Carrot Eatin' Dog

This is what I woke up to this morning when I looked out. I wondered if squirrels or various beasts have been visiting in the night. I wandered off to do the day's chores and then watched the guys take the range cow and calf home that had wandered onto our property on the other side of the road.
Let the dogs out for their afternoon run and when I looked out I saw this..the culprit. Kip must really like her veggies. She pulled out the carrots, chomped them off to the root and left the green...wonder if she knew how well carrots go with chicken backs?

Maple Creek Open

Maple Creek Saskatchewan...a fun place to go for a sheepdog trial but we had one little glitch this time. Where the heck did winter come from? We arrived there on Friday night..yes proud as punch with the camper and the dogs. As Bev Sommer (who had arrived just before we did) and I stood at the trial field Friday night in the very cold windy snowy weather, we looked at Len and Norm the husbands and said...Wagons ho..the motel is 5 mintues away and that is where we are staying. No camping in this weather!
The field is a great field to work in, dips and hills and carragana bushes. On Sunday they do the Open outrun straight up the side of a hill (ok big dune)and Mirk did an awesome job of it. Alas, we didn’t pen so no shed either. Saturday wasn’t great for us. They just put the sheep out, no setting dog so Mirk went out, the sheep were behind a small hill and he was looking where he thought they were supposed to be, he started to cross at the top and Honestly! When I tried to whistle him back, my whistle was frozen! Not the only handler with that problem that day. Then I had the ewe that didn’t wanna stay with the others, made it all the way through to the pen and she broke and went to the exhaust. Dog trialling huh?

Will came in 7th place both days..good runs, didn’t pen. They just stood there and won’t move or moved darn fast. Kit was the 1st one up in ProNov on Saturday and it was her very first trial and she couldn’t find her sheep..white sheep, white snow you know the problem. They suggested that I run her in non compete on Sat. Worked great, she found her sheep and the next day no problem in ProNovice. She did a great outrun and when we started to drive, they wanted to break badly to exhaust so I walked from the post and we drove them there. No use trying to frustrate a dog that has just started driving. Put Rosie in non compete class as well….she did her outrun, lift and gripped both days on the fetch but took her lie downs and was steady. We leave it that she was a little stressed…we’ll put it down to know what to work on and her first trial. Len says she had the fastest grip time...what a cheering section!
It was a great weekend though and no one can control the weather so you make the best of it and have a good time!

Check here for pictures of the trial.

2009_1012MapleCreek