Ohhh, Julie - and Deacon Dog?

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I'd love to hear the blow by blow on the demo you guys did. I was very sorry that I was too late to see it. I got a quick overview but I'd love to hear how the youngsters did.

 

Was it really popular? I heard the sheep you had, were undogged ram lambs - very cool.

 

The whole event was very nice - I bought good smellin' handmade soap (I am a handmade soap fiend) and some of those sheep notecards! The BFL cards were very typey and dignified.

[juliepoudrier]

I'd love to hear the blow by blow on the demo you guys did. I was very sorry that I was too late to see it. I got a quick overview but I'd love to hear how the youngsters did.

 

Was it really popular? I heard the sheep you had, were undogged ram lambs - very cool.

 

The whole event was very nice - I bought good smellin' handmade soap (I am a handmade soap fiend) and some of those sheep notecards! The BFL cards were very typey and dignified.

Becca,

I don't know that Tony gets here much and it's busy season for him re: taxes, so I'll give you my impressions. When we got there, one of the first things we were told is that all the calls that had come in for the several days before the event had been to ask what time the sheepdog demos were. So I guess we were pretty popular. The 11 a.m. demo was well attended, but the 1 p.m. was *packed.* Fortunately, Tony and I got smart for round two and picked the sheep we thought would work best for the demo, unlike the first go round, when we just sorted off seven sheep and went with it.

 

So, the sheep were all up in the barn with a paddock. I took Twist and sorted off what we wanted to use and put them out in the big pasture (a number of people thought my sorting activities was the demo, poor things). We had set up a medium sized trial course. For the first demo, I held the sheep with Twist and Tony ran Ben (one of his open dogs) through the course. Or attempted to anyway. One of the little ram lambs we had chosen really didn't want to play, and Tony and Ben did an admirable job keeping them on the field when they wanted to race back to the paddock and barn (Twist and I gaurded the gate). Tony came *this close* to getting them in the pen (not only were they undogged, they were unhandled--that is, not real used to people, and had never been put in a pen of any sort before), when a child came flying up to the fence and sent them off in all directions like so much popping popcorn. At that point, Tony decided to call it done (it was 95 degrees and too hot for the sheep especially). I then brought Lark out and we showed a bit of what a younger, P/N-level dog could do. We did manage a one-legged drive through some panels, and Lark did a great job of catching them and returning them to me when they made a break for the shade trees and the barn. The final part of the demo had Mary bringing Roxy out on a long line while Lark and I held the sheep in an area in front of the crowd. Lou Ann described about the instinct a young dog has, and Roxy was perfect. She was wandering at the end of her long line, looking here and there, not having seen the sheep. Then she came over the little rise and instantly crouched and tried to flank out and around, proving Lou Ann's point about the instinct being there from the start.

 

For the second demo Tony and I decided that the little brown corriedale rams were probably the most sensible, so we sorted off about five of them using Kat. I then worked them around the paddock a bit to make sure we were correct in our assessment of sensibility. Then I took them and held them for Tony to send Maid and he again ran through a course. This time he penned quite easily. Then it was Pip's turn to be the example of the young-dog-in-training. It was not very pretty. The sheep wanted to run to the shade and the barn, and Pip tried very hard to bring them and keep them to me, but the crowd was up against the fence and noisy and the sheep were fighting him and I think he found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. Fortunately we had Tony and Maid for backup so poor Pip didn't wreck too badly, and of course the crowd didn't really know what they were seeing anyway, and Lou Ann and Mary were the masters of explaining things! Roxy again closed the show.

 

(Undogged ram lambs are not the best thing to use if you want a demo that goes perfectly, but by the same token, they really did allow the dogs to show their true value as farm helpers.)

 

We tried to use as many dogs as possible to show the diversity in the working bred dogs. As you know, Ben is quite curly; Maid is rough with tipped ears; Kat is medium and a red tri; Twist is smooth and prick eared; Lark is tiny, smooth, and prick eared; and Pip, well, he's Pip!

 

So many people came up to me to ask what my dogs were. No one actually recognized any of them as border collies, so I had a good chance to do a bit of educating as well.

 

We had a really good time. Lou Ann and Henry were great fun to have helping, and I think the spectators really enjoyed the show. It was a learning experience for all of us, and we have some good ideas of what we'll do next year to make it even better.

 

(I have to add that Pip's experience with those sheep showed the following morning when we worked him at home. He was just a little wild--I think a reaction to being put in a bit over his head the previous day. But I got him settled back down and working well again.)

 

J.

[bexie]

Sounds like quite a show! And a lot of hard work from you to do it. Where was this demo? (Just curious)

I am sure you have educated a lot of people with your work.

 

My parents were at a fiber fest in PA this past weekend and planned to catch a working BC demo, but the time got changed from 11 to 1 and they had somewhere else they had to be, so they couldn't stay for it. We haven't found a herding trainer for Molly yet so no working dog shows when they are here next week.

[Maizy]

First of all, I feel for Tony and taxes...and that is why I was not there!!!!

 

Second, sounds like a great time was had by all...sorry I missed it. There is always next year and maybe we will have all our tax returns done by then and I won't have to miss it AGAIN.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Thank you! Now I do wish I were there. But it was nice seeing everyone and especially Henry and LuAnn who I see about once every six months or something.

 

I'm going to miss you guys this weekend looks like. Boo hoo. I really wanted to see Mary's little dog again (well, you know, and all the dogs too but I had a lot of fun watching her).

 

And it looks like Ted will be running in Open before I get any decent pics of him again! [May I have some cheese to go with my whine?]