BevLive: Duck, Duck, Goose . . .

Left work at 5:00 and got to Denise Leonard's a little after 6:00. Denise kindly put three ducks in a 50' round pen for us, and I tried to get Hemp to work them. Since the round pen was in the middle of her field, which contained 5 or 6 sheep, we didn't have much success.  Hemp couldn't seem to see his way out of the duck pen and into the sheep field. But he sure tried to get to those sheep. I gave up on Hemp and went to his younger brother Huck (Huck and Hemp are the same way bred, out of my husband's bitch Emmy by my dog Bill).

Huck didn't like the duck thing either. But Denise worked the ducks up against the fence for me and I stood in the middle of them, calling to Huck just as I would if I were trying to get a puppy to work sheep for the first time. This worked the charm, and in a few minutes Huck was a duck dog. (See picture below.) Unfortunately (for the ducks!), they were pretty heavy, and Huck tried to get them to move along at a speed more appropriate for sheep. I didn't want to discourage Huck's newfound interest in duck herding, so I'm afraid the ducks got a bit of a workout.

Denise and I tried a couple more times with Hemp and got him to show some interest, but his heart was never really in the effort. So after about 45 minutes of "serious" duck work we called it a night and quit.

This morning I drove over to my friend Carol Campion's to drop off two dogs. One, a yet younger repeat of the breeding that produced Huck and Hemp, Devon, Carol is taking for a month of training. I have no round pen, and Devon is pretty much just chasing my sheep all over the field. Instead of getting after him, I decided to give him a month in Carol's round pen and then move him into my bigger field. He is quite promising looking, and I don't want to ruin his chances. The second dog, Esther, is going to spend a month with Sue Schoen. Sue owns a littermate to Esther and kindly offered to take care of her for a month and try her out and see what she thought of her prospects.

So back to the house, wash the last two dogs, load up the camper and here I am at work. I will leave around 2:00, and my next report will be from the road somewhere west of Connecticut..