Sheepies!

I took Kodiak out to Claire's today to see if he could function around the ducks and chickens and goats and turkeys and sheeps and Albert the Ox. I'm very proud of my boy - he did really well around all those new sights, sounds and smells. I also wanted to see if he had any interest in the sheep - after all, he is part herding dog. We tried him at Meredith's back in April and he was a little interested in the sheep, but more interested in running off to the far end of the arena. Five months is a long time for a pup his age, though, so I was hopeful we might get a different response from him this time. Boy, did we ever!

Turns out, Kodiak has a LOT of natural herding instinct. Very likely even more than Duncan does. In fact, he made me realize how much effort it sometimes takes to herd with Duncan (poor Duncan, he's such a worrier and he prefers to herd from right behind me which usually pushes the sheep ahead of me). Kodiak was soooo easy and just seemed to know where he needed to be to keep the sheep behind me or at least not running away from me. He does get very worried when I stumble, though, and he deals with that by wandering around off contact (Duncan's usual response is to run up to me, scattering the sheep in the process). He's going to have to learn to deal with that, though, because I tend to trip a lot around sheep. For such a little fellow, Kodiak has a lot of sheep-moving power. They were definitely very aware of him. Claire commented that Kodiak seems to have a natural talent for rating himself - he knows when to work the side and front of the flock, and appears able to gauge just how close he needs to be to the sheep to get them moving. I was also thrilled to see that Kodiak could focus on the sheep enough to lose his concern about the environment. I'm really pleased with how today went. I definitely have to get Kodiak back out to Claire's sometime soon, preferably with my good camera rather than my little point-and-shoot.