First of all, we finally agreed on a name for our Maremma: “Bronte” (spelled without the umlaut- because who wants to spell a dog’s name with an umlaut?). Here is a photo of her with the ram, taken by our neighbor Marla. She and the ram get on pretty well. If she tries to tug at his ears too much and gets on his nerves, he pushes her down and hurts her. So, they have their relationship sorted out! 🙂
You’ll note the long-line she’s wearing. This is a great secret I learned long ago from Patty Ruzzo in a seminar. Patty is now passed on, but she was a well-known dog trainer who was highly successful in Obedience competition, and I learned many valuable things from her and think of her often.
We all know that puppies usually go through a “keep-away” age, where they start to learn they can run faster than we can, and that being caught is not fun. But, traditional store-bought dog long-lines used for controlling keep-away dogs are heavy and cumbersome. If you are training a dog to jump or herd, regular long-lines can get dangerously tangled on things. So this was Patty’s solution: grosgrain ribbon. This is a special kind of ribbed ribbon you can buy at a fabric store- it is quite strong, and inexpensive. Tie 10 yards of it to a brass clip, and you have a fabulous, lightweight long-line that “floats” along as the dog runs. It’s slippery so it rarely tangles with solid objects. And, if a dog really hits it hard, it breaks, saving their neck from serious injury.
This long-line is so lightweight the dog forgets he is wearing it. And, the best part is that you can step on it when you are calling him, and then just stand their casually like you haven’t done anything at all. He has no idea what has just occurred, and he starts to develop a superstitious belief that you are God-like, and can stop him in his tracks when you call him. Much better than stooping to pick up a heavy long-line, so the dog figures out “oh, if I run fast enough to get that long-line out of your reach, I’m home-free!” Instead, with this long-line, the dog starts to believe that when you call, there is no choice but to come.
So, this is what Bronte is wearing most of the time. She is still at a very silly age, and is easily intimidated by us, so when we are out in the pasture, she bounces around and woofs, trying to initiate the keepaway game, half afraid of being snagged. When she does this, I ingore it, and now and then, step on the long-line, catch her, pet and praise her then let her go. The long-line is reasonably safe for her to wear in the pasture- there is not much for it to get stuck on. She has broken (or chewed?) it a couple of times, but I just re-tie it while she’s enjoying eating her dinner, and she is rarely the wiser. Her dinner is my best puppet string: she must eat it while I pet her if she wants to eat.
I used a line like this for many months on my “remedial” Border Collie, Gene. Gene was horrible about keepaway, for much of the first year of her life! Especially in a pasture with sheep. And, when Gene is frightened or upset, she flees, unlike most dogs who seek comfort from their owners when scared. I attribute this brilliant and simple invention to me eventually getting Gene under voice control, and now she has very good call-offs when she is working livestock, and will even reluctantly come to me when she is hurt or panicked.
So, I’m hoping, if it worked for Gene, it’ll work for Bronte! So far it seems to be doing the trick! Training an LGD is very different for me, as I only have a few minutes per day of interaction with her, as compared to a competition and house dog that gets many hours of intensive interaction per day. So, I have to make the most of every minute I’m in the pasture, to teach her the things she needs to know!
Last weekend, we moved the sheep back down to the pasture to graze. The move almost went without mishap, except that at one point, the sheep drifted down to the end of the driveway by the road, and noticed the green alleyway by the tree farm. They decided to start strolling in that direction. I wasn’t able to get down there very fast with Maggie, and because that area is unfenced and close to the road, I didn’t want to send Maggie down there by herself.
Kirk has been working on this bridge the last few weeks. It is made out of more barn wood-these boards were floor joists from the second story. The boards are huge and heavy, 2×12″ true dimension lumber, and sometimes bigger. The wood from the barn is funny, we know it was milled on site, and there are many inconsistent dimensions of lumber. When building something like this, it’s necessary to pick through the boards to find ones that are the same.
I liked my original A-frame 
Today we had a short and intense snow storm. We’ve had a lot of warm weather recently, too, but March is always squirrely! It was bright and sunny when I took this picture at home after work. We’re hoping for more warm days, now that we can enjoy the extra hour of daylight to get stuff done in the evenings!
I’m not keen about tail docking on any animal, since it is a true amputation, and I have concerns about what it does to the animal’s physiology and whether they suffer from phantom limb syndrome. In sheep, short tail docking is definitely linked to greater incidence of rectal prolapse.
I built this poultry feeder A-frame a week or so ago. I used old barn wood this time. I don’t often find ways to recycle the barn wood, because it’s so dimensionally gigantic, dense and heavy compared to modern lumber, that even the tiniest structure weighs too much. Right now, we want everything to be move-able since we don’t know where all our permanent structures are going to go. But, this worked ok: made from barn siding and roof pieces, I think it “only” weighs about 50 pounds!