This morning I'm off to work the dogs for what might be the last time before the Hotchkiss trial next weekend. I hope we have a better day than the last time I took the dogs out. We went to the smaller, narrow field again, and didn't have a great work session. Craig would not take my whistles at a distance no matter what I did (which eventually involved running up the field and screaming at him at the top of my lungs—not one of my better moments). He took everything I asked for when he was close to me, but not when he got a bit further away. I am not sure if this was a fluke or I have a problem on my hands—we'll see today, I guess. I didn't have much more success with Taz. He didn't really want to take my whistles either. He'd take them when they made a lot of sense to him, like when the sheep were breaking or when he was set up to run an obvious direction, but he seemed to have no idea what I was asking of him when I whistled him along on a cross drive. I will be the first to admit that my whistles are not always the most consistent, and they certainly are not the most pleasant sounds on the planet, so I think more practice for me without the dogs is in order here. And Taz's driving didn't look so hot last time out either. He wasn't wanting to take my direction while he was working, and he stopped to look back at me a bunch. I think he is just still unsure about what I want from him, but we don't have very much time to work it out if before next weekend. We'll see how he does today...wish us luck!
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