Dog Days

Dog days, going to the dogs, it’s a dog’s life…however you phrase it, the past week has been about the dogs…and the sheep.  Since arriving here in Buffalo, Rue and I have spent time almost every day with Wendy Auzqui of Creekside Stockdogs, reorienting ourselves to livestock after more than a month of traveling.  

We have worked with Wendy before when we have been near her home in Clearmont, Wyoming (only 30 miles or so from our campground in Buffalo).  She and her husband live on the banks of Clear Creek east of Clearmont and ranch in the area, raising angus cattle and columbia wool sheep.  Wendy trains the dogs they use on the ranch.  In addition, she also competes with her dogs in sheep and cattle trials, and gives herding lessons.  Training with Wendy is a great opportunity for Rue and me to brush up on our teamwork while we are on the road and learn some new approaches to stock handling.  We are grateful that Wendy is able to make time for us in her very busy schedule.

In the past we have worked only on sheep, and that is how we started this week.  We began by working in the arena.

Wendy set out the sheep,

while her young dogs looked on

and Frank, one of her senior dogs, supervised.

Rue liked the cooling-off part, as well.

 Since Rue also works some on our cows in Texas, we practiced on some of Wendy’s stock.

There were sheep in the corral behind the arena, and at first Rue was confused and thought she was supposed to go around the cattle and bring the me sheep.  She figured it out, though, and worked nicely on the cattle.

After Rue had worked for a bit, Felix, one of Wendy's young dogs, joined her and they worked the cattle together.

We also moved out into the field to work on Rue’s outrun, lift and fetch.

And then today we were able to practice longer outruns on a much larger group of sheep.  What fun!  Wendy's Tony helped to set out and manage the sheep.

While Frank's son, Wick (who got his father's blue eyes) looked on with envy.

We will have another working session before we leave on Saturday, but this has already been a productive week that has stretched my skills and given Rue some good working experience.  Thank you, Wendy, for your patience and for sharing your expertise.  These two weeks have been a gift.