Mabel is same way bred as Bart (Grace x Craig), but she is six months his senior.  She is smooth coated, prick eared, and very white.  Much to my good fortune, Ken Willard from California decided to decline receipt of Mabel when she was six weeks old.  He said, ‘too white’.  She was the pup nobody wanted. Its funny to think back nine years when no one wanted Eucher—‘too shy’. Lucky for me, people sometimes end up
choosing our dogs for us.  

Folklore says that white dogs spook sheep; the sheep become aggressive and end up challenging.  So far Mabel has disproved this notion.  With her authoritative, non-combative push, combined with her new found stop, Mabel and I won the Michigan Ranch Reserve Championship in September, and more recently won one day of Open on undogged lambs under Bobby Dalziel at Old Chatam, New York in October.  She moves sheep without confrontation and on the odd occasion when challenged, she hits them on the nose much like her father did.  It’s a wonderful privilege to have trialled and worked Craig with his enormous presence.  I always wonder if his herding presence is more nature (genetics) or nurture (thousands of hours herding on the hills in Scotland).   Mabel, who looks nothing like Craig, deals with tough sheep just like he did, and when it comes to shedding, she hits a hole with the same conviction.  I only wish she would wait until I ask her to come through. Craig did.  This is where the ‘nurture’ part comes in, and after lambing with her on the farm this spring, we should be able to team up for an exciting year in Open.

I should mention that Amanda trained Mabel.  Most of my training has been developing a
bond, a stop command, and more polish on in field work (penning/shedding).  But any time we need to put sheep through the foot bath chute, Mable is the goto girl for pushing the mob from the rear.