Another "oh I wish that I had a video" moment happened yesterday. 20 mos old Laddie (Chisum Boreland x Maisie Boreland) helped me move does again from pasture into barn, and due to the visitors we had it was at a different time than normal. They balked and it was the first time that he has really had to deal with that.
I showed him what we could do to apply a little bit more pressure and that got the majority of them through the door but one of the kids slipped past and took off. I had to stay at the door or the rest of them would have come back out so I just sent Laddie to go get him. Never having done that before, he figured out what I wanted and went, rounded that kid up without putting a mouth on him and put him through the barn door at a dead run! I don't think that kid will try that again! Lol 😝
And all that with extra people & children that could have distracted him in the pasture. Such a good boy, Laddie!!! 💕 ---------------
My nephew loves the goats so we spent a fair amount of time down there even tho' the mosquitoes were thick.
It was an excellent chance for 14 mos old Opal (Jazz x Monty) to have some socialization too, so she got to join us in the pasture. She behaved very well 💖
Something I try to do especially with the younger dogs - but with all of them at times - is to take them in the pasture whenever possible when we're not working them so that they don't develop a high drive complex of "oh we're going in the pasture, that means we're working & chasing." This can cause dogs to get too revved up & be goofballs when they're in there. Rather, I want them to be able to be calm. This method seems to work well. I simply tell them, "Just observe", to let them know that we are not going to be working with the stock, just going to be in the pasture doing other things. As a result, all of the dogs are pretty good at just laying at my feet or nearby, watching what's going on and that's exactly what I want :) ---------------
With relatives visiting, both Laddie & Opal got the chance to visit for the first time two young children (age 3.5 and 7) who haven't been able to have dogs, either. We introduced one at a time since the youngest was a little bit leery of them at first. (You can see in the third picture above, that's about as close as she wanted to get to Laddie at first. He was focused on the brother coming up behind me). In fact due to the fact that all our boys are adults now & our circle of friends is such that all their kids are grown up too, we haven't been around many little children since both dogs arrived here. Anyway, Opal did very well, learning quickly that she had to keep feet off and behave calmly around them; showing much gentle interest. And Laddie was an absolutely a gem with them. 💕 His gentle behaviour meant it didn't take long before she and her brother were willing to have their picture taken with him - & she actually petted him. :)
