Moto's coming in to his own!

It's been a couple of exciting days around here. Moto - since he's my only healthy dog - has been signed up to take Agility, Tracking, Obedience and Herding. I do expose my dogs to multiple venues, but not all at once like this poor little guy. The only one we work *really * hard at is Obedience, and I take a casual stance on the other sports. Mind you, we work at it, but not daily, and not really really hard.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon was our herding lesson. Moto has been gaining momentum in this field. Never in my life have I had a dog go from absolutely *nothing* to beginning to herd. We began as usual in the small area and there were about 9 head of lambs in there. The other 2 students (my hubby and Moto's littermate) went first and both were awesome. Daisy the rescue BC is a lovely herding dog. Moto's littermate Belle is a real dynamo on sheep. She's much smaller in size than he but that doesn't stop her. This was only her 2nd exposure and she gathered and showed no fear at all in peeling them off the fence. Hoo boy did we have big paws to fill when it was Moto's turn. He was OK, but nothing really exciting, and the sheep were getting stuck in the corner. I repeatedly would grab him gently by the caller and we'd walk against the fence - me saying encouraging things to let him know this is what we wanted - and those smart sheep would just go to the next corner *sigh*. So, my trainer recommended we go to the "big field" with about 20 head of a lamb/ewe mixture. I was fearing a real disaster but my fears were allayed - once in the pasture Moto seemed to realize what was expected of him: made a rough version of an outrun and brought me the sheep! I was thrilled! He circled a few times (he loves the Go Bye side) and it was time for a change of direction. He's not rating his stock yet, nor fetching and he really didn't want to go to the Way to Me side. But with a little encouragment and praise when he did it, we had a couple of lovely gathering/fetching sessions. Even my instructor was excited with this huge step. When we left, she said "it's been a joy". Cool!
This morning we were up and at 'em early for our first tracking lesson of the season. The weather has cooled down and tests are coming up so it's time to get into gear. Since the car accident I haven't done a thing with Moto in tracking. I told my instructor that and she said "well, I've laid a 400 yard track with five turns. We'll just see how it goes". It had aged just 20 minutes so we figured we better get going. Hot dogs were every 8 paces. Moto saw the start flag and dragged me to it! This re-confirmed that this is his favorite sport. With a nice down at the article we were off at a fast trot he was so excited. He became methodical and thoughtful at his first turn but made that turn and all subsequent turns beautifully and accurately. There was an article midway each leg and he downed at all of them. We all cheered when he found the glove! Again, I was completely thrilled with him.
Tomorrow is a marathon obedience day and I cannot wait. First, I train with Dee with Blitz as she goes over the rally stations with me. Later on that afternoon I'll meet up with her and a few others with Moto at the Club to put each other through Novice. It's just wonderful to see Moto enjoying these different venues. He's gone from "you what me to do WHAT?" to "Let's go Mom!" I LOVE it!