Herding Flying Ducks?

I’ve been trying to practice herding with Trey on a regular basis since I entered her in my herding club’s fall trial. Not that I expect us to qualify. Intermediate B is difficult as it involves driving the stock away from the handler. So this is a “let’s see” entry.

Anyway, I took Trey and a set of ducks out to the front pasture where I have a large B course set up. I am now down to 15 ducks. That should be three sets of 5 but in reality I only have one complete set. The others are mini sets of two or three and if I try to force them to run together as a set it just doesn’t work.

Well, even knowing that I took the three healthy drakes from my “British” set (George, Simon & William) and added in two hens that belonged nowhere. On Saturday I had tried adding the chocolate-colored hen to this group and even Beckett couldn’t keep her with the boys. But she did get some good corrections in so I figured perhaps Trey should train with some more difficult ducks to help her increase her skills. So the chocolate-colored hen and a grey hen were added to the British boys and off we went.

Trey did a lovely outrun and lift but did have a bit of difficulty tucking in the two hens on the fetch. She got them to me and around the handler’s post and then . . .

. . . the chocolate hen decided she’d had enough and flew away. She flew towards the gates we were going to drive the others to anyway so I was just going to ignore her and pick her up after the drive. But as soon as I’d made that decision the little grey hen took wing also! She got up about 8 feet in the air and flew clear over to the wind break of trees to the west. Trey watched her fly away and the look on her face was priceless — kind of “how in the heck am I supposed to control flying ducks?!?!??”

But after I’d collected all the ducks again (and clipped their wings!), Trey had a chance to teach those two hens that staying with the flock is far safer and the smart thing to do.

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