Rose and Margaret working their dogs.

Rose changes out a new group of sheep for us.













Rose's Meg













Margaret's Paige
















Rose's Jana. If you look closely at pic below, you can see how long the snow line is on the mountains.

Snow as Predicted

Yes incredibly we got more snow today. It wasn't even raining in the morning, not until Rose and I got over to Ona's place and then it changed to snow. We were there to do some dog breaking of her sheep. It turned out to be very good work for the dogs as one ewe wanted no part of the group and would turn on the dogs. But with patience and/or a little help from handler, she would move off & rejoin the others. So it was a good confidence building exercise. No pictures as my camera would have gotten too wet.

Westcoast Magic

Great day to work dogs today. We've had our wonderful westcoast weather since the snow silliness on Monday; clear blue skies and almost tshirt temps....except for just below zero each night. But that has meant no mud in my yard so far - YaaHooo!
Today was excellent. I worked Dusty and he was Mr.Perfect-can-do-no-wrong as usual on McLeods' sheep. Took every command...even adapting to the change in whistles to Blair's. Nobody was around so I worked Jayne right after and she did well also. I worked on getting a definitive stop at the top when I asked as well as some quick flanks which she handled pretty nicely. I figured the other gals were either inside playing with Jana's 4 week old pups or out back in the barn with the newborn twins...but turns out they were all in the house working their butts off for the upcoming Flyball Tourney next month; making up and wrapping all the raffle items. So I spent the next couple hours helping/watching them and drinking coffee, eating cheese&crackers. I've volunteered to help out at the Tourney in April so that should be interesting....
Only sad note to the day was sending Owen off with my generous friend, Maureen to deliver him to Lee Lumb's care for the next 2 or 3 mos. for his sheepdog education. I miss his fat head and blue-eyed freckly face already. :-( Funny, when Jayne went up there last year, I had puppy Owen to keep me occupied and busy, this time there is a big hole in the family.
When I'm not playing outside with the dogs, I've been enjoying watching the Brier and the World Baseball Classic! Go Team Howard! Go Team Netherlands the underdogs+.
For all you non-Canucks, the Brier is the Canadian Men's Championship Curling tourney. Our second national sport after hockey. LOL

Musings

The snow finally arrived, two days late. Only a few inches but enough, I am sure, to foul up rush hour. It was -4c on my deck mid-morning and still snowing. It quit by 11:00a and now the sun is shining in a bright blue sky. Go figure.
I made some updates on my laptop's screen saver; created a new photo album for it to scroll through. It was sitting on a TV table next to my chair in the living room. Dusty begged his way into my lap for some cuddle time and next thing I knew he was intently watching the screen saver. I have to wonder what he thinks when he sees photos of himself and his pack? I don't think he recognizes himself but what about when he sees Jayne, Blair, Owen and Wyatt? What goes through his mind? Obvious interest and focus when he sees them working sheep. He has also been very keen to watch TV when there are sheep on it - next to impossible to try to watch Derek Scrimgeour's video with his big fat head blocking the screen. But he usually only watches TV when there are dogs or sheep. Owen on the other hand watches all kinds of programs and commercials. Blair gets upset when there are animals on TV, he jumps out of bed and wants to work them I think. Wyatt and Jayne ignore it all. Curious.....

Bowling for dogs

I bought a new toy yesterday; it is hard rubber & shaped like a bowling pin. It's squeek is kind of 'deep' sort of like a duck quack. It is not nearly as annoying as another prized toy which Dusty chomps non-stop. I only let him have it on occasion during the week when the neighbors are mostly at work. But this new one is not as loud nor high pitched so they can have it 24/7. LOL Surprisingly Owen is the one that has taken a great delight in it, barely letting anyone else even briefly check it out.
I stayed home from Dirk's trial for nothing yesterday! The snow they predicted did not appear. Last time they said 3-5cm but we got 10cm so I didn't want to chance getting caught coming home in a storm. It is another beautiful day today with mixed sun & cloud so far. I caught a few snowflakes attempting to come down through the sunshine. ;-) I am very happy to have the time change today - now it will be daylight until 7:00pm! My favorite time of year as the days get longer & longer until June.

Still sunny

Another lovely day in paradise! It was supposed to rain all week but has been sunny instead, although quite cold when the sun goes behind a cloud. However it is supposed to snow again on Sat. - what's with that!?! I am hoping to run Blair in Dirk's trial in Sedro Wooley tomorrow but am going to wait to see what the roads are like when I get up. I am a typical 'wetcoaster' so now that I don't have to commute to work, I don't have to drive in any snow if I don't want to.
So we had another good training session yesterday. I worked Jayne and Dusty. Dusty was awesome as usual...in his familiar place on sheep he knows. I did some of Jack's suggestions; busting the sheep up and encouraging him to hustle to cover. I did see a change of pace with him but I'm not sure I am getting the best results. Each time, Dusty widened out as well as put on a little speed, so he still wasn't really covering better. But I will keep at it & see if there is some improvement over time.
Jayne worked well too for the most part. The mistakes were all my fault as usual. We had a big group of sheep to work so I tried some shedding with her. OMG, that was not the best idea I've had in awhile! Lee would kill me if she saw what I did I am sure. I don't know what I was doing wrong except the results were very bad! LOL Jayne came in like a bolt of lightning, but there was no way she was taking a lie down or holding the shed off group! She flanked off after them and split one with a lot of yippeeyahoo enthusiasm to say the least. Actually it was panic that they were getting away. So we had to go back to some calming and 'steady-ing' work in a corner before ending the session. Margaret & Rose were killing themselves laughing at me! Rose suggested that we make a 'How not to Shed' video to go along with Alasdair's. Good thing Jayne isn't going to have to actually shed in a trial for some time!
Rose's Jana's four pups are 3 weeks old now and getting to that oh-so cute stage. They were all cuddled up asleep in their crate when I looked in on them. We got word that Lee's Chica had TEN pups this week; 6 girls and 4 boys sired by her Jeb who is J.Zoerb's Mik X Sommer's Gyp. Should be some real nice pups there.

Good Day

It was pouring rain when I ran the dogs this morning but cleared up by noon and turned out quite nice. Margaret & I worked our dogs at McLeods' and were invited in to a lovely lunch and visit with Rod who had stopped by. He is giving a home to one of the late Jim Baron's dogs. Sadly I had a big breakfast sandwich before I went over there so I was too full to have anything but coffee.
I worked Blair on taking some quick flanks and stops while keeping them square and open. He did very well. So if it isn't raining I think I will enter him in Dirk's trial in Sedro Wooley on Sat. I had worked Jayne first and she did just fine too. One little fly by but it was caused by me asking for too tight a walk up, putting just too much pressure on her from me. Otherwise she did fine. I sent in my entries to the Sterling Acres SDTrial in April and was bold enough to enter her in Nursery.