31st January

I got rather carried away yesterday with the GPS tracking collars and did not tell you about Rosie.

Rosie was 'helping' me as I 'poo picked' the top field when I saw her looking at Buddy in the paddock below.
I am not sure if I have mentioned Buddy before, he is an old Labrador who belongs to an American lady who lives on the other side of the hill. Whenever she is away visiting the States she leaves him with the Foreign home-help and he invariably escapes and comes looking for any bitch in heat.
  He had an encounter with Bo-Bo several years ago and although Bo is now spayed and there are no entire females, he still calls in when on his travels.
It is quite annoying and very difficult to get close to him and catch him as his mind is only on one thing!  His back legs are beginning to go, yet he seems to have survived wandering loose for years, even regularly crossing a main road.

 Over the years I have let several of my dogs meet him and even if they are not normally good with other dogs they never have a problem with him. He must give off a testosterone charged 'I am only interested in one thing,' type scent because they all just sniff and then come away.
Because of this I had no worries about Rosie going over to see him but as I watched she did take off towards him but instead looked at me. She was checking with me to see if she had my permission to go.
 I am a bit slow on the uptake and as I have said, I had no problem with her approaching him but I realised she was giving me an opportunity to direct her, if I ignored her now why should she listen to me in the future?                  

I called her back to me and she came immediately, away from Buddy! I was so proud of her. What a great dog to check with me before she did something and I almost missed it!  Now the first steps of her coming away from other dogs was in place and it all came from her.

She did meet him later when he was in the garden and she was very submissive and came away when called.
What a lovely moment!