Sheepdogs

Many of you will know that back in 2016 we bought a lovely sheepdog - Becca. She came part trained and we were excited at how well she would work. Unfortunatly, not only were we not skilled enough to know how to ‘finish’ her training, it became apparent over the months and years that although Becca is fantastic at running around a field she is a bit daft in the sense that she won’t notice if the field doesn’t actually have any sheep in it! On top of that, Becca cowers away from a sheep that stands up to her…..you don’t have to be a shepherd to work out that a dog being chased down a field by a sheep looks the wrong way around.

First picture with Becca in 2016

After years of having a dog and barking ourselves (literally) it was time to start looking for a better dog, with Becca’s lovely temperament but also the ability to stand up to and work sheep. While Andy was working with us last year, he found an old dog who wasn’t being used anymore and needed a new home. He was a considerably better dog than Becca but he was getting old and tired and wasn’t the answer to our problem. However, one morning having got the sheep in and been put in a separate room to Becca, they managed to open the door and…….well you know the rest.

We spent May watching Becca slow down on walks and get fatter and fatter and finally in June, the day came.

Becca proved to be as good a mum as she was a sheepdog and unfortunately only two of the puppies survived. Garda was sold to a family in Kings Sutton and Nell we have kept for ourselves. Nell has shown really good instinct around the sheep already, she seems to have her dad’s way rather than her mum’s thankfully and after watching her crouch down and eyeball the sheep every time we went near them we felt confident it would be worth getting her trained.

Nell out with the sheep

Last weekend, we took a long drive with Nell to Shap to be trained by Katy Cropper. We’ve been getting regular updates from Katy and we’re pleased to hear that Nell is making a good impression and her ability to work sheep is promising. I’m not sure she’ll like it down here in Northamptonshire as much as in the beautiful scenery in the lake district with lots of other dogs to play with, but we are looking forward to having her back and working her with our sheep. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to having another dog around and we are missing her while she’s away.