Another tissue story

Another feel good story. This time about a Crane.

http://www.vimeo.com/3718780

Tissue Time

This is a real teary type of rescue story. Be sure to have your tissues in your hand!!


http://www.vimeo.com/3718780

A little dental action

My two Arabians needed to have their teeth floated. Emmy, the 23 yr old, has sharp teeth that jutted to the side and as a results, she began to quid. Quid is when the feed gets bunched up on the side of the jaw, thus looking like a huge bump on the side of the jaw.

Emma, the 14 yr old, also needed to be done as she didn't have her teeth done for many years. She also had sharp points. Last week, Dr Hank Greenwald come over to do the teeth floating. He is my horse vet and lives in Preston. If you need a good horse vet, email me and I will give you his info.

Dr Greenwald with Emma. She got a happy shot and was in LaLa Land.

Here he is using a power dental tool to grind down her sharp points.

Another angle. Emma still is in LaLa Land. We did this by the side of the road and had numerous people slow down to take a peek.

Final floating and both girls were done. They should be good for a couple of year. Now their teeth are in fine form and ready to use on those pesky coyotes who try to kill the sheep flock that lives with them in the far pasture.

Trial results from Mar 28......on cloud nine!!

Look what Nan the Beautiful won for me this weekend!! I love that dog!!

Janet and I went off to a trial this weekend at Dirk's and Sonya's. It is the last trial of a 5 trial series. It was held in Sedro Woolley which is about 1.5 hr north of me. The weather was windy, raining and just plain cold. But the trial was fun and the people were awesome. Maggi McClure was the judge.

I have won trials but never got a cool trophy like this. Dirk gave them out to the first place Open winners at each of his five trials. It has a sheep and a details of the trial. (click to see larger view)

The date says March 21 but the trial was moved to March 28, in case you noticed that detail on the trophy. Our score was 84 and it was the highest Open score over the 5 trial series!!

Lucy ran first and I just got her back from Scott. We still need to work on some items and we had issues on the fetch. She was one heck of a strong driver. I am impressed on strong her driving was.....


Her first leg of the drive. That part of the course is very tough and Lucy just marched the sheep through that part. We had a bit of a bobble on the drive but she had wonderful flanks. We had a tiny lamb fall down at the first fetch panel so we tucked the three upright lambs next to her and waited until the lamb got up and we went on. We had several lambs fall down in the early morning runs in the Open division.

In the shedding ring and we timed out.

After our run and I was telling her that she was a good dog. She tried very hard and I was happy. Give us a few months and we should be clicking well again.

Nan ran very well, nice wide outrun and deep to lift. Stopped at the top when I gave her a down then lifted slowly and we took our time going down the steep hill. A bit of a bobble as we went through the fetch and nice turn at the post then the dreaded first leg. I took a lesson from Scott on Monday to help me with this issue and I put that action in place.

Nan did great and marched the ewes up the hill to the first panel, and a nice cross drive until yours truly put the sheep too high and then too low and missed the panels but a nice line to the ring. Nan took the shed, not the prettiest but with four yearlings, you take what you can get.

She marched them into the pen and held the pressure for that last little tuck before the gate was shut. I was very happy with her run and she danced about in joy.

In the handler's tent during lunch. Dirk made homemade spinach soup. They have made homemade soups for each of the trials and they are delicious., My favorite is the potato and leek soup. He was kind enough to give me the recipe.

Janet brought salads and we ate in her car. It was very cold and we needed to warm up. I brought candy and cheddar cheese bunnies. They ran PN after lunch.

Clapping for the PN winner. Brian in making some statement next to me!! Or maybe a joke?


Pearse Ward got third place in Open with his Riel!! That was a nice run.


Jim Cooper and Zot tied for first but lost on the outwork. Here is Jim getting his second place ribbon. Jim and Donna are the nicest couple!!

Here I am with my "deer in the headlights look" getting my award. I was in shock and so happy to win and get a cool trophy!!

Maybe I should pinch myself to see if this a real trophy in my hand? Look, it has a sheep at the top!! And I have a warm fuzzy in my heart!!

