Isla Update

Isla is home and feeling more spunky.

She is going to get the week off. Right now she is nun to happy seeing Rob doing her job.

Rob, Rob And More Rob

Readers are demanding to know more about Rob. Some are even threatening my first born. And at 16 years old you can have him.

Here he is.....
photo from Louise

Rob comes from Eric and Louise in Northern Alberta. I have been looking for another dog for sometime and stumbled upon Rob one day while cruising the net. Rob is four years old. Somewhat of a world traveller already at his young age. Born in Wales , move to the Netherlands at 17 months old, then moved to Canada with Eric and Louise last fall.

Rob has some close relatives doing very well on the trial field over in the UK. He is a full brother to Merion Jones's Joe (6th at the world trial last year) His half brother is Kevin Evans Jaff. Jaff is father to Kevin's Mirk who won the international supreme last year.
Rob is settling well and getting lots of work. I am not sure if I will run him this year. Right now we are just getting to know each other. More pics coming soon.

Under the Weather

Isla is under the weather right now. She has been feeling run down the last couple of weeks. Mostly lack of energy and not showing any spunk. On Saturday while in the shedding ring she just decided she had enough and left the course. This is not at all like her. Another reason for going home on Saturday. Today I took her to the vet. My vet decided she was dehydrated enough to keep her for a couple of days and run some tests. Unusual because she has been eating and drinking normally. I of course have a full week of lesson so I am happy to have Rob. He will get his share of work this week.

Call us what you want and we will take it

We totally wussed out and went home today. Lisa and I drew up 1 & 3 this morning. After being in the shedding ring and having the mosquito's sucking the blood from my eyeballs we had enough. Packed up, dust a flying.

Oppression

Arrived at the One Tree trial about 3:00 this afternoon. As soon as we parked and stepped out of the truck we realized we had a couple of serious problems. Problem one see Lisa's Blog.

Problem Two is

The Oppressive Heat
(Above is a pic of the trial field)

This leads me to the things I am thankful for. (I know a little early for thanksgiving.)

1. My trailer
2. Generator
3. Tankful of gas for generator
4. Air conditioning
5. stopping at liquor store.
6. Friends that also hate the oppression and want to hangout.
7. Lots of mindless movies to watch.

Training time

Lisa and I are at a friends house for a couple of days to tune up the dogs before we head to the One tree trial. It is very hot this week so we are up at 6:30 to get in some cooler training time. Just wanted to introduce the team.

Senior Members

Isla

Hope

Rookie membersKate

Rob
(New man in my life. More about him later)
Risk is here as well. He is just yet to make his debut.

Isla pen dog extraordinaire

Last day for the all breed trial. I can honestly say me, my sheep and my dogs are ready for a rest. I do have to thank one person for helping me all weekend and keeping life interesting. Gwen's better half Shannon (A.K.A. Woody).

Many stories I will never forget and some I am wishing I could forget. Woody got to put his money were his mouth is on Saturday night. After many people tried to pen the sheep and failed. Woody got to try his hand at herding in Isla's capable hands.
Below are some pics of Isla in the pens.

Working Kelpies

This weekend I rented my sheep and my facilities for a CKC herding trial. I was chief stock handler since they were my sheep. It was way more work than I had anticipated. My dogs got so much work they were begging to go to their kennel by the end of the day. The morning was stockdog course. It required tons of dog work so I used Isla. The weather has been high 20's or low 30's. By the afternoon Isla was cooked. The afternoon trials were arena course. Less dog work. Since Isla was tired I enlisted the help of the next in line "Risk". I know some of you are shocked as was Jerry. But he did very well and surprised us all.

Up until now Risk has been tense and anxious around sheep. Which usually leads to alot of gripping. This close pen work really done alot for him. When things got crazy I did pull him back so that his cohort could deal with it. Risk was an apprentice to Jed.

Notice in the background the broken tent. Some very nice girl had lent us this tent for shade. And about 20 minutes after we set it up Isla was teaching a strappy ewe a lesson and snap. Luckily we came up with a quick fix and still had shade.

Marathon rap up

Got home late Monday night. I am still recovering from our two week trial marathon.

Turns out the One Tree trial wasn't as bad as I thought. We picked up like a caravan of carnies moved two hours down the road to the Hilltop trial. The field was gorgeous. The sheep were super hard reminded me a bit of Sturgis sheep last year. You dog would be moving them along nicely and they would just turn around and stomp your dog into the ground. The first day started off crazy 45 Pro Novice dogs and only 9 scores. It took longer to exhaust your sheep then retire from your run. I ended up getting DQ'd from the first pro novice and retiring in the Open. Isla tried hard but it was not worth the frustration on her part and mine.

Lisa, Jenny and I in our stampede gear.

After two days we moved on the the Calgary Stampede. This was my second time and I felt more prepare. The sheep were tough to pen and it was really luck of the draw. You really only needed a pen and a good chute time to get into the finals. In the second go round I had my sheep in the pen and was about three inches from closing the gate and I ran out of time.
In the end it was Pam Boring and Mirk who pulled off the ultimate $10,000 prize.

I stole this pic from Lisa. I just love Pam's look on her face. She had just closed the pen gate and looked up at the clock to realize she had just beat the previous fast time by one second to win.

I'd rather not talk about it

Lisa and I are chillin at the One Tree trial. Since my performance was less than stellar and I would rather not talk about it. I decided to talk about how much I love my trailer. Affectionately known as the Hilton it is my home from home.

It has all the creature comforts and all my critters are comfortable.