Border Collie Pups available - SOLD

WORKING OR TRIAL HOMES:

 

Sire is DeltaBluez Dan (AltaPete Pleat x DeltaBluez Tess). Dan is a go forward black and white Border Collie. He has tons of push and incredible stock sense. Hips are normal and eyes CERF normal and CEA DNA normal by parentage. He is like Tess but with Pleat’s push!

 

Dam is Imp Sava. I brought Sava and Nell (owned by Lora Withnell) back from Wales as pups. Her sire is Aled Owen’s Roy who is the International champion. She has Aled’s Bob and his other top dog in her lines. Super nice breeding. She won PN when I ran her and super outrunner and great stock sense. Very stylish and keen and very biddable. She is in Open now.

 

This is a great blend of two top lines. We have one female and two males available. They will get CERF on May 13. Just turned 6 weeks old. Very well socialized and bold.

 

ABCA papers and working/trial homes. All are black and white and will be current on shots and being spoilt! $750 each and located in Carnation.

 

Boldt- male (sold)

Max- male - (sold)

Mimi - Female (sold)

Batlamb

In Norway, sheep farmer Hege Vigre says that when her new lamb was still in the womb, it had an unusual posture. Ms. Vigre told The Local, “She was lying wrong in the womb, with the left foot under the stomach and the right one forward, like Superman.” When the lamb was born, however, she discovered that it actually resembled a different DC Comics icon – Batman.

Ms. Vigre says that the baby animal didn’t really make an impression on her at first, but that at some point she realized that the black fur around the lamb’s eyes was symmetrical. The farmer posted some pictures of the lamb to a Facebook group. She told The Local, “Some people called it Zorro, and others called it Batlamb. I call it Batlamb."

LINK

The State of the Rain

 

Fido's Farm Trial for April 19 and 20

This weekend was the earliest that I have ever gotten up for a sheepdog trial...like 0400....out the door to met Janet at the park and ride on Saturday morn, then off to Starbucks....were to our complete horror is not open at 0500 in the morning. So we found a McDonalds and then made it to the trial with caffeine in our veins. Handlers meeting was at 0615 and  we arrived at 0630 and were in time.

The fetch was about 350 yards where the dog lost sight of the sheep and some crossed in the gully just past the fetch panels. You had a dog-leg fetch which was not easy and was the undoing of many runs. Then a nice first leg, followed by a long crossdrive, which faced the exhaust and the sheep took full advantage of that. Then a single and the pen all in ten minutes.

The sheep were freshly shorn yearling, NCC with a bit of attitude. Worked some but not dog broke and quick to exploit the weakness in your dogs. Fat, sassy and not interested in being victims, they proved to be nice sheep to work if your dog was correct. If not, they you p[aid the price. I loved the sheep and they were a pleasure to work. The trial host went all out to make this a super nice trial, with a great setout crew, trial folks who keep everything running with cheerful smiles and just darn fun. It wasn't a cake walk but it showed where you had to go home and polish up and also where you did your homework. Loved this trial. Thanks to Chris and her tireless crew.

 

We didn't stick around for PN but I got Saturday's scores for you.

Maid was the first and had locked on the exhaust sheep now matter what I told her. She cast out then wanted to cross so I got her to stop, then reflanked her. She had a nice lift and could hear me tell to stop but was headstrong and didn't take it. How do I know this? Chris was at the top and ratted on her so that made me aware that the dogs could hear but chose not to listen. I did get a hold of her and did the last half of the fetch properly. Nice first leg and slipped past the panels and high on the crossdrive and then adjusted and the nice last leg.  Took the single at the front as he presented himself and I am not to look a gifthorse in the mouth, when the singles had been tough. Maid worked like a champ and got them in the pen like it was stealing candy from a baby (I have heard that is easy but never actually did it) Maid was a bit headstrong and her being in standing heat probably added fuel to the fire.

Nan was towards the end of the day and went out crisp. Listened like a champ on the dog leg, although a wee bit on the muscle. I have noticed this year, she is really getting on the muscle. Nice tight turn at the post and then nice first leg, then the wheels fell off  the wagon. High, low , high low, like a broken record and then missed the second panel and finished up the fiasco but a nice last line.  Two attempts at the single and she got it and I didn't hear the judge call so turned and asked her and in the split second in listening to the reply, Nan and the sheep went merrily to the exhaust where the gate had been left open....opps...like I said she was on the muscle! She wasn't quite on her game that day and too pushy and I didn't rein her in  enough.