Scott doing his drive during PN with Janet at the helm. She placed 6th that day and 3rd overall in the series.

What was especially nice about this trial was:

• Nan got first place and 3.4 point towards the Finals
• We got a Trophy - whoo hoo....
• We placed 4th overall of the 5 trials- combined points for the Winter series and as a result got a special invite for the Double Lift Finals in May at Dirk's Trial
• She got the highest Open score over the 5 trials
• Nan and really clicked today
• Lucy came back super well trained and was super pushy!!
  
  

Parrot saves a baby

This parrot saved a baby!!

Parrot

The Sheep Albedo Feedback

This is a great April Fool's Joke.

The already-reeling "consensus" supposedly linking climate change to CO2 is about to receive its final coup-de-grace from a remarkable new result announced in a press conference today by Dr. Ewe Noh-Watt of the New Zealand Institute of Veterinary Climatology [1]. Noh-Watt and his co-workers, describing work funded by a generous grant from the Veterinary Climate Science Coalition, declared "We have seen the future of climate — and it is Sheep." ...more...

The Queen still rules the Kingdom!!

Tess is almost 11 years old and quite the seasoned dog on the farm. She had tons of miles at the trials and over her career has done exceptionally well. However she has also proved herself her at home, swimming to get sheep off islands, moving cattle and so forth.

She shines when it comes to moving ewes and lambs. She has been doing it for 9 years now and is the *Queen of the Kingdom". She is my right hand and knows what to do, even before I tell her.

The ewes all had the lambs born in a short amount of time and are very protective. Most of the time they will try to smash a dog into the ground if they feel threatened. Tess knows how much pressure she can out on them to move them and not back down.

I turn my ewes and lambs loose to graze on the front lawn and when I am done, they have to go back into the lambing corral. Sometimes they don't want to or have a mind of their own.

This ewe with her lambs that are a day old didn't want to go anywhere except on the front lawn. I told Tess to "Bring her in" and I just waited. (click on the pixs for a larger view)

She is walking straight into the ewe and not backing down.

One foot lifted and turning her head to take the pressure off. Look at the ewe's back leg and you can see from the first picture to this picture, that Tess has gotten her to step back one foot at a time.


Now she has backed he up a couple of more feet, very slowly and with tons of patience.


Still backing her up one step at a time. It's very slow and steady as the lamb was just wandering about, oblivious to all of this.

Mama ewe is checking on the lamb and Tess inches forward.

Now the lamb is going in the right direction, Tess faces the ewe and start walking more into her and locks eyes with her. They have a mini standoff at this point.

One large step to get her to back up more.

She stops and freezes and holds the ewe with her eye. The ewe dropped her head and pawed the ground and Tess froze and didn't back up. Tess won't back down and if any ewes charge her, she will grip the nose and then stand firm.


Now Tess has backed the ewe about 20 feet to the well house lawn. See how intense here eyes are? Notice the white in her ears and around her muzzle.

Still backing up the ewe one step at a time. During this the lamb ran up to Tess and nuzzled her and Tess froze until the lamb wandered back to the ewe which is what is happening here.

Pushing the ewe more and the ewe finally turned and went to the corral. During this time, I just took pictures and Tess did all the work on her own.

Frozen in time.

Close up of her intensity.

DeltaBluez Lucy

Lucy is a darling, tiny red female. She is one of the sweetest dogs here. All kisses and love. But very serious on stock. Super biddable and brave. Tess is her grandmother and Pleat is her grandfather and DeltaBluez Koko is her dam. Tess is a successful Open dog and Koko is also a very successful top Open dog. Koko is owned by Rochelle Stanford on CA.

Lucy is 4.5 years old now and came back to me after one of her owner became very ill (asthma) and they had to give up Lucy. Christine was heartbroken and sent Lucy back to me. I trained her to PN level for Christine and had her for sale. No one was interested in a red and white dog and by then I fell in love with her and bought her. As a pup, she was one of my favorite pups and followed me everywhere. So it was only fitting that she came back home.

She maybe tiny but is one brave dog. She works cattle also.


