Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Guardian dog neck tie

I received many emails and comments about the neck ties the guard dogs were wearing. First of all I would like to say this is not my invention. I got the idea from Louise who put it on one of her dogs that was digging underneath the fences. Our place in mostly buffalo fenced so the holes are bigger and the dogs can get through pretty easy. So I email Louise for a solution when we needed to keep our dogs away from the neighbors dogs.



We made ours out of irrigation hose. But you could make it out of anything. Louise made hers out of wood.


It is screwed together and attached to their collars with plastic ties. 
It for some reason they get caught up somewhere the ties will break then they can get free. 
We are in with the sheep daily so the risk of us not seeing a dog caught up somewhere is low. 


It works like a dream. 
I am not sure if it would work for a dog who was going over fences as our fences are 6 feet high. But under or through it works great.


Friday, January 25, 2013

Wind and dog work

Those clouds over the mountains are the price we pay for 10C weather in January and very little snow. WIND
This morning I raced over to Naomi's house to work dogs before the wind picked up


The clouds are what we call wind clouds.




It was so nice this morning we didn't even need jackets.
Just had to take advantage because you never know when things will change.


Gus is turning into a driving machine. 


Still reminding Craig slower is better.
He has other ideas.
After 18 months on house arrest he wants to live every moment to its fullest.



Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Winter Jobs


Frankly I think winter is more work than summer. Plus you are wearing three extra layers of clothes to do all the chores. The sheep need feeding every other day. The rams have been out with the girls and are now back in the frat boy pen. This year we bred 130 ewes to start May 1st ish. Also had a ram escape while I was in Oregon and will be lambing out 20 ewes in mid February. 



 Today the guardian dogs were treated to a moose leg each. We have been having issues with stray dogs coming in and mauling our sheep in a certain pasture so in an effort to keep our dogs safe we have attached what we call neck ties to their collars so they will stay in the pen we put them in. 
As you can see Glitzy is growing like a weed. 
She is working out nicely so far. She even put the run on Kyle one night when he was checking sheep and he surprised her.