Sheep Herding and Foxtails

Sunday morning, as Daisy and I made the 50-minute drive up to Valley Center for our sheep herding lesson, I meditated a bit on why we do this. Neither of us is greatly talented at this quite specialized activity. Truth be told, I am the less talented. The sheep usually get the better of me at least once, usually a walking-backward, stepping-in-a-hole fall or a good bump from the horned head of Smiley, the most experienced of the school sheep. While it's clear Daisy and I will never win a ribbon at a sheepdog trial, we don't need that kind of success to find a lot of pleasure in getting out into the country and spending a few hours with animals and each other.
This picture was taken in the small ring, where we worked the first few times. We've since moved up to the big arena -- woo hoo! I seem to have lots of pictures, but few of me, unsurprisingly since I'm the photographer. A video of us working in the small ring induces vertigo! The challenge this week was dealing with foxtails, those awful little cheatgrass seedpods that stick to fur and work their way unidirectionally into the skin, nose, ears or eyes of a dog.
Tikkle, the young dog of our teacher Anna, survived a horrible experience that began with foxtails up her nose. These little bits of vegetation look like poison darts to us. I brushed Daisy off before heading home, but when we sat on the kitchen floor and I combed her thoroughly, another fifty came out! And I can hardly wait to get back next week.