Amanda: on the lam(bs)

Saturday.   No office.  I trained my dogs today.   After Kingston Trials, I run on lambs.  The training on them is the best since they are so unpredictable, naive, kamikaze,    They will hurl themselves into the air, or try red rover on the dogs, or just be indecisive, so that the dogs say jeesh and expect the unexpected.  They are completely unwilling to pen, which makes them pen training perfection.  They respond to a shed with shocked anxiety, the perfect tool for teaching a dog to cope with an ovine psychopath.  I love training on lambs, much more than their worldly mothers.

The summer has been so wet, I have not had off the hay and therefore, no big outruns.  While no outruns is OK for seasoned dogs, the dearth is hard on the young ones.  Monty could hardly believe there were sheep five hundred yards away.  He went for them with redirects rewarding his casts.  He will be setting his sights further after this morning.  His pliability in his fetch is sound.   I love running good young dogs in the morning.  Everything seems so possible when you do.

Kate Broadbent spotted for me and I held for her.  She ran Salty and I ran all mine   Roz and Clive are running well.  But I put Bart and Ethel on Previcox today to see them through the next six weeks.  Her old bones seem achy;  his back is a chronic problem.  An anti-inflammatory might give them a lift.  If it does not, I have to consider running another.