 

We packed our bags, licked our wounds and headed home. Janet will blog about her runs. We decided to stop and have Japanese food and I gorged myself on sushi. Thank goodness Janet was driving and I was too full to think about driving! Instead we reminisced about past run, past dogs and our future with our dogs.

 

So I was on my won to drive on Sunday morning, so got up at 0330 and headed out. Got coffee at McDonalds so I would be coherent. The girls were wondering why so darn early but soon were soothed by a bite of my breakfast.

 

Nan was first and cast out wide and came clean behind the sheep. We had the same course and she was on the money on the dogleg fetch, still on the muscle. Nice drive with a sheep slipping past a panel and a bit high on the crossdrive. Called her in for two singles and on the third one she (finally) came in and held it .  (You can guess what our homework is tis week) The sheep weren't interested in the pen but Nan stuffed them like stuffing Green Peppers. The door shut on tem before they had a chance to protest.

 

It was much later in the day when Maid ran so I hung out and chatted with Sue and George. It's great talking to them as they are super folks and got me hooked in the sport. And it started wit my $100 puppy too!

 

Maid was quite ready to go as she had been waiting all day. She was amped so we spent some time in the handler's blind, just chilling and rubbing her belly and soon she was soft.  We were ready and I sent her out. She cast out wide and came deep behind the sheep. They were eating grain and didn't want to leave the bucket so I gave her a soft walkup and let her figure out how to lift the, She was steady and eased them off the bucket and once she got them going, I stopped her and flanked her to get the dogleg fetch. She was wonderful and handled them with kid gloves down the fetch and had a nice gentle turn. We just glanced at each other at the post turn and smiled at each other. she wanted to push but I reined her back so the drive was slow.  By this time in the day, the sheep were hungry and wanted to stop and graze so we worked them nice and slow. Nice turn, then they slipped down the gully and she brought them back up fast, so I made her stop and get the flow. A wee bit high, then we lined them up. At the last part of the crossdrive, they wanted to run to the exhaust to so I put them a little low to pus  them through and that made them dash through the panels and I quickly flanked Maid to meet them on the other side. They were surprised to see her!  She was kind and made them turn the right way and marched them into the ring.  She came in for a sweet single and then we went to the pen. They had no desire to go in and danced around the pen and we finally got them headed properly when the time ran out. She ran quite well and was pliable, although pushy but did slow down as I asked. I was very happy with her run and she was happy as well. We are really enjoying each other and she tries  so hard to please me. I am so blessed to have two incredible Open dogs.

 

After Open was over, I packed up the girls and headed home. I was tired and so were they!  They did well today  but we still have some more homework to do. The rest of the day was sunny and we lounged around the pond and watched lamb races.

 

 

Happy (early) Easter

Happy (early) Easter!

 

 

Dog Cartoons

It's been a while since I posted any dog cartoons, so here you go!

This is Nan.

 This is Rainey.

 

And then Maid and Nikki.

 

 

Rough Day at the farm

Some days are so rough but you gotta suck it up and push through. Like today!

 

We had to snuggle puppies and I had to call in for a back-up. Luckily for me, Janet Thorpe stepped up to the task and showed up to help me. See how she saved the day by doing puppy snuggling"

 

Life is so sweet with some innocent, adorable pups.

 

Oh yeah, we did real farm work. We banded and checked ewes and lambs today. Everyone looked fine and we have some fat ewes. Obviously they have been eating well. Then we worked dogs.  Then we did puppy love snuggle time. A great way to end a farming type of day.

 

Pups are DeltaBluez Dan (owned by Audrey) and Imp Sava (owned by Janet). Dan is Pleat x Tess. Sava is a dog that I brought back from Wales and is Aled Owen' s Roy x Dot. She is Janet's open dog and had a very successful PN career with me. She suits Janet quite well.

 

They are four weeks old and we have two boys and two girls. We haven't decided what pup we are keeping yet.

Hard at work or Hardly working?

Well Sarah and Simon are the barn cats. Formerly feral kittens and but now tame and spoiled. Simon is still standoffish to folks but loves me. Might have to something with me feeding him?  He especially loves the canned kitty food. They get that when they get a large rodent such as a rat. But they have learned not to drop the rodent in my lap.

