I’m trying a new hosting service, since the quality of YouTube videos are so poor.
Here are the dogs playing out in the flooded field yesterday. They were having a blast! It would be hard to move back to a house with a little yard after seeing how much they enjoy using up their two acre play area!
..and rained and rained and rained. I think it’s the most water I’ve seen in the field for a long time. When I said swale in the front field flooded when it rains, this is what I’m talking about.
I walked around the field a bit to judge what parts actually had standing water, vs what parts might be ok to have livestock on during a deluge. In addition to my miniature horse dreams, I’d still kind of like to have a flock of sheep again someday. They can’t be running around on the wet part of the pasture though!
The swale is not only about 30ft wide, but it all ended up in a 40 x 60 ft pond at the bottom of the field (which was so deep I thought Navi was going to have to swim) by the road. I took the dogs out and they had a great time splashing around and playing fetch in the pond, then we came back up to hang out in the shelter and watch the rain come down.
That roar is the rain on the metal shelter roof. It was LOUD!
I’ve been home sick all weekend with a nasty head cold/sinus thing – yuk!
This evening I woke up after a long afternoon nap and decided to go out and check on the chickens and count to make sure they were all still there (Dave has been feeding them while I was sick). Everyone was there, and I checked the nest box and they’d even left an egg! So I reached in to get the egg and Navi slipped by me and ran into the coop, and one of the young hens got scared and jumped off the perch and she started running around in circles, flapping and sqwaking, while Navi chased her around and around the coop trying to pounce on her. The hen finally made for the door into the shed and blasted past me, and on the way by I caught Navi and tucked her under my arm.
Unfortunately for the hen, Jack and Barclay were in the shed, and they immediately chased the poor little hen out into the darkness and rain. I hauled Navi up to the house and tossed her inside and grabbed the flashlight, and went back out. In the dark I could just make out Barclay down by the lilac bush, poking something with his foot. I went down, expecting to see a dead chicken, and there was the hen, huddled under the bush, wet and miserable. Barclay didn’t want to catch her, or he easily could have, he just wanted to make her run some more so he could chase her! I picked her up and took her back to the coop and checked her over in the light. She looked fine, just scared. So I put her back in the coop, counted everyone one last time, and went back inside. Too much excitement for one evening – I should have stayed in bed!
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Last night the dogs only saw Mary trotting around the field, and they completely lost their little minds! Barclay has no excuse, because he has been around sheep, goats and llamas since he was a baby. Navi has every excuse, because livestock is a new concept for her. Jack was the one that really went nuts, and he should know better by now too. His running around baying did nothing to help the other dogs realize the new critter was not a threat. So this morning I took them out one by one with a clicker and super yummy treats to introduce them to the pig.
The last time the dogs were in the pasture there was no pigpen there, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that as I brought Barclay out through the pasture gate, he turned and saw the pig ten feet away (behind the pigpen fence, but he didn’t notice that) and he reacted by RUNNING as fast and far away as he could go! He went about 50 yards out into the pasture before he even slowed down to look behind him and see if the monster was following. So much for hanging around to protect me!
Once he noticed the fence (and that I was still in the area), he got up the guts to come back and face his fears. So he came back and barked at the MONSTER. I ‘clicked for calm’ – whenever he’d stop for a breath, or look at me, I’d click and give him a bit of lunchmeat.
After a bit he started to relax, and there was less barking and more sniffing. Mary did not seem to be bothered at all. By the time we’d been out there a few minutes, he got up the guts to meet her nose to nose at the fence. I watched closely to make sure the interaction was good, and he got lots of praise and treats for being nice.
I took him in and waited a bit, then brought Navi out. I did the same thing, but this time Mary wasn’t up by the fence, she had gone back to bed and was sitting in her hay pile, still as a stone. Navi was sniffing around the outside of the pigpen, then Mary turned her head a bit (she was about 15 feet away) and Navi spotted her – and LOST HER FREAKING MIND! But with a few minutes of clicking and treating, she started to settle down. She’ll need more work with Mary up moving around though. I was actually glad Mary was setting still for this lesson.
For Jack’s turn, Mary had gone back to sleep buried in the hay, so he didn’t even see her. He just ran around sniffing the fenceline. I clicked him a lot for quiet or looking at me. He had a great time, and didn’t even see a pig. Again, more work for later, but a good start.
Working with the dogs individually was the way to go, there’s no way to settle down three dogs who are all going insane at once, they just build on each other. They all did very well one-on-one. Mary, for her part, was perfectly calm. Even after all that barking, I came out and she came right up to the fence for a scratch. 🙂
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Today I got new ID tags for our crazy pack of dogs. Well, actually Jack didn’t get one, I just got tags for the other two. Last week Navi got hung up on the heater vent, and the next day I was leaving for work and found her on the bed in a funny position, wagging her tail, and when I looked closer I realized her tag was caught on the blanket! So I looked up Boomerang Tags, which is where I’ve been getting my tags for years. They make excellent tags, ship them out fast, and they last forever. All our dogs have had their tags, and I even had tags made for the llama’s harnesses.
They have a new kind of tag called CollarTags. They slip onto the actual collar, instead of dangling. They are guaranteed not to come off, and it looks like it would be impossible to catch them on anything.
I received them today. They fit perfectly, and of course look very well made and are easily readable. I think the only downside is that if the dogs got lost and someone glanced at them, they would think they don’t have any ID, because there are no obviously dangling tags. Because the eskies are fluffy, the tag isn’t immediately obvious on the collar like it would be on a short haired dog. However, I haven’t lost a dog yet, and these two are shaping up to be the best trained dogs I’ve ever had, so they are less likely to get lost all the time! On the plus side, without the jingling of tags, the dogs are running in ‘stealth mode’. No, wait a minute, maybe that’s NOT such a good thing!! 😉
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Today was hot, and I thought I’d pull out the sprinkler for the dogs to play in. Barclay thought that was a curious thing, and he sat just outside the wet zone. Navi, on the other hand…
Yes, I complained, complained, complained about the rain – but now all that is in the past! Now it’s too hot! It has been ridiculously hot the last couple days. Because it was cold and rainy for so long the dogs haven’t shed their winter coats – Barclay looks like a big wooly bear. Then the cold wet spring went directly to temps hovering around 100, and there’s nothing to do but stay inside with the AC on all day and sneak out when it starts cooling off around 8PM.
Then the dogs can come out and play…
Sometimes he even gets the toy!
But then someone else spots it and races over to steal it (leaving behind the dog she was mauling)
What’s that? What have you got? Is it a toy? Can I have it?
What is it huh? Can I see it? Gimme!
Let me see it, let me see it..
Oh, give it to me, give it to me, give it to meeeeeeee
Jack: I’ll give it to you, you little punk!
*krnch*
You’ll never catch me, slo-pokes!
Ha ha! Got her!
When she’s had enough of being mauled, the chair is her safe time-out spot
Whew, break-time!
Into the water trough for a cool-off
Lay in the cool grass…
Just another afternoon hanging out with their buddies
Steff Does Stuff! 