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Meet Clover, our new border collie puppy! I made the day trip to southern Iowa yesterday to pick up our new herding puppy from Fiona, who is also the livestock manager for Premier 1 Supplies.

It was great to meet her in real life (Instagram friends first ?) and get a tour of the Premier farm, warehouse, and meet many of the team at Premier.

The kids were anxiously waiting for me (and puppy) at home in their pajamas when we arrived shortly after 8 p.m. The first thing Cady said was, “She’s a little puppy, not like Beethoven.” ?? Now that I think about it, she wasn’t around we got our last LGD pups which would be like Beethoven’s size too.

Why a new puppy?

We decided it was time to invest in another working dog, but this time a herding dog. As our herd has grown, so has the work, especially with animal handling. I continue to run and manage the day-to-day work and direct of the farm, but we are finding we need to be more efficient with our work. In part so farm work doesn’t seep too much into family time. Simply with a larger heard, it takes more time to catch goats, sort and handle them.

Clover will help with this process, especially when it comes to moving the herd into a catch pen. Of course she’s not ready yet, but with training and time she’ll hopefully be ready for the task.

Now for the work. Training the puppy and me… but I’m excited to have Clover part of our team as a goat (and sheep) dog.