Herding Tests

Yesterday was herding instinct test day! The pups had a LOT to take in. Since the weather in Northern Canada can vary from snow to rain / fog and from -15° to +13° at this time of year, pups have been raised in the house. This means that their outdoor exposure has been limited to the one nice day that we took them in the crate down to the pasture (see here). So, not only did they have to deal with an entirely new environment - grass, mud, snow, smells, noises, vehicles driving by, but then we added three quacking ducks to the mix. All the pups did amazingly well! Please click the links to watch the videos of each set of pups during their tests :) Pink & Green Other than me tripping over them constantly, it went pretty well. Green found the videographer distracting, lol :p

Red & Peach

These two have really come a long way in regards to confidence the past few days. I'm pleasantly surprised with how well they took all this change.

Silver & Gold They did well. Gold got his snout whapped by a duck wing, which set him back briefly, but it didn't stop him.

Blue Blue was by himself today, so didn't have the extra confidence booster of a companion. He did ok, but when the ducks got noisy he was definitely not as unflappable as he typically is - particularly right at the end. And he, too, found the videographer distracting, lol. My ES breeder friend who has done herding tests multiple times said, "He did just fine! You can see him focusing and watching the ducks which is really what you want at this age. "