfortunately there was no teamwork so, although there were nice moments, we lost a lot of control of the stock in the beginning. I need to work on control with her (both me controlling her and her controlling splitty stock in the big field) and control of myself for chasing the Q and just pull her. That is an ongoing struggle but a fun one. Going forward, we will stick to sheep until we can get more regular cattle access. The results of the trial are as follows:
BRHA March Trial (7-8)
Bandit (Sheep HT):
SAT trial 1 Pass
SAT trial 2 Pass
Willow (Cattle Started Arena):
SAT trial 2 RET
SUN trial 1 RET
SUN trial 2 REM
Kentuckiana Cluster of Dog Shows (Mar 15)
Willow (Herding Titled Bitches)
Best Herding Titled
Sadly there weren’t any other herding titled special class entries but we got a really cool prize so that was nice.
