Workin dogs, puppy breath, and jingle bells

I must admit that I have a fondness for torturing my dogs with wearing clothes, especially around the holidays. I bought the dogs Christmas collars today at PetsMart ($2.99 each, woot!) and managed to get a pretty cute picture of the three of them by our Christmas tree with my new iPhone (double woot!)



It's amazing what a little mozzarella cheese can do to motivate three wiggly dogs to sit still long enough to snap a photo ;)

Anyways... I went out to Dianne's today and worked Moss; I also picked him up to take him home for a few weeks as I've been missing him terribly. I know he's doing great at training, but I miss his little (well, not so little anymore) face around the house. He's such a good boy. As he gets older, I've noticed just how much he looks like his mama, Peg. He has Riggs' markings (other than the tricolor points), but his muzzle and eyes are all Peg. He is big and rangy like Riggs, though, which I like. I love the big, masculine-looking boys. His head is starting to broaden and he's really filling out. Part of me is a little (okay, a lot) sad that Moss is looking less and less like a puppy every day. But he is getting so handsome!




There was some snow on the ground today, and it was BITTER cold..... it settled down for awhile but picked up again about halfway through our second work.



He was pretty good today. Dianne had mentioned that he was having some trouble with covering fully on the outrun; that he was coming up short a lot of the time. I definitely noticed it today, and spent a lot of my time forcing him to cover. His driving is really coming along, and he has gained a lot of confidence. He pretty much just lets me put him wherever I want to, takes my commands and listens well, and is generally really easygoing about this whole process.



He is such a thinking dog.... Dianne and I were talking, and she said something that really struck me. She said (this is obviously a loose paraphrase, lol) that even when Moss is wrong, he learns from the sheep. That comment made a lot of sense in light of how he behaved today. When he was "wrong" and didn't cover on the top of his outruns, the sheep would go the wrong way and he'd be forced to correct himself. By the end he was doing a lot better.



We did a lot of the same stuff that we have been doing; driving around the field etc... but during our second work I got a little bit brave and did a sort of mini "course" without panels (I hope that was okay, Dianne!). I had him do a short-ish outrun, fetch the sheep to me, and drive in a little triangle-shaped pattern thingy. I picked different spots on the field and tried to get him to take the sheep there with as little input/interference from me as possible. He did awesome! We even did a pretty smooth turn around the "post." It's really fun messing with him because he is so laid back.... he never gets me in much trouble. That is really great.



I just love this boy... can ya tell? :)

I also took a few pictures of the pups that Dianne has right now. Here are a few of the True x Riggs boys:





(Aww...)


(This little guy was quite photogenic)


And some of the Peg x Riggs litter, which are a few weeks younger than True's pups. They are Moss's full siblings, born a year later:









("Mini Moss")


(I love this girl!)






I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas/holidays :)