Maine Millers

Ok, so I have been away for a while, sorry. I was playing frisbee with Scout the other day and we play with two, one for me and one for him, he never gets mine until he puts his at my feet, I know I could use the exercise but it’s his job to bring them back to me not near me.

Anyway…one of my wonderful throws lands in our large hammock from LL Bean and he looks at the frisbee over his head, looks at me and then starts to jump at the bottom of the hammock and proceeds to bounce the frisbee over the edge. I was worried that he would try to bite at it from below (it’s about three feet off the ground) and he did once but realized that it wouldn’t fit between the mesh. I will try to get a video or pictures the next time it happens, although you know that will be the time he tears the hammock to shreads 🙁

It’s spring time and that means that agility is just around the corner.  Once the yard dries out we will be setting up the jumps again and classes start next week.  I hope to have new info and photos coming up soon!  Meanwhile here is a photo from last fall’s agility.

Zach was making chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips the other night and when he left the kitchen, someone, we all know who, go the bag of chips and opened it and started to help himself. Yesterday Zach was pretty amazed to see the wrapper in the yard. He’s a smart kid, but it has to go somewhere…

What a busy few day it’s been. We are starting to lose daylight in the evenings here on the coast so we are almost done with agility for the season (on a formal basis) and we have started to look at more sheep herding. Today was our third herding outing (say that 3 times fast 🙂 ) and I guess Scout has finally realized that the sheep are in the same pen with us. It’s been about a month since our first outing and he has really started to show some interest. I need a sheep herder dictionary to learn all the commands but it will come eventually. I hope.

On our second outing we did a lot of circling the sheep and work on a long line. I was worried about some rope burn on my hands but he never pulled much on the rope. He was, on the other hand, busy eating sheep poop more than paying attention to the sheep. (thanks Fran for the photo).

Today, was a whole new ball game! We started on the rope, and then after he started to notice the sheep I dropped the rope and let him drag it for a while, of course that is just an invitation to chew the rope that is dangling from his neck (a bad leash habit I still haven’t broken 🙁 ). So, off came the rope and he was on his own out there (with me fumbling around). The language is all new to me, for example:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xx
xxxxxx Scout xx Me x
xx
xxxxxxxxx 1 x
xxxxxxxxxx sheep x
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 2 x
xx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The sheep were heading towards the “p” in sheep and Marcia told me to “get in front of the sheep” So I went to “1” Nooooo, that’s not in front of the sheep their heads were towards “2” now if they were facing us then in front of the sheep would be “1” This is as clear as mud 😀 I am going to dig out my old herding book and see if I can re-learn some of this terminology. “Go-By” is clockwise (go by the clock) but if the dog is behind you I think it’s “Away-To-Me” which is counter clockwise. I do know “Down,” “Out,” “Walk up,” and “That will do.” We’ll see what happens in a few weeks when I go back.

On the agility side of things. We ran a full course and Scout hit all his contacts so it was an awesome thing. Now if I can figure out for the best path to handle him we should be pretty good. We might even enter a CPE trial this winter? We’ll see.

We all had the week off and decided to go to Acadia National Park for the day. Since it’s about a 140 mile drive we took Scout with us so we didn’t have to find someone that would put him out and feed him during the day. Dogs are allow in most areas of the park with the exception of the beaches, buildings and a few of the hikes that require ladders.

Our first stop was Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the eastern coast at 1530 feet. We really only hiked about 600 feet and the view would have been specticular if it had not been foggy, very foggy and as you can see from Scout’s parted fur it was quite windy, figure close to 40 miles per hour. I looks like it would be a beautiful place in the fall to see the leaves changing colors. He really did seem to enjoy the wind in his face, he just keep flaring his nostrils and soaking in all the scents.

Due to timing of the tides and desire to check out Thunder Hole, we decided to venture to Ship Harbor to check out the tide pools while the tides were out. I seemed like our timing was perfect. We got to Ship Harbor about 30 minutes after low tide and we would want to be at Thunder Hole at about mid tide on the way in, approximately 3 hours later. So we took a hike, about 1.4 miles to the water. When we got there we tried to venture on the large granite rocks and look in the tide pools. Unfortunately Scout had other plans and felt that Michele and the kids were getting too far away for comfort and just started to bark at them. Since I felt that it was unfair to the other visitors to hear the barking, Scout and I just headed back on the trail for a bit while the others explored and, much to the kid’s chagrin, found nothing exciting. The fog was rolling in and out while we were there and pretty heavy on the way back to the car.

Thunder Hole, another 1 mile hike, was a pretty neat experience where the ocean has knocked off pieces of the granite shoreline and left cave like areas that when the tide is coming in sometimes sounds like thunder booming as the air is pushed out of the cave. I took Scout down to see Thunder Hole up close, on a walkway, and one of the booms did make him jump and he wanted to just beeline back to the top and relative safety.

One thing that I can say is that Scout did great with all the people and other dogs around and other than barking at Ship Harbor, was quiet. I do wish that I had a nickel for every time that I was asked what type of dog that is, or every he’s very pretty comment. I guess he does stand out from all the Goldens and Labs out there 🙂