Lionheart Canines

Vega is incredibly handler focused and food driven, and almost seems to read my mind when it comes to doing what I ask even before I'm going to ask it. There are a lot of things she knows that I never actually taught her, she just picked it up by inference (teaching those things to my next puppy made me realize exactly how much Vega just figured out on her own). She naturally checks in, but isn't Velcro about it like some dogs. There's a healthy amount of going to do other things, and checking back in with me often, and she's the only one of mine I can trust 100% off leash. I would love to compete in rally and obedience with her, but AKC and their rules on PAL dogs having to be altered really put a kink in that. After she's spayed we will be, she absolutely loves working with me and always has, and even got her honorary CGC at 6 months. She's extremely gentle with any and all small babies, whether be humans or puppies or calves, while also being a good ratter and rabbit dispatcher (between her and Mars I don't think we'll have any rabbits left!) I would love to do herding with her, and we've gone to one lesson with a border collie lady where she seemed to have promise, but after 3 years of being told "don't chase livestock" and also have a non-collie savvy instructor, I think she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She has been picking up things from Mars' stock training, so she may do better if I try her again. She has a calm enough presence to walk through the cattle during daily checks without any of the stock panicking or really even acknowledging her, even with small calves, and has actually shown us newborn calves that she thought we might not have seen yet. She can easily go right up to them without causing a new mom to panic, and then turn around and help Mars push crazy heifers back up the field. Sometimes she will decide to spend the night outside keeping a watch on the herd behind the house if there have been coyotes close. She's a big No Predator type of dog and even if she's in the house, she'll wake me so she can bark at the coyotes and strays in the field. There have been a terrifying few times that she and my senior male have chased them off, but thankfully that's not been needed much. She's a very lovely girl and I don't know what I would do without her!