Friday, February 13, 2009

Another atta'boy for Moosie

He's at it again. Worming even deeper into my heart and wowing more people. Granted after the whole "make my own off leash pattern" incident, he had his work cut out for him, but after the last two weeks, he's earned that pat on the head.

I should digress though and mention he did eat the cord on the fan last Thursday but it wasn't his fault entirely. Alec left him loose for too long in the bedroom and he had to find some sort of entertainment.

So it's getting really warm out last week and weekend. The ducks are having fits in the barn so we decided to kick them outside. Now spending the winter in the barn and not having access to a pond to clean themselves off in has led to some icky ducks. No one wants to touch them. So Moose got another go at helping us out. He was great! He stood and watched the gate of the pen until I got them all together-they had been in two different pens in the barn. Then when told to back off, he ran out the barn door and waited in the perfect spot! The ducks moved outside, he dropped in behind and pushed them right into the pen outside! Then he moved them to the pond pen without even being asked too-he read my mind. I was so pleased. No rushing, a light touch and knowing ahead what to do. Way to go Moosie!!!

Next it's on to tracking. Again, warm weather around here so I took off Sunday morning in search of a place to lay some tracks. Three parks later, I found the perfect area at Wapsi. Laid three tracks, about 60-70ft long and aged them about 25 mins or so. No turns as he's not there yet. First one, he wasn't sure about it, but slowly remembered what he was supposed to do, other then downing on the snow was something he really didn't want to do. Gotta work on that. Next one, even better and more on the track then wandering. Third-OMG--I figured that I needed to try some grass, as the other two were on just 1/2 of snow. Longest one I laid. And it went by two rabbit tracks and a over a deer trail. It was his best, fastest and straightest one of the day. I was shocked, he totally went right over the deer trail and right to his glove. Atta'boy Moose!

Last night he earned his next stripe with helping to put the ducks back in the barn. They did not want to go in, didn't want to go out the gate, scattered once, no twice. They wanted to stay in the pond! When the first hen scattered, he went right to her tail, pushed her with his nose and steered her right back to the group-without being asked. Second time it was two and he grouped them and pushed them back to the rest. Finally out the gate and moving them to the barn. Almost had an incident with them running right past the barn as Moose was doing a go bye, instead of an away. He's a lefty and has a hard time understanding away. But a quick, Back and outta there, come to me and he was back in sinc with me. Right in the barn and around the gate to the outside of their pen. OOPS! So now I have to go in the pen, push them from outside around a corner and in the gate. One duck was smart and had gotten in, so Moose stood and kept that one in the corner while I got the ones in the hole out. Got them in, he moved out of the way and they walked right past him to the back of the pen. Yippee! That'll do Moose and out we went. He of course was bouncing all the way to the house, asking-when are we going to do that again??

Good news for Moosie-it will be come a daily event when we aren't worried about storms at night. Ducks out in the morning, in at night. Wish we could do an HT on ducks but that rarely happens, but I know once lessons start in a month, that he will be ready for his HSd runs this summer and fall!!!

Later gators...
C

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It sounds like Moose is becoming a super star at the Companion/Performance work. Good for both of you!

Kathy and Kim Gibson said...

Good boy Moose! Three belly rubs and a neck scratch from Aunt Kim!