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Romeo has been named as a finalist on Dogster's 5th Annual World's Coolest Dog and Cat Show (phew, that is a mouthful!).

The picture of him keeping an eye on some sheep has placed top 5 in the Working Dog category. The top 5 dogs of each category then go on to open voting for Best in Show! While the winner of each category is selected by a panel of judges.


We would LOVE if all of our Dogster friends would please go and VOTE FOR ROMEO for Best in Show!!

VOTE HERE!
(Romeo's picture is near the bottom.)

Sheltie Herding

Yesterday I took Romeo out herding again. We were invited out by a fellow Sheltie owner, and I was eager for the opportunity to see a more practiced Sheltie (and handler) do their stuff.

Jill and Pilgrim are a great pair, and Pilgrim's enthusiasm is infectious! It was great to watch them work, and even though Jill insisted that Pilgrim was sloppy, I was impressed. I see now, comparing how Pilgrim works compared to where Romeo is, exactly what I need to work on. And lucky for me, I think I can do some of that without sheep. Hopefully I will get around to it before our next adventure out to Dog Tale Ranch.

Here are a couple of pictures of the charming Pilgrim at work ...




As always, Arlette (owner of Dog Tale Ranch) was a joy to work with. Her passion for herding, sheep, sheep dogs and ranching is apparent in everything she does. And she has unending patience to deal with clueless people like me!

Romeo had a blast, of course. He hasn't quite figured out the finer points yet, but he sure understands that he can make those sheep move (and if he makes them move all in different directions then he gets to tear about after them to bring them back together again ... sigh). We worked on setting him up so that the sheep were between him and me, so that he can move up to bring the sheep to me. The tricky bit is that Romeo is so keenly focused on me, that while he is thrilled about the sheep, he still has a tendency to swing around towards me instead of towards the sheep. I'm considering velco and tennis balls on the sheep's backs.

We worked a little bit on driving the sheep, and he really liked that. It allows him to be closer to me, relatively, yet still working the sheep. When he is pushing them away from me, he gets to be between me and the sheep, so all of his focus is on the sheep and he was more responsive to my cues to speed up or slow down.



Arlette is playing host to John Carter for a couple of months this summer. John is a very experienced shepherd, trainer, and judge. And, of course, he was out to watch me flounder around with Romeo. It's a little nerve wracking knowing that I am probably doing everything wrong and the many other experienced people watching are likely rolling their eyes and groaning under their breath. At least, that is what I imagined, though it is probably a vast exaggeration.

On the ride home, Jill mentioned that John had commented on Romeo while we were out of ear shot. Said that Romeo had great power and interest in the sheep. So that leads me to believe that it isn't a lost cause, and as long as I can get my head in the right direction (and my body following along!), we might be able to have a bit of fun with this!

Adventures in Herding

There is a facility about an hour's drive out of Saskatoon that offers herding lessons and workshops. Dog Tale Ranch is a fabulous place and Arlette is so incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. A group of us went out for the afternoon to introduce our dogs to sheep. Romeo has met sheep once before when he got his Herding Instinct Certificate at the age of 11 months, but since then his life has been sheep-free ... unless you count the freezer full of sheep for dog food, that is.

Romeo had a great time and actually started to catch on quite well near the end! It started with a lot of barking and splitting the sheep up, but once I figured out what I was supposed to be doing it worked out a lot better. By the end of the afternoon, Romeo was able to get the sheep out of corners (most of the time) and move them about half way around the arena. I'm sure he would have done better if he had a handler that had half a clue. The instructor even referred to him as "a dynamite little dog"! Go Romer!

He had such a good time and caught on really well, I'm eager to be able to get out there again. They are holding some clinics this summer, so maybe I will sign Romeo and me up to see what else we can learn.

The other dogs that went, Kit and Sam, both Border Collies, had a jolly good time as well. Kit was amazing for her first time seeing sheep. She clearly knows what to do and sank right into the role. Sam was just glad to be out playing with his "mom". Once all the snow melt and we are able to work out in a paddock, we will likely all go out again to let the dogs go at it.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day. Thanks to the camera-people!




If anyone wants to see all the pictures from this afternoon's herding adventure (including all the blurry and unflattering ones), Here is the link for the Picasa album. It also includes pictures of Kit and Sam, as well as Jade the beautiful resident Border Collie that was polite enough to let our green dogs work HER sheep!