Today I decided I have been doing a bit too much "pressure" work with Yoko. I decided I need to back off and let her just have fun. I took her out to the large field and asked her just to fetch the sheep. Sure enough...Murphy's law kicked in. Yo got stung by a bee on the roof of her mouth. She never stopped working, but she was in distress opening her mouth as wide as she could and tilting her head.
I could see the stinger, but it was so far back I couldn't reach it. I looked in the truck for something to use to get that stinger out of there. I popped Yoko a Benadryl and found a toothbrush. Hey, that's all I had. I couldn't get it with several swipes of the brush. Well, at least I know she isn't allergic. So much for a less stressful work-out. She's now dozing comfortably on her antihistamine.
You would think it would be easy for me to know how to train Yoko with her being a daughter of Jet and Kilt. Trust me it isn't. All 3 are so different. Yoko has her father's beautiful outrun, but she a bit of her mother's tenseness. She wants to do everything PERFECTLY. She worries about being correct. This adds to her stress. It's a bit frustrating for me as her trainer. I need to back off and be kind to this little dog who tries so hard. Some dogs are ready for Meeker at age 2. Yoko is not one of them.
Yeah, she qualified for the National nursery finals. But, quite frankly that doesn't take very much in my opinion. Now qualifying with an open dog for the Nationals...that's a whole different story. They say it takes 10 years to make a good stockdog handler. I have a few more years left to go. :0)
No comments:
Post a Comment