Wapiti herding is all the rage

The pups are great adjusting to the new rules. We've hiked near the house in both directions and I've made it clear it is a "not to far" location, 100 m at most. No disappearing at your own will REENA. And it has worked very well. I can let them out to potty and go brush my teeth or do something for five minutes and go out on the porch and yell and there they come. How great. This will be tested one day I'm sure. One morning at 6 am in the dark I open the back door and let them loose and they pop right into the middle of a herd of elk in my back yard (those tracks and scat ALL OVER my yard are hardly old). And the chase is on. My plan is to start yelling come bye till Reena understands I want her to herd them. I have confidence :) I'll just have her herd them to me standing in the sliding doors on the back porch, that's fine. She'll be real handy when the population biologists do winter herd counts. They'll all want one. You'll all want to practice for our next GSH Wapiti trial held here in the north. The porch can be an obstacle if Reena can get them used to it. Instead of ducks we can do Caribou...awh, or Goldeneyes I guess if we must.

Here's a few pictures from our hike on Sunday. We explored a little beyond our backyard...just a few miles down the road. I didn't get any scenery pictures on my cell phone that did any justice so I won't bother with those. I can't wait till summer and we can explore forever in any direction. Bryan and I took a tour of the Kootenai Valley all day Monday, again no pictures but I can't wait to share it with friends.



This picture just cracks me up, looks like two totally different photos. I was trying to catch a rare photo of Reena by pretending I was getting me. She knew but pretended that she idn't know. She sat still enough to let me get the photo anyway. But refused to look my way of coarse. Stubborn brat that she is. Stared off in that direction for the full five minutes I tried. Totally ignoring me, not even a glance. She was gracely obliging me, I should be so thankful!