Mini-outing

Just a quick post, since I haven't written in a bit. I am currently finishing up a horrendous freelance project that has been taking all of my time over the past week, so I haven't been able to work the dogs. Yesterday evening, after tripping over the dogs for the millionth time, guilt overcame me and I set out for Bill's for a super-quick session.

Unfortunately, the gods were not on my side, as I had some trouble with my truck and didn't have much of a chance to work. I managed only to practice some whistles with Craig in the arena. He did all right, considering I am still not making consistent sounds and I am still pretty slow to work out which side is which when I'm sending a dog from an unusual position relative to the stock. I need to start practicing using the whistles in ordinary field work, I think, or we'll never completely work it out.

I did try Taz a little on the whistles, too, but we didn't get very far. I did start to introduce him to the whistles the same way I introduced Craig to them—verbal command, whistle, verbal. The whistles kind of key him up, though, and he was fast and zoomy. I just wasn't really in the best frame of mind to play around with this yesterday, though, between stressing about the transmission on the truck and my looming deadline, so I decided to call it a day there. My truck is going to the shop later today and the project is due on Wednesday, so we'll be back and happy to work again soon!