Another Road Trip

Recently I made a quick trip out to OH to see Livy and stopped by to visit some friends in KY. 

 Last trip to KY involved a surprise snowfall,

this time the weather was perfectly Spring.

I got Gabe out to a new-to-him field and sent him the Open outrun.  He ran out beautifully but was brash at the top after ignoring my down.  It is a MUST for Gabe to take his down at the top, something that I hope is just a phase, but regardless, it's how we have to do things for now.  After noodling around the field a little to let him settle, adjust to the sheep, and get his listening ears on, I sent him again and took off running up the field anticipating the ignored down.  I quickly found out that 1) he's way too fast even at an appropriate wideness 2) the grass was long and the terrain steeper than I thought, which led to 3) ya just can't get there in time on foot with an Open course.  He crashed into them as I was huffing and puffing halfway up the field.  So I resorted to jumping into the Gator immediately after sending him and got some effective reminders that lying down is not optional.  This was the first I'd done this with him, and he was very surprised to see me standing RIGHT there whistling him down.  We did some more course work and shedding before we called it quits.  I had a super fun lunch with two good friends, followed by a fun dog hike to the river back at the farm.

This represents only about 1/3 of the canine participants.

I got to stop by to visit some more friends before heading north for the night.  Last time I set out on this leg of the trip, Devil Garmin took me on a different route than I'd planned, and I ended up here:

Ferry to cross the OH river, yes it has a single car on board.

Thankfully, Garmin behaved herself and I took a better route this time.  I got to Lyle's in the morning and was so happy to see Livy's sister Nym there for a lesson.  What a nice dog!  And Liver-puppy is lookin' good!!  I'm quite excited about her.  She was really happy to see me, too, and kept trying to load up in the truck.  But I was not there to take her home, yet.

Gabe got to work at another new place on sheep that were polar opposites from those of the day before.  Good practice for both of us to adjust to different sheep.

So it was just a quick road trip that I wish lasted longer, but Gabe and I got to work in two new places, so I'm glad we had those opportunities.  And I had a phenomenal time visiting all the friends I got to see; I'm starting to wish I lived closer to them all!!

Rae didn't get to work, but did enjoy herself on the hike. 

She got to go along to be the designated hotel dog.