fly’s first outing

Last week it was time to wean the lambs away from the ewes on Morte Point, and with Fern nearly eleven years old, it was time to give Fly her first taste of gathering the sheep on the coastal ground.

I’m always a little worried when working a young dog amongst gorse and bracken and near the cliffs for the first time. Up until now Fly has been trained and worked in fenced fields,  and would have no understanding of sheep grazing near the cliff edge. So I kept her close at hand for most of the time and didn’t let her go any where that I couldn’t see her. She did try to run through a patch of solid gorse and seemed surprised that she just bounced off! But for the most part she did pretty well, and I was particularly pleased that she was beginning to run wide through thick patches of scrub, in order to head off the sheep. It’s a long way to go before she’s up to the standard of Jake and Mist, but it was certainly another positive step on the path to becoming one of my top sheepdogs.

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