Walking forward on her sheep. See the intensity in her eyes.

Oh, did I forget to mention her cute pointy ears?




And those adorable red freckles?


Nice and purposeful stride. Very confident on stock.

She is very stylish. She was very successful in Nursery and PN and then people wanted to buy her. Ha, no such luck, ya'll passed her up and your loss now!

Drives like a dream...aka like a Cadillac.

She just got back from training from Scott Glen and he did a great job. She needed some finishing and also trained up to Open. He made her a shining star!! He really likes her a lot and that made me proud. She ran very well for him on the Heppner sheep.

Holding the pressure and keeping the fetch nice and straight. She has moved to the Open position and Tess has retired. It's nice to have three generations of dogs that are doing so well. She is my Open dog now and we hope to go to the Finals!!

The LED sheep secret revealed!!

How the UK shepherds did the LED sheep herding!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7961889.stm

Roo and Lucy and Heppner and so forth...

This is a long overdue posting but hey, at least I finally did it. As you well know, I was out of commission from July to January from several major open heart surgeries. Therefore, my dog training fell by the wayside. In Oct, I sent Lucy to Scott’s to get her finished out. Her outruns and flanks were slicey. I ran her in Nursery the year before and she was rocking hot but last year, I had let her flanks and outruns get slicey.

I reviewed the Nursery scores for outrun, lift and fetch in her Nursery year and had almost perfect scores while last year, she was losing 5 for her outruns and more on her drives. She had been sent the winter after her Nursery and PN year to work 3000 range sheep. She had won the PN trial and lost 6 points the day before she went. Lucy worked on the range sheep for over five months and worked quite a bit on her own so had to get the job done and when she came back I was going to polish her up but never did. Needless to say, I had let Lucy down so she went to Scott’s this winter to get back on track. Not to mention that I had my third surgery in Nov and again was out of commission for a few months.

Scott also has Roo and he is running him for me in Open. Roo is the Uncle to Lucy. His littermate, Koko is Lucy’s dam. Therefore, Scott has trained and run three generations of my dogs. First, starting with Tess, then with Jackie and Roo (Tess x Pleat) and now Lucy (granddaughter of Tess and Pleat).

DeltaBluez Roo

Interestingly enough, Roo and Lucy are red and white. Both dogs were sold as pups and then came back to me as adults. Roo was sold to Ron Green and now we co-own him and I run him. Lucy came back from the Reed’s when Dick became too allergic to dogs after a severe asthma attack. As pups, both pups were my favorites in the litters and I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to get them back.

Scott headed over here on his twice-yearly jaunts for clinics and lessons and made his stop at Heppner. He ran Roo and Lucy in Open.

DeltaBluez Lucy

This was Lucy’s first debut as an Open dog. Roo ran last year but was a bit rough so Scott fine tuned him and it paid off. I am sure all eyes were on him as he went to the post with two red dogs. I am glad it was he and not I!

I posed my fingers on the refresh button to see when Jenn would update the trial blog. I know a number of folks who did the same. Much thanks to Scott who stood in the wind and rain to call in the scores to Jenn who then posted them. Thanks to both of them!!

Was I ever doing the happy dance when I read the blog. Lucy held her own the first day and Roo place third. On the second day, Lucy placed 5th, she had a one eyed-blind ewe that was an issue in the shedding ring, and she got the pen. Roo placed 7th and point wise he tied for Lucy as they both got 78. Overall, for the two day combined, Roo placed third. Not bad for two red dogs! I heard from the grapevine that Scott could have given a *handler’s clinic* with his runs at Heppner. Also, that my dogs looked great and were any of them for sale? (not a fat chance is the answer!!)

So, Lucy has some points towards the Finals and now I have to get more points so we can go. Nan has enough point or close to it. If Roo continues to run well for Scott and he is one of the best two Open, then Scott will run Roo at the Finals. So, I am hoping that Roo continues on his good streak and does well for Scott.

I will be running Lucy this weekend at Dirk’s trial so I hope we reconnect well. Scott did a great, no, make that FANTASTIC job is cleaning up her flanks and fixing the top of her outrun as well as shedding etc….so that now she runs like a star. Scott even said she was one of the best dogs as well as other super nice things about her.

