Rehabbing an Aggressive Australian Shepherd

Chris is now 8 years old.  Doing well.  Tam has just been retired from competition ): which I will totally miss.  And Corrie is doing very well in her trialing.  Last year she made it to number one on the wait list for the National Finals, but didnt get in.  This year she was well qualified, no wait list for her.  Tam was able to get in as well.  Tam ended up doing a 1000 yard outrun, as she had done the year before, but only at the finals.  What give …

I have an alley that I can work Chris in. I have not really utilized that area for training, but grazed the sheep out there from time to time, and I saw the strong draw back to their normal pasture, so I tried some training in there.It worked for the sheep trying to bolt away senario, and sending Chris to cover. At first she was hesitant, and with encouragement, and a little time, she is somewhat willing to go either direction, with the sheep moving either west or east. It has seemed to boost …

Well, its been quite a long while since I have entered a post. Sorry about that.Chris is well, she still is currently in ProNovice level, not yet ready for Open. At this time, she is 3 1/2 years going on 1. Ha! She is still immature, but not as bad at herding as she used be. Her avoidance behavior has gone away, yay! I have a new puppy, Corrie, aka Core. I am hoping that Corrie's presence will aid Christian maturation speed. But I do know 4 years old and even up to 5, is not unheard of …

Well I finally decided to write an update on Christian's maturing. Being late in her maturation, she was just too young in her head to be able to handle too much strict training and trialing to be a nursery dog.With that said, I trialed her in ProNovice this last spring in two trials, a couple months before her two year mark. She would work close at hand, but the trials were pretty much a mess in the outwork. That is frustrating for me, being a control freak.In May, I hosted a Jack Knox clini …

This afternoon, we took a trip to the vet's. Chris was starting to swell under her chin. I even started calling her bottle head, like a sheep gets when they are carrying a large parasite load. I checked her over, and found that under the right side of her tongue, the side where the swelling was prominate, looked red and irritated. Her breath was also pretty bad, not like her normal sweet breath. And especially bad when her tongue was lifted.To be able to get her seen right away, I had to dr …