This Dog

 

I was boiling brine for refrigerator dills. Found some nice cukes at an Amish farm in Otsego County yesterday and I wanted to get the dill before the caterpillars did.

The girls were swapping yarns and nibbling French fries

Suddenly there were lambs on the lawn.

The three big lambs have what amounts to a gigantic, three-hundred acre, creep feeder at their disposal. They found a bent bar on a six-bar gate and they can just squeeze through. The ewes don't fit, or at least don't try, but the lambs are out every day. They don't seem to wander far so we let it go on.

I don't begrudge them a single nettle, all the burdocks on the place, or the all-you-can-eat weed buffet they have been sampling since the sheep went out in the spring. In fact I welcome their attention to things I would otherwise have to address with the string trimmer.

However...and it's a big however...the garden, especially the beautiful potted navy blue lobelia on my garden table is off limits.

Guess what they tasted first the last time they came to the house...

Thus Liz headed for the door, Jill at heel. However she had just gotten off a challenging shift at work, and hey, working a Border Collie and all, so I chimed in, "I'll go."

When Jill saw the sheep she looked at me for the okay then immediately swept off, Away to Me, which seems to be her favorite side.

That was not what I needed, so I told her, "Walk up".

That's when I realized that she probably has not been trained to drive, or if she was there hasn't been a lot of practice. Driving is when the dog is moving the sheep away from the handler rather than gathering them in, which is quite against their instinct.

She did it though. By a combination of her name, a few corrective sounds, and a couple of nos when she tried to bring them to me, she got them moving toward the barnyard.

Then the guy pictured above decided to choose things up with her. Up on his tippy toes, chin tucked, horns all spikey, he went. I thought she was a timid dog, especially when I said, "Get 'im" and she didn't. A lot of dogs love an excuse to dive at a sheep. Heck, Mike loved to swing off the nose of a recalcitrant cow...or even a bull on the prod once...and never had to be asked twice.

However, once again, she just didn't know what I wanted. As soon as I went Sshh, sshh, sshh at her in she dove, all bristle and sass. She never laid a tooth on him, but I do believe that as of today he should qualify for "dog broke".

Shamelessly stolen from Liz's Facebook page.
Like most BCs she hates the camera so I don't have any good 
ones of her.

Most fun I've had all week. What a sweet, biddable, lovely little dog Jill is.