The monster I have created

Now that Bracken has been shown what her true mission is life is there is no stopping her. Not even our 2000lbs Angus bulls. Last week I was pretty sure she was going to die. We were just finishing our morning walk and we had to walk past the bull pasture. Which has never been a problem in the past. This day the bulls were standing next to the fence and Bracken decided they should be moved. Imagine this image but little 8 month old sprightly Bracken on the nose of our bull.

Disclaimer: this is not Bracken just a pic I took off the Internet. But this is exactly what it looked like.
Scary I know

There was nothing I could do. I had two other dogs with me I was trying to control. She was full on nose biting and heeling the two bulls. At one point she got kicked and rolled. She got back up and went right back at them. At that point all I could think of was how much my cattle dog friends would be drooling. I was pretty sure she had broken something but it was not stopping her. She got kicked a second time and then decided she had enough and finally came back to me. I proceeded to carry her home so she didn't get into anymore shenanigans.
It was at that point I decided maybe she needed to be worked more than once a week. Once a week has just caused more problems than anything.

We are working on her call off of stock. When she gets out of her run she goes hunting for something to herd. Be it cows or sheep. Today she discovered the pasture with the new lambs I just bought. She was like a fly trying to get through a screen door. Bounce, Bounce, Bounce. She is fun and exhausting at the same time.

Update on Jet

Hey Kids,
Just wanted to give you a quick update on Jet. She is moving better and we have managed to control the pain. Which helps her move around better. But she is still not eating and now is vomiting a couple times a day. Her favorite spots to throw up are on the couch, on our bed or Justice's bed. Since she is not eating it is a really nice shade of yellow and stains anything. The vet is getting her urine culture back today. So maybe something will come of that. Next on the list is a blood culture.
Even though she is not eating her spirits are up.

Sick again

Jet is sick again. Friday morning I woke up to Jet not wanting to move at all. She had the same symptoms as last December when we almost lost her. I immediately took her to the vet. She is very stiff in her back end, high fever, high monosites on her blood test. We picked her up today as the clinic is mostly empty over the weekend and my vet though I could care for her at home and maybe get her to eat something. I was sent home with lots of drugs. She is still not better. A little brighter and some of her movement is back. But I just took her temp and it is still up. I am thinking she might be a little septic because since she has a hard time with her back end she has been unable to poop. But she also hasn't eat since Thursday night. Not sure what this mystery illness is or why it has came back.

Pups on sheep

I have been taking the pups to sheep a couple times a week now. Craig just came home from his two month old Caughlin family vacation. So he is a couple weeks behind Bracken. Which works out good because Craig is not as ready as Bracken. She is all business on sheep very serious and has a crazy look in her eye. Bracken also has taken it upon her self to move the cows a couple of times. She reminds me so much on her mom. I wish I had taken video of Isla training on sheep than I could compare them two. Craig is more of a boy. Not really sure what he is suppose to do. He seems to really want to drive rather than get around the sheep. I am not really training them to do anything just moving around the pen. Some circling and fetching. No lie downs in fact I don't same anything. Very hard for me not to say anything.

On Sunday I thought they looked so cute I wanted to take some pics of them on sheep. Below is the result of that plan.

Cute and stylish aren't they?

Not really sure what I was thinking. Eight month old pups, a camera and some sheep. Clearly not my best idea.

Moving cattle

Couple of days ago Kyle needed help moving some of our cattle from our west pasture to the pasture just north of our house. Usually Kyle's dad does all the cattle help but this time he was away for work meetings. I have a strong hatred for the cows they take up to much room and suck up most of our money. Anyways I love going out west and brought Isla along for the ride.

Isla thinks she likes working cows but let me assure you she is no cowdog. I think if she worked cows regularly she would learn to love it because she does like to bite. I have just taken to much bite out of her due to our sheep trialing career.

As soon as we got there she knew what was going on. Also our cows are not dog broke so it could be dangerous to send her in there on her own. So I used her to drive the cows to the alley. I was always right behind her if she ran into a strapy cow. Instead we ran into a strapy calf.

I let her handle it because there was no danger of getting kicked or ran over by a big cow.

She did a really nice nose bite here but I missed it with the camera. However after the nose bite she wanted to chase the calf and teach it some more lessons.
Safe and sound in the corral.

Funny thing was we were not the only ones moving cows that day. We ran into this herd on the way out.

And a different herd on the way back west to pick up another load. I must say I would have been a way happier volunteer if we were moving cows with horses and dogs. These guys had the right idea.

Enough Said

A snowy day to catch up

I was trying to avoid the snow and cold outside today. So I decided it was time to update my website. It is so hard to keep both the blog and the website up to date. Now everybody has their own page and all their pedigrees are up as well.

Check it out if you want

http://www.phantomridgebordercollies.com/

I also found my most favoritest picture of baby Craig while cleaning things up.

With his buddy Reese

A life cut too short (not sad)

In an effort to find something to blog about I stumbled across this poor fellow cut down in the prime of his life.

Someone probably Justice. Just slammed the microwave door and murdered this poor guy. Can't blame Justice he was probably desperately seeking a pizza pop or a Michaelina's and was faint from hunger.

Knocking on our door

Winter is definitely knocking on our door. The last week it has been snowing off and on and super cold. If this is what the months ahead have in store for us clearly I am going to need a lot more wine.

OK, OK

Threats were made, Some feeling were hurt and then I decided to blog. Just kidding. Not really there were some threats but in all honesty she was right it was time to blog. Now that the last piece of Oregon dust is washed from the truck and my clothes. I have sufficiently caught up on my farm duties. I can fill you all in on our trip. We had a great time. Sunday night started with some really good fun lead by my new Californian friends who want to remain anonymous because of his teaching job.

Lets just say Monday was not a fun day. I spent most of the day in bed or laying down. Monday afternoon I had to drag my ass to the practice field. Not a good idea. The sheep weren't great. Lesson learnt.

Enough said about Monday.

Isla and I ran early Tuesday afternoon. The sheep were tough. Some said as tough as Meeker sheep. We got around the course but due to Isla incredibly slow lift we timed out at the shed and left 40 points on the field. Ended up with a 100. Not bad for our first time but I knew Isla could have done better. As each day went by I started to feel better and better about our run. Funny. Not sure if it was the amounts of alcohol consumed or my lack of memory. Who cares.
The rest of the week went by so fast and before we knew it, it was Finals Sunday. Saw some really good runs with some of the best turn backs I had ever seen. Sunday night we all went out for Mexican food and a local restaurant. Monday we hit the road for home. We found a couple of strays along the way.

George with his dogs Gyp and Kate.

Wendy had an unfortunate incident with her vehicle in central Oregon and need a lift. Including her 13 dogs.

We spent the night in the Cabelas parking lot in Post Falls, ID. I must say Cabelas is the best kept secret. Nobody there except other dog riff raff (Scott & Jenny). We pulled in with our 18 dogs and got a good nights sleep.
Not sure if we will make it to Finals in the east next year. But it would be nice to go somewhere other than sagebrush dust balls.