Away!

Today's walk was an extended road to nowhere walk from the Kirk and for a change we crossed the river and walked the west side. Of course if there is a river, Arlo wants to retrieve sticks from it and when I'd thrown one over to the other side just here, he didn't want to go into the deep side by us. So I tried to get him to go back up the river to where it was shallower which he had crossed only a few mins earlier but he wasn't making sense of it. I then said "away" and off he went, back up the side, over the shallow river, back down the other side to get the stick. 

He's been responding to "away" and "come bye" for a few years ago and understands it means run away in a loop to the right or left and absolutely loves what he was made for. It works better when there is a kind of path for him to follow and can do some massive outruns that take a couple of minutes at full pelt. While he'll never be good enough or be allowed to do it like a real sheepdog, this was the first time we used it to solve a "problem" so I was quite proud of him when it helped him work out how to get his stuck. And that was the highlight of my day...