 

I noticed a mole had rooted up part of the pasture so told Sarah and Simon to go get it. See how intent they are in listening to me. They are sitting in a chair that Rainey had won for High Combined PN sheepdog trial. The dogs were sleeping next to the chair but quickly moved when Sarah reached down and used their backs as a scratching post.

Notice how promptly they obeyed....their reply was, "Yeah, we will get right on it!"

 

 

Gibberin.....a new way to communicate

A friend and herding student of mine has this cool application that you can use on your smartphone. This would great for you folks who are trainers for herding, agility, etc.....use your phone to send to your students and have it go to their email or voicemail. You can set up different groups and then use them as needed, talk then tap then the message is sent.

.....and it is FREE......support a fellow herding student.......!!!!

 

Why Gibberin?

We live in a crazy busy world.  Careers, family, home, social lives…and we’re overwhelmed by communication.  Phones, email, Facebook, texts, Instagram, Twitter…   Somewhere in there, we lost real conversation.

Gibberin respects the society we operate in, yet gives us back the meaningful communication today’s present tools disallow.  Phone calls?  In this day and age, most of us consider them an interruption and a hassle.  Voicemail?  Too much overhead, and half the time it’s unintelligible due to poor signal.  Texting? How much do you really want to type with two fingers anyway?

 

Gibberin takes us back to a natural free flow of conversation, with the time shifted convenience we get from text based tools.  All in a simple, elegant user interface that doesn’t get in your way.

 

Select a contact, speak your message, and send it.  Tap, talk, done.  Do you want to ask someone a question, but not risk getting stuck in a phone call?  Gibberin.  Do you want to express a thought with more emotion than emoticons or exclamation points will provide?  Gibberin.  Do you need to reach someone you know isn’t immediately available?  Gibberin.  Do you want to five, ten or ten thousand people to hear your message?  Gibberin.  Do you want to track a conversation, add people to it, or remove people from it?  Gibberin.  And coming soon, true hands free voice communication in the car.  Any car.

Get back to communicating the way that comes easiest to all of us – converse……..

Right now, as far as mobile platforms go, we are iOS only.  But you can log into Gibberin through any browser at www.gibberin.com and use our web portal.  That’s where you go to create groups and manage your profile.  Have you set up an account yet?

 

For your herding/flyball/agility/training classes, I can see a couple great uses right off the top of my head…

·   Send updates on class additions or cancellations – tap your contact, speak your message, send it.  Faster than email or multiple phone calls.  And Gibbers can go out to email addresses, or any SMS enabled phone.  You can create groups by logging on to our website at www.gibberin.com.

·    Send your students quick vocabulary references…type (or speak) the command into the subject line and then gibber a quick description of it.  Creates a reference they can always go back to.  And we can provide you with a link to that gibber, so you can send it to new students, or post it on your website.  “Come away” means…etc.

·    Communicate more naturally – when you’re out working, or jogging, or walking the dogs, or….texting is a pain in the neck.  You have to stop, look down, and focus on something other than what you are doing.  A phone call is an interruption.  With Gibberin, one tap lets you listen to your message.  Two taps let you send one.  AND unlike our competitor that got purchased yesterday for 19 billion, you do not have to hold any keys down to record a message.  Leave the phone on your desk, on the counter, or on the seat next to you and Gibber away!  I receive and send Gibbers while I’m cooking, grooming the dogs, typing email, folding laundry…holding my device and a key down would make me nuts.

Farm and Fleece March 30 Sheepdog Trial Results

For once I didn’t have to get up at Zombie time for a trial but had a leisurely cup of coffee and then met Janet at the park and ride at ten. The trial was at Fido’s Farm and the other classes ran before Open. Janet just moved Jude to Open so it was nice for us to be running dogs in the same class. I took Maid and Nan. Janet figured that our runs would be around 1:30 and I was sure it was going to be at 11:30 so she humored me by making sure we got there by 11:30, only to realized that all my four years of Engineer Math did not include figuring out run times calculation….I was way off and she was spot on…darn and I had to admit I was wrong so we went out to lunch for Chinese. We have a favorite restaurant so we went there and had a hot lunch which was good as it was wet, cold and windy. We got back in time and hung out until our runs.

