Vinlands Loa

I heard from Annette and Fred Prieve this weekend. They live in Minnesota with Loa who has been taking herding lessons.

Fred and Annette have taught me lots about herding, one of the activities Icelandics were bred for.

Click on photo to enlarge it.

The Prieves are not connected to the internet; they have no email, hence the puppy photo for Loa for this blog entry.

For herding: first dogs are tested at a young age to see if they have an aptitude for herding. Another way to say that is - dogs are tested to see how they respond to sheep. If the key indicators are not there, the dog has lost their herding instincts.

Loa was tested many months ago and showed strong herding instincts and has therefore undergone many, many hours of training taking classes twice a week.

This past weekend The American Herding Breed Association, AHBA, held trials. If you're familiar with the AKC, CKC or UKC then you know about trials.

To get a Junior Herding Dog, JHD, title in the AHBA a dog must earn two legs. Loa's task for her first leg was to complete two herding tasks successfully - - - and she did. She now has one leg towards her JHD.

Aussies, Border Collies, GSDs and Shelties were working on their JHDs at the trials also. Loa had better times, much better times, than any other dogs competing in the JHD events.

She will get a rest now because bad weather is fast approaching in Minnesota so the herding trials are suspended until next spring.

Annette will go back to obedience classes with Loa for the winter and next spring it will be back to herding.

I was incredibly lucky to have found Loa a great home with Fred and Annette. They are sending me the paper with Loa's evaluation. I'll copy it and post it on this blog - I hope.

Icelandics need something to do with their incredible minds!