42lb Mack Truck

 Jax and I like to spend our weekends at Cheswood Farm, an awesome little training farm in Hampton Roads, Virginia. We've been in training for a few months now. Progress is happening. This is one of the great parts about not living in NH (along with saying y'all, which I think is adorable). We get to work ALL YEAR ROUND. Pretty fantastic to keep the winter cobwebs away and make progress while my parents are shoveling out the propane tank and plowing the driveway back at home. We got an early Saturday slot, which means we were the first team on the sheep. They were bummed.

Jax and I have been spotted across the field. "Oh #$&%, not that guy again!"

Jax is one of those dogs that has a lot of power. His stare alone make the sheep move. Jax comes from a solid cow herding background, his father and mother both made to be forceful at work and make big beasts move. My 42lb ball of energy is cut from that very cloth. The kind of dog that doesn't take 'no' for an answer and will use his teeth if required (we're still working on when to use our teeth and to not take a huge hunk out of a ewe when we do).

And we're off. We are currently working on balancing the flock as well as doing what we call a fetch. If you don't know much about the breed, the border collie is pretty natural at balancing a herd. If left to his own devices without any training, Jax would keep the flock in a circle all day long. We've managed to get our sides down already. 'Come by', which is go clockwise and 'away to me', which is counter clockwise.

Jax in action, getting a little carried away from himself. Probably going in for a snack a this point. You'll notice the blue long line on him. It's good with a young dog to keep things organized and always be able to stop them. 

Regained composure

Looking good!

Here we our with our trainer, taking a moment to talk about what we are doing and what the next skill Jax is going to be learning. Next- driving a flock. Eventually you need to get to a point where you dont just go around the sheep and keep them in a circle. We worked on driving for a good ten minutes.

Jax has come a long way since the first time he started training at Cheswood. The first time out he only worked for about 10 minutes before he was done. His stamina has improved quite a bit, both mentally and physically. He is now getting more responsibility and we are asking him to make decisions and manage the flock more independently than we have before.