Bath Week

It has been bath week for the horses.

I can't do more than one horse a day. It takes about 2 hours from start to finish and by then I am totally exhosted even with hubby's help. We did Stormy the black pony the first day. Then Traveler the other pony. Yesterday it was the old gelding, Sunny, and today it was Nita, my quarter horse mare. Sometime during the week I also bathed my border collie, Tuffee who was in need of a bath the worse. She has a habit of rolling in horse poop when she knows I am not looking ever once in a while. Of course she and our other dog, Ziva were on hand to make sure we got the horses done right. Tuffee did her best to 'herd' the horses while I worked with them. Of course all the horses like their bath especially the horse cookies that are handed out while they get their baths.

Ponies

My two ponies, Stormy and Traveler.

Stormy sticking his head through the gate begging for treats.

My border collie, Tuffee going round and around the pony, Stormy. It is Tuffee's version of herding.

Milk Jug Toy

No - it is not a dog fight. They play that way all the time. This is Tuffee and Ziva our dogs, and their favorite toy is an empty plastic milk jug.

Border Collie

Tuffee thinks she is herding Sunny. Sunny says he is way to old to pay attention to a little dog.

Watering

This is Tuffee helping me water the horses.

Tuffee

Tuffee, my Border Collie is hard to take photos of because she has such a dark face and usually in the photos you can't see her eyes. This day I was able to get some good ones. Maybe because she way laying in the shade of our peach tree.

Birds

The birds are at it again. Yesterday we went to feed the horses and Tuffee, our border collie, kept going to the back of our almost empty hay shed then coming back to nose us and go back to the back again. Deciding to take a look we found two young sparrows nestled down in the hay at the back of a bale. They had some feathers but couldn't fly yet. Not knowing what else to do we left the babies there. We were just glad that Tuffee had been very good and showed us the little things rather than eating them. Not that I am overtly concerned about a couple of sparrows as we have a huge over abundance of them. These are the house sparrow or english sparrow that was brought to the US in about 1850 to get rid of worms on shade trees in New York. I guess they did and multiplied rapidly making their way west across the US until now they are bird that is most seen anywhere in our country.
Still they are little birds and I like birds as they eat many of the bugs and spiders that are on our property.
Later in the afternoon I checked on the babies again and could only find one and at the last feed of the day I couldn't find any of them.
I hope they were able to start flying enough to get back to the nest or more likely out into the world and into a tree.

Tuffee

Tuffee is our Border Collie. She was six years old on Feb. 15 so I have done a birthday tribute for her. She is our first BC. We have had other breeds of dogs, mostly German Shepherds, plus a Lab cross, a Beagle and a Beagle cross, and 2 that were Dachshund and Boston Terrier. I knew that BC's were herding dogs but wasn't really prepared for just how strong the herding instinct is in the BC breed. When the books say it is obsessive they are right. I would never recommend a BC as an apartment dog or even as a dog for a small yard or where the family is gone most of the day. BC's need lots of room to run, and lots of attention. BC's are extremely cute as puppies. Usually a small black and white ball of fluff. But even from a very young age, 6 weeks and on, they will try to herd anything that moves. I had to watch Tuffee constantly as a pup to keep her out of the horse pens. She was determined to herd those big horses and I was so afraid she would get kicked or stomped.
Not being allowed to herd the horses she turned to herd other things; like my older Lab cross, our German Shepherd and our cats. She never backed down from them even when the older dogs nipped at her and the cats scratched her. She even decided that she could herd the water coming out of the end of the water hose. It is fun to watch her, yes she still does it, as she jumps and grabs the end of the hose, or just trys to catch the water in her mouth. Of course there is problems even with this as she swallows water and chokes on it sometimes and once she grabbed the metal part of the hose end and broke a tooth.
As she got older there were lots of chores that Tuffee learned we do on a regular basis and she is more than ready to help each time we do them. She knows when we take the plastic bag out of the trash can we are going out to the large outside trash can. When we pickup the cat litter box to change it she understands we are going outside to dump it in the big trash can. When we do chores outside she knows when we go toward the water fosset we will be turning on the water hose. First she runs ahead of us, picks up the in of the hose and brings it to us so we can attach it to the fosset and turn on the water. As soon as she hears the water going through the hose, and yes she will stand and cock her head listening until it is running, she runs to the other end of the hose and picks it up. This time she runs around in a tight circle with the hose in her mouth and the water spurting out. If I'm not careful when I take it from her she will give me a quick shower bath. In the summer this feels good but in the winter it is cold. As soon as I have control of the hose she will run first to one horse pen then to another trying to anticipate which pen I am going to first. As I finish putting fresh water in a horse bucket she will run to the next pen and bucket knowing the way to go after we do the first one. I don't always start with the same one.
She helps us clean horse pens, too. From an early age she would grab the wheelbarrow tire with her mouth when we would roll it to the pens. Now older, she mostly does the anticipation thing running from pen to pen to figure out which one we will clean. She has learned to herd the horses sort of since she is now grown. Still horses don't herd well and when they get to perturbed with her I will get her to leave them alone by ordering her OUT and pointing to the gate. She will then leave the pen. Or I will call her to me and she will stay with me while I finish cleaning or watering. She only trys to herd the horses when I am out with them. If I am inside the house and she is out in the yard she never goes into the pens. She figured this one out on her own.
Tuffee considers her most important job is to help us feed the horses. We feed them 3 times a day on a fairly regular schedule and Tuffee knows when it is time to feed. She is never late with telling us when to feed although she is frequently early. When time to feed she will come to us and start telling us to get with it. She makes strange whining, yelping, yodeling dog noises that almost sound as if she is talking to us. I have heard lots of people say that their dogs sound as if they are talking but Tuff is the only dog I have personally known that has done this. The longer we wait the more fussy she gets. When I finally get my jacket she will grab it for just an instant and then turn it loose and stand by the door while I put on my shoes, hat, and gloves. She leads the way to the hay shed, and will sit right in the way where I want to get the hay for the horses. She understands when Lee has to pull a big bale down from a large stack and will stand out of his way. She goes in the pens when we go to feed each one but never trys to herd them at this time. As soon as we are finished she follows us into the house and gets one of her toys out of the toy basket and plays with it for a few minutes. Then she will go get one, notice I say one, of my shoes that I leave by the door, pick it up and take it to the middle of the livingroom, drop it and leave it there. Never does she get both shoes and I have no idea why she does this at all.
Of course Tuff does lots of other things but there is to many to write down here, but it makes me wonder what other things she will learn in her life.
And it also makes me wonder if all Border Collies do things like this.

Tuffee Herding

Tuffee is our Border Collie. She was 6 years old as of Feb. 15. As you may know BC's are herding dogs. So Tuffee is determained to herd our horses since we don't have any sheep. In this photo she is trying to herd Sundance, my paint gelding. But horses don't herd as well as sheep do. So instead of moving like Tuffee wants him to do. He will just stand there and once in a while raise a back hoof to threaten her or to tell her to leave him alone. When she botheres him to much he will make a half hearted kick at her. He has been known to actually kick her enough to make her yelp but never enough to actually hurt her. So Far. And I hope he never does. Two of our other horses, Nita and Star treat her the same way. But Trave, one of the ponies will only take her "herding" so long and then he will charge at her and try to stomp her with his front hooves. The dumb dog doesn't seem to learn not to bother the horses. Maybe it is her way of finding adventure in an otherwise dull life. When I see she has bugged him enough I tell her to get OUT. She knows that means to leave him alone and get out of his pen. I am glad she only trys to herd the horses when I am out in the pen with them. She never goes in their pens when I am not in there.