Category: Our sheepdogs and pups
Farewell to Bronwen (her talent was wasted here)!
Bronwen’s gone to a new home in Gloucestershire where she’ll have a much larger flock of sheep to look after Training and selling sheepdogs is all very well, but, when it comes to selling a dog that you’re very fond of, it can be an extremely difficult decision. For a long time we felt that Bronwen’s sheep herding skills were wasted here. During the summer… Read more.
Wow! Kelpie Molly gets our ‘Man of the Match’ Award!
Trainee Kelpie sheepdog Molly is making progress If you’ve read our Kelpie vs Collie blog, you’ll know that we’ve had our ups and downs with Kelpies over the years. I’ve personally been on the receiving end of some bitter comments from enthusiasts for what I wrote about Kelpies. That’s a pity. The people who directed their vitriol and untrue accusations in my direction clearly hadn’t… Read more.
All Safely Gathered in
Memories of Kay and Carew at Dean Farm on this day four years ago! Regular readers will know that we often gather sheep for our landlord John, at Dean Farm. This is a typical picture of Kay (left) and Carew keeping an eye on the sheep which they’ve just put safely into a building. Our regular readers will also know that Carew now works on… Read more.
A Surprise Turnout to Move a Few Sheep!
Scylla and Ezra join Kay’s fun! We only have five acres of land here (about two hectares) and at the moment there are just twelve sheep on it. (More sheep coming soon). Because the land is where we exercise the dogs twice a day for their recreation, we need to be careful that the dogs don’t chase the sheep. Normally they don’t. They learn that… Read more.
Border Collie Sheepdogs Come in Assorted Colours!
We love coloured dogs and we’ve trained a few A post about so-called mis-marked puppies sparked a lot of response, mostly on Facebook and Twitter/X. One of the questions we were asked was whether we train merle or red and white dogs. Yes, we’ve trained quite a number over the years, but (and this may not go down too well in some quarters) we honestly… Read more.
How do you feel about mis-marked puppies?
We love coloured dogs and we’ve had a few over the years! Yesterday’s post about so-called mis-marked puppies sparked a lot of response, mostly on Facebook and Twitter. There’s nothing unusual about this. We’ve noticed over the years that some people strongly dislike unusual markings on dogs. I can remember once when we had a really promising young sheepdog for sale which happened to have… Read more.
Kay – always there, giving her best
Much of the success we’ve enjoyed in sheepdog training is owed to Kay almost, but not quite, a retired sheepdog. Kay, our semi-retired sheepdog, has taught us so much over the years. She always knows what needs to be done. Kay’s quite an elderly dog now, and partially deaf, but she’s still a very useful working dog. Typical of a sheepdog, Kay may be slowing… Read more.
Training my first dog, Dot
This is Dot, the herding dog that changed my life! Dot features in our Sheepdog Training Article (written in 2003). We had a lot of fun with Dot. In the early stages of her training I very nearly returned Dot to her breeder because I didn’t understand her. She wasn’t doing the things I’d expected trainee dogs to do; the things that happened in the… Read more.
Cooling off in the pond on a hot day!
Puppy Faye and the dogs don’t like it too hot Three years ago today, the weather was unexpectedly hot – just as it is in the UK today. Unlike today though, we’d just had a spell of really heavy rain, and our (normally dried up) pond had some water in it for a change, so the dogs wasted no time in enjoying it to the… Read more.