Putting my boyz to work

Hi gentle pups,

Again it's been a while since we put paw to keyboard. And, as usual, it's because we've been pretty busy. My people have been taking the working dogs out to work a couple of times a week and I have my important agility work to do. Even Renzo has been mighty busy on squirrel patrol and Ness, well, Ness has been busy destroying plush toys. This is important work, I recognize and a task she is singularly well suited to. The rest of us don't get to destroy toys very often, but our people think that because Nessie probably had few opportunities to destroy toys in her life before coming to us, this is a job she should get to take on. And she's good at it, something we all like to see in a working dog.

As a worker, as many of you who've read about me for a while may remember, I'm not what you'd call "ambitious" or "driven." I'm more of the "do what you have to to get the kibble and spend the rest of your time napping, preening and looking out the window" school of thought.

But the younger males in my pack really do like to work and so I thought I'd share some recent evidence of them moving up their respective career ladders (ha ha! don't tell the Sheep King, but I have it on good authority that after last week-end's shenanigans, he may face a demotion).

Below, is the Sheep King, aka my goofy little brother, Hamish, moving some ewes. You'll notice that one is facing him. That's because she's wondering if she really needs to do what he says. After about 4 more steps on his part, she decided the answer was "yes" and turned to follow her sistren to the pen.



Here we have the oaf-pup, Rafe, catching the ladies as they wish to move toward the group of trees. Rafe has a very nice outrun and pace. And, yes, his ears really do flop like that when he runs. We try not to talk about it too much as he's a bit sensitive about it.

And finally, young Kyzer had his turn. You'll notice he is a bit tighter on the sheep than the older boys and there are more sheep to work as that's a bit easier. He is quite a nice little worker overall and our person is looking forward to watching him mature.


So, there you have it. And just so you see that I, too, occasionally have important work to do, here I am making sure a sneaky paper bag doesn't get away as Hamish stands by gawking in awe.