Two-thirds of Dogs and Sheep
The first weekend of dogs and sheep was a Kathy Knox clinic. It started with Heather, Navarre and Asher arriving on Friday. We went out and saw the ranch and played with sheep. Asher wasn't quite sure what to do with the sheep. Rooster and Beckit had a good time. We then cruised up Hell's Canyon and enjoyed the views. I had my 3rd graders do little projects on Hell's Canyon, Shoshone Falls and the Frank Church Wilderness. Come to find out, Hell's Canyon is the deepest canyon in North America, even deeper than the Grand Canyon! The second deepest is in the Frank Church Wilderness. Who knew? Heather made a comment about all the wildlife and it occurred to me that I'm so used to seeing it that I was starting to not notice how much is around here! Quail, pheasant, hawks, deer and elk are mostly what we saw. I had a great time visiting with Heather that evening.
Hell's Canyon
Saturday and Sunday were taken up by the clinic. The clinic was held on a beautiful ranch up in Council, about 25 miles away. Council is where you start to see trees again and the mountains are beautiful. Rooster was by far the most trained dog at the clinic. Two years ago we were on the other end. We talked about how to teach him to hold the line on a draw, which he's usually pretty good at, but a good reminder. She said we had a good start on shedding. Rooster is no wall flower when it comes to coming through and shedding sheep off! Ha! It was good to hear I hadn't wrecked him and we are on the right track. I liked watching the baby dogs and it was good to get the refresher as I get ready to start Beckit.
Asher and Beckit taking all the sheep stuff in.
There was a wonderful BBQ tri tip dinner. So yummy. About half the people at the clinic were ranchers. Heather said it was interesting to hear the other side of the story concerning wolves and grazing from the people living it. Also, what it's like to live that lifestyle. One of the ladies families used to run a sheep ranch that ran 5000 ewes. They have since switched over to cattle. Another thing I take for granted! I hear and see all this all the time and just kind of assume everyone knows what it's like.
I found out the lady that we bought our spots from was told she has uterine, ovarian and stomach cancer. Even with treatment, she's got one, maybe two years left. More incentive to live life and not put off doing or trying things!
Last weekend was the trial at the Bar Quarter Circle in Payette. This was Rooster and I's Open debut! I decided to take the travel trailer down as a practice run to see if everything was working. It had been a while since I'd used it and I'm taking it to Haily for several nights this coming weekend. Yahoo that everything worked and the batteries didn't die. Whew! I'm taking my generator this weekend because it's going to be cold and I'll need the heater!
The trial was a Thursday, Friday, Saturday with a double lift of Sunday. I only entered Friday and Saturday, because it wasn't worth making out sub plans and then the sub doing what ever the heck they want to do anyway. We ran later in the day on Friday, so I went down Friday morning. It was raining and the road to where we park was muddy. Glad for four wheel drive!
Rooster saw the sheep exhaust from the last run, so when I sent him go bye he basically did a little tiny outrun and started to cross. I stopped him, told him to look back and he did. He basically ran straight up the field, flanked out when he saw the sheep and lifted them. The fetch was beautiful, right straight down the field and through the fetch gates. If the dog let go of the lambs at the post, then would take off all together or split and that ended many runs. We see sawed a bit around the post, then started the drive. We made the drive panels, but our cross drive was a bit wonky and we ended up low. We made it to the shedding ring, but timed out. Even though there was some craziness, we actually did stuff! I made a comment about the Catbird 600 yard drive and I was told that the drives at this trail were similar!
Friday's score sheet
Saturday's outrun and lift were beautiful! Yahoo! I didn't whistle once! I let him start the fetch and he did a wonderful job of feeling the sheep and kept it from becoming a zig zagging mess all by himself. If you got flanky with these sheep, they'd shoot all over the place. He felt the draw to the right and was holding tight and didn't want to flank away to fix the line, so we missed the fetch panels by just a hair. Smooth turn around the post and started the drive. Made the drive panels, but on the cross drive he was wanting to catch their eye and then not release, so it was slow. We got them to the shed ring, but timed out. Darn it! I really wanted to try a shed.
Tied for 11 place out of 42 dogs.
Our run on Saturday qualified us for the double lift finals! Woo hoo! This was a non sanctioned finals, so Sonia allow for a bit of schooling, thank goodness! I never expected to make a double lift, so had never read the rules. Come to find out if it's a dog legged fetch(not a straight line to the fetch panels) you have to send that direction. I thought Rooster had spotted his sheep and he was determined to go go bye so I let him. Well, that DQ'd us right away. Ooops! Then he didn't keep going far enough to the right. He was out far enough, but didn't go bye far enough. We fumbled about, and he even ended up behind the set out. I called him almost all the way back, stopped him and just had him walk up a few times. He spotted them and headed out. We didn't make the panels, but did make it to the drop point. I flanked him away to put him on the right side and the sheep started to drift away. He was such a good boy and stayed out there and did look back, but wasn't convinced. Two more tries and he went out and got the second set. I was then told we DQ'd and to just exhaust the groups. It was a blessing because we were both shot! Ha! So proud of his try!
Rooster
This weekend we're off to Hailey for Trailing of the Sheep. The last of the sheep weekends!