We spent a weekend at agility camp earlier this month. It was really fun, everyone learned a lot. I was able to rent a giant (to me) fifth-wheel travel trailer in a campground near the location of camp. It cured any desire I had to get something like that and haul it around and live in it.

The dogs didn’t think it was bad, they’re just happy to be with me.

Yes, she’s got my dirty socks locked down. I guess she, probably rightly, figures I’m not going anywhere without them.

We’ve don a fair amount of woods walking, it’s so good for all of us. I’m enchanted by the fungi I see.

Look at that cute little thing, next to a pine seedling.

Acorn cap for scale.

That is such a strange green, this kinda screams “I’m not good for you.”

And I’ve seen more than a couple of these:

Chico seems happy in his role of elder statesman. He’s getting acupuncture and some herbs and I’m trying to get another pound or two off of him.  On our walks he happily trots along near me, stopping to sniff once in a while, then running to catch up with me. Bonney is all over the place, racing through the woods, going three times as far as Chico and I do. One day when she was out ahead of me, she found some Mergansers in the river. So she went to herd them. When I caught up with her, this is what I saw:

Then,
and

Then I tried to get some video:

In that spirit, I signed Bonney (and me, and by default, Chico) up for an intensive, all positive reinforcement, herding experience this fall. two straight weeks of so-called Bootcamp. It is my hope that by the end, I will be able to walk backwards without falling and Bonney will have enough self-control to pay attention to me in the presence of small stock. ’cause right now, I ain’t got that.

Julie Daniels has us doing some games to teach Bonney about self-restraint when aroused, and some others that will help her learn that she can bring me a toy and not lose it forever. I have some video of Julie surprising the heck out of Bonney. Bonney knows how to trade a ball or stick, or sock, or lightbulb, or darned near anything for a treat, but when she has her “Precious” – a big ball, she can’t believe she’ll get it back. Or something. So what Julie does in this video is get Bonney to take a treat and then instead of grabbing the ball, Julie runs away from Bonney. You can almost see Bonney think “What the heck!?” Then, on the second repetition, Bonney has the ball and drops it to take the treat. That makes Julie praise her, which makes her grab the ball and run away after she eats the treat. It’s adorable.