Mud Puppy and her Sheep

Syd went for another herding lesson Monday afternoon, and she thought it was fantastic.

When we ran the sheep on Saturday, there was about 1/2 inch of snow on the frozen ground, and things were relatively "clean." Yesterday, well, the temps got up to about 40 degrees, and the snow melted and created nice, thick mud in the pen. My dog was basically camouflaged in the mud. And no need to worry about her mis-matched front leg colors, all four of her legs were a matched Muddy Brown set! The lesson was nice, it was relaxed, and mostly our instructor wanted Syd to continue to be motivated and interested. Cathy commented that Syd does some things a little more like a dog working cattle. That doesn't mean much to me, but it had something to do with Syd moving into the middle of the group (not splitting them) at times, and trying to get one sheep to do something in particular. I have a lot to learn, and most things look about the same to me.

I think Syd has some potential, so we'll see. I asked about the breed of sheep, and Cathy said something about Katadan (not sure on the spelling) and Dorper. I don't remember if some are crosses of the two, or if she has both breeds. She stayed interested the entire lesson, and she even inadvertently "penned" the sheep. I thought that was pretty funny, since the "pen" was a gate leaning up against the fence.

Syd was quite pleased and happy when we left the herding pen. She took a few minutes to roll around and get herself good and stinky. What she didn't know was that I was going to get the last laugh. I knew we were off to conformation class later that night, so little stinky was getting a bath! Thankfully, she cleans up well, and went from the herding pen to the show ring in less than 2 hours. My bathtub, on the other hand, was not looking so great when the bath was over!