Over the past few months I have come to totally rely on my boy Sonny, with Ziggy being to young and Nell out of action this left Sonny to do everything. Not only has he been doing stock work he also thinks sitting in air conditions truck and tractors is a pretty good way to spend the hot part of the day.
In is heavy work load he has also had time to sire a litter of 10 pups to a outside bitch who is owned by a good of ours Bianca Godson. Ace had 7 girls and 3 boys pretty good effort I think.
Sonny and I have been chopping and changing what stock we work, on any one day we can start with cows and calves, go onto young ewes, then rams and to even confuse him more freshly marked lambs. All I can say he tries his hardest to every single time, even if its at the end of the day.
Sonny has always a very natural dog with a great feel for his stock, I was very lucky with his cast I never had to teach him. He always went wide and now has he gets older his scope is getting bigger and bigger, Jamie and I where playing around one day and seeing who's dog could cast the furthest. I set Sonny up to go left around the top of the ridges, he left my side on a good angle he went out along the top of the first ridge behind the big tank on the hill out of sight for a little bit, a second over whistle was given and he just went wider and longer looking all the while to see where the ewes and lambs where. By this stage he would have been about 700 meters from me then he went out of sight my god they where a very tense couple of minutes which felt like hours, then we could see a slight movement in the top far corner the sheep had started to move still couldn't see Sonny. At this point I thought I had better start making my way down the Hill, by the time I made my way down a nice easy 3 min walk down hill he had 800 ewes and there lambs coming towards me and he was quite committed to bring them back up the Hill but I was more than happy with his efforts and called him off now all we had to do was walk back up the hill this was easier to do going down, must say had my little chest puffed out the way home.
Sonny at top of hill he picked up the sheep on the far tree line and down to the right. We measured how far he went and it was just over 900 meters :)
Sonny is also quite happy to help with the farming he loves nothing more than to sit up in the tractor and truck. He is also a very good overseer of all farm going ons and is quite happy to give his thoughts to Farmer James.
I think we need to spray that paddock today Farmer James
I hope you have your truck licence
I give my tick of approval Farmer James on your first crop of wheat
A very good herd of replacement Heifers Farmer James
The girls are doing a very good job raising the poddies Farmer James
Sonny is also a very good mentor for up and coming dogs, he helps the young pups just starting off by keeping the sheep together and calm for them. He loves showing them how he cast around stock and just loves to back them up when they start on cattle.
Sonny giving Gooch some advise for when he starts on sheep
Giving Mist some tips on how to work cattle
Helping Mist with the sale steers
We also have a two new additions to our family, two little Sweep sons have made our place home cant wait to see how they go, stay tuned for an update on Cap and Gooch.
Hope you all enjoyed reading about our new friend Sonny.