Scott came over here on Monday and we worked dogs. He gave me some tips on Nan, which will help me quite a bit. He also got to see Rainey work and was happy with what I was doing and to keep on doing that. By the time, it came to work, Belle, I was beat so he worked her and gave me a lesson plan. He also showed me how to work Lucy and Sava so I could continue down the Path of Goodness. And most of all, he didn’t laugh (too loudly) at my handling and fall on the ground in complete hysterics at my *cat strangling whistles*……however, he did say, “hmmmmm”

Then he got out Maid and Don and put them through their paces. Wow, they are such stellar dogs and they just looked smooth. My field is about 650 yards long and his dogs put the sheep wherever Scott wanted. I was bragging how my yearling Cluns would be light but that day, they decided to be sluggish. I do not know if it was because they just ate or it was late evening, being also wet and cold. It made moving them a bit of a challenge.

It was a fun working session and by the time we got home, Getty had homemade Jambalaya ready for us. Chuck dropped off some homemade brew so that was a bonus. We watched Japan beat Korea in baseball and that was good news in our household as I am of Japanese heritage.

Lucy, Rainey, Tess and Nan also cheered on the Japanese baseball teams. Red dogs rule and especially so under the fine handling of Scott Glen.

Bring in the Wolf....(part two)

Since the (mini) cougar couldn't move the rest of the sheep off the alfalfa hay, it was time to call in the WOLF. She is a very seasoned lambing dog with over 8 year under her belt.

Here is the black and white WOLF sneaking up on the ewes. Tess is going very slow.

Creeping around the ewe so she is not startled. Very quiet and methodical.

She now has to get off the hay bale and sneak down to the ground without scaring the sheep,

She wedges herself next to the ewe. You can see the lambs also. Tess is very gentle around the lambs. The ewe grabbed a large mouthful of hay for the journey.

If a lamb doesn't move, Tess will put her nose under it's behind and wheelbarrow it to move. She does this very calmly and the lamb just moves along in the correct direction with his hind legs in the air, being pushed by Tess. Tess has wheelbarrowed a lamb over 15 feet and the mother ewe was not at all bothered about that fact.

Tess has now turned the ewes from the hay and towards the barn door.


OK, now they are headed down the driveway to the front lawn.


A Ewe and lamb calling Tess a naughty name.


Newborn lamb. I love how dark this ram lamb. He is a fine example of a high quality Clun Forest ram lamb.


Rigby watched the rest of this adventure from his new perch, far atop of the hay stack,

Ethel Conrad

As you all well know, a legend has passed on to greener pastures. She will be greeted by many of our Border Collies at the gate.

Ethel Conrad, we will miss you.

ONE WOMAN AND HER DOGS: ETHEL CONRAD



Memorial service

Feel free to post any stories, memories or anything you want in the comment section.

Fast Food Delivery aka "Blonde Antelope"

Here is a funny video. Not Sheep or Border Collie related. I call it "Fast Food Delivery"

Cougar attack...(part one)

Rigby rules the farm. The LGD, Border Collies, sheep, horses and steer all bend to his mighty paw. He likes to call the shots. Everything belongs to him. Including the straw bale he is on.

Here he is taking a break from his mice chasing chores.

He see the ewes and lambs being let out of the stall so they can free range on the front lawn.

Hum, they stopped to take a snack at the alfalfa pile. His ears are starting to lower down a bit since a ewe has gotten closer to him (without his permission, of course)

Oh, oh, one of the ewes is sniffing at him. He is not amused. The ewe is unaware of his displeasure. He hissed and she didn't move.

She moves closer to him and he actually has to get up. He is not happy at this point.

She decides to nibble at his straw bale and finally he snaps. He reached out and whacked her on the nose and she ran off. You can see his *displeasure* in his eyes. The ewe ran out of the barn at full speed. It's not everyday you manage to escape from a (mini) cougar and live to tell the tale.

....to be continued tomorrow.....(Bring in the Wolf)