I hate mud

Two seasons in Iowa that I hate-the ice season and the mud season. I have a pile of towels at the front and back doors waiting to clean underbellies and feet. Don't think it would be as bad but I don't seem to own one prissy little dog that thinks it's below themselves to get wet or muddy. Even the damn pomeranian sloshes through the mud with the best of them. Unfortunately she's so full of coat right now that she's more like a sponge and you end up wringing her out each time she comes back in. Not fun.

So it's been raining for a few days now. The ducks are back outside and that means entertainment for the dogs. Which in turn makes the area next to the fence, well, a pig pen. Dove turned another shade of brown-facilitating a bath before she got to even think about putting her feet on the floor in the house. Amazingly LS was the cleanest, but that could be that she wasn't out with her best friend, who insists on smearing her in the mud. Overall, it's been a busy weekend and most of it spent doing laundry and cleaning up dogs.

Horses are miserable. So much rain-we had flash floods out, that the barn started to take in a little water. Not a good thing at all. Muddy clydesdale feet anyone? Insult to injury is that they all come in from the lower pasture and Forest is acting funny. Picture huge feet and blood. Lots of blood. Some how he managed to split open a quarter crack and was now spurting blood otu of his rear left hoof. Into the stall, which is a job for a 1/2 blind 1 ton horse plus the witchy little mare who thinks that the stall is just for her. I have a wonderful cut on my palm after that. Bleeding stopped, antibiotics on board, horse resting very comfortably and David is good too. Seems Forest didn't like his shot yesterday morning and David got a dose in his finger-heehee. At least it won't get infected ;0)

Moose and I then decided that just to add to the weekend of mud and go to a herding lesson, in the rain and sleet. Knowing he did his instinct test in a hail storm, I wasn't worried about him, just me. A quick thank you to Patty for hosting us and to Wendy for dealing with us. I walked in and told her straight up-you're not here for me to train the dog, but for you to train me. As in most dog events, we have to keep at the forefront that all errors are handler errors, for not giving our dog the correct signal-body, voice or what ever or that they fail because we haven't prepared them enough. In my case, I can't read stock well at all. That in turn makes it harder for me to give a clear directiont to the dog. All in all, I hurt today after a lot of time spent walking sheep, keeping up with sheep and trying to balance my dog off the sheep.

But it was a great lesson. I learned a lot, Moose worked awesome and with just a little more work with Wendy, we should be well on our way to our PT and beyond. She liked how he worked, how fast he learned what I wanted and well, I got a little better at reading the sheep. Oh and he did get a good roll in the sheep dung, so that was a wonderful smell in the truck on the way home. Upon arriving home, he immediately crawled up in the lazy boy and asleep in moments. I think I actually wore him out! Can't wait for next week and our next lesson.

Finally, I want to send a "Atta Boy" out to Bear and Team Sumjammin! Got daily updates on the Columbia MO show and seems Bear took at 5 pt major on Saturday!!!! Yippeee!!!!! Boo took BOB, with Bear as BOW. Isn't that great? Marg is close to having her second CH and her third and fourth aren't far behind.

Well it's packing and moving week here at work. The task is packing so that you can find it as soon as you get to your new office--rarely works that way but oh well, we can always hope!

Later gators....
C