Maid was the first of the dog to go and the fetch was a tough dogleg fetch. She ran out nice and came up behind the sheep and two broke down the field while the wether kept his nose buried in the grain bucket. They used two shorn ewes and one yearling wether that did not want to join the two ewes. I let Maid sort out the wether and she looked over the wether at me, then carefully walked up on him and he popped up and ran to join his friends. I flanked her over to start the dogleg and she took each command like a champion. Hit the panels at the nice fast trot and superb turn at the post. Nice first leg and the run was looking quite nice then she refused to take the comebye flank. I downed her so I know she heard me so when I gave her the come bye she either drove them up the field or did an away flank. I shouted out at her and finally she took the flank so we got them back online at halfway on the cross drive. We got hit hard for her transgression and she put them neatly through the second panels and to the shed. The sheep swirled and we got the single. Two ewes darted off to the exhaust and maid went to get them. She didn’t grip but gave them a loud growl and then ran back to me and as we got them ready to put into the pen, we ran out of time. The extra drive on the first leg ate up the much needed time we needed for the pen. Aside from that debacle she ran well and was soft, biddable and willing.

Jude ran next and did well for his first time in Open. He held his ground at the first leg when the ewes wanted to run over him to go to the exhaust and then they timed out in the shed ring. His outrun, which he has been struggling with last year and part of this year, looked sweet and he totally ignored the setout crew. Is lift was nice and he gave it all for Janet. I hope she write about it in her blog.

Nan was second to last and it was drizzling by then. As we waited for her sheep, I looked at her and saw an earthworm was crawling on her paw. She saw it took and examined with great care and thoughtfulness. I sent her and she flung the poor worm in the earth, no doubt stunned by his airborne adventure. Apparently Nan’s thoughtfulness for the worm extended only so far! She had a wonderful outrun and came nicely behind her sheep and I redirected her to the far side to pick them up for the dogleg. She came in nice and of course, the wether was too busy eating to notice a dog. The other tow darted off and I saw shades of Maid’s run. I gave her a walk up and she carefully lifted the wheter and got them all gather for a nice fetch. A little bit offline but she got them back online and a tight tidy turn around the post. Smooth first leg and she held the draw and marched them around the course. She only  lost two on her drive but it sure was one of her nicest drives. Into the ring and he peeled the single off quickly. The two ewes ran like hell bent for leather for the exhaust while the wether and I springted for the pen. The wether was waiting for me to open the gate and parked himself at the mouth. Nan began to march the ewes back and I looked at her to give her a flank and saw in her eyes that told me to be quiet. She marched them up and cut a little to the right and left and trotted them into the pen without a word from me. It was amazing that she looked at me and I knew to let her figure it out. She lost zero for her pen. I was very happy with her run and she danced with delight after her run. Not bad for an 11.5 year old.

 

After it was all done, she won first place with an 88 out of a 100 and Maid got 62, losing most of her drive points and all of her pen points. She only lost three points for a difficult outwork and many dogs lost a good chunk of the fetch points.  So Nan gets a winner photograph by Lisa Charaba!

We packed up the dog and headed home, happy with the work and some homework in mind to fix the errors we had on the course. But overall, we were quite happy with the runs. Much thanks to Fido’s Farm for the great trial and challenging course.

Six Legged Lamb

Here is a good one.......

 

"Farmer produces lambs with SIX LEGS to help boost profits and food yields "

 

A British farmer has successfully produced the first six-legged lambs and he now hopes to breed them on a mass scale.  Simon Bennett says that he hopes the birth of two healthy lambs called Cupcake and Sprinkles will help to significantly reduce the cost of meat for consumers.

 

The fascinating development happened completely 'by chance' and has left scientists baffled.

 

The animals have been given a clean bill of health and are currently undergoing genetic monitoring ahead of a possible breeding programme.

 

Simon, from Riverside Organic in Whatcroft, Cheshire was lost for words when the animals arrived.

 

 

He said: "We had no outside involvement from scientists, we were not trying to create these lambs, we're an organic farm so their existence is purely down to Mother Nature.

 

"We have had a lot of interest from leading scientists and vets all around the world, not to mention the thousands of people who want to come and see the animals for themselves.

"Their six legs have made them fitter and leaner and we expect their meat to be extra succulent."

 

A spokesman for the British Livestock Society said: "We are currently working with several veterinarians, farmers and scientists to establish the feasibility of a breeding programme.

"These lambs are healthy and having carried out extensive tests, we are happy their offspring would be safe to enter Britain's food chain.

 

"Although still speculative, we believe this could have a significant impact on the cost of meat if the breeding programme proves successful."

 

The Sheep Breeders' Union added: "It's an incredible development which has the potential to radically change meat production in the UK."

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