Sporter Collies

I googled "Sporter Collie" and came up with the Urban Dictionary version.   Kind of entertaining...

"

2.	sporter collie	6 up, 1 down
	buy sporter collie mugs, tshirts and magnets Not to be confused with the "border collie", a dog bred as a working stockdog, the sporter collie is a candy colored dog bred for dog sports such as obedience, agility, and flyball. Sporter collies are usually extremely fast, high octane dogs w/o an off-switch, and are sold for $1500+ because they are socialized to mailmen, thunderstorms, and Johnny Cash while still in the womb, and their parents are pretty and good at sports. Popular producers of sporter collies are Hob Nob, Lock Eye, Rising Sun, and Contact Point. Person 1: Look at that crazy border collie!! He just won't sit still while he watches all the other dogs do agility! Person 2: No, that's a sporter collie. Person 1: Ohh! Well, it sure is pretty."

"

Change is good...

Ok ... I've updated the blog a bit. I'm not sure I like the format, but we'll see.

Woke up this morning to something in my eye, or so I thought. After futzing with it for several hours, I finally went to the doctor. Turns out I scratched my cornea. Wow, did that ever hurt. It's getting a bit better now ... at least I can keep my eye open.

Slept quite a bit today. It felt better to keep my eye closed.

I love having a locking gate at the end of my driveway. The best part is that I can let my sheep loose and just gate them off from where I don't want them, and have them help me mow the front yard and stuff. It's working out just like I imagined it so many months ago.

Little by little, the irrigation is coming along. In a few small parts of the front pasture, I am seeing new growth on bushes, and actual honest-to-goodness green grass! I'm on the right track. It's going to take a while to get it to look like the pastures on "Dallas," but we're headed in the right direction.

I miss Jag. Big time. Still.

He used to cross his paws like that all the time.  He was so soft.  And he was great to cry on.  Great to hold.  Great to curl up with.  Great to talk to.  There will never be another like him.   I wish this would stop being so friggin' raw.  The tears keep coming.

Echo's in season.  She's not a donut-ass yet, but I'm sure she will be by the time the trial rolls around next weekend.  Yikes.  That'll be fun.  She's working pretty nicely for me right now, though.  Worked her at DC's last night on his whole flock again and did some more shedding.  I'm sure my method sucks, and I'll have to start taking some lessons with Dianne to work it out, but at least she's comfortable coming into the pressure like that.  And we're working on walking right into the entire flock and holding them from the draw.  It's taught me a lot, and it's giving her the confidence to work the heads.  At the same time, I've been working with her and actually helping her with her inside flanks.  Now that that little sentence is out of my mouth, I am sure she will make me look like a complete liar next weekend.  That's okay, though.  She's mine, and I get to take her home afterwards.  That's the only prize I need.

On the BC Boreds, there's a conversation about Pet Homes v. Working Homes, and the responses are interesting.  The conversation has morphed into how working breeders should place their pups in order to be able to evaluate the litter later in life, and whether or not they should sell to pet/sport homes or not.  One of the responses was this (justifying why the person would go to a sport breeder):

"I want a pup who has been socialized and well-prepared for the life it's going to lead. It just makes sense when you think about it. For me, that's sports, where the dog will have to tolerate crowds, noise, airports, elevators, etc... If I was a working farmer looking for my next stockhand, I doubt I'd care about that kind of stuff."

Yes, that's because "farmers" (i.e., those that farm crops) do not use working dogs to help plant crops anyway, but that's besides the point.  For the purpose of the conversation, I will assume she meant "ranchers."  I love the notion that ranchers don't care if their dogs can go out in public because those ranch dogs live their entire lives on ranches because the ranchers never leave their ranch -- and especially not with the dog.  And this is all coming from someone who obviously doesn't have a clue what ranch life is in the first place considering she doesn't know the difference between a farmer and a rancher.  And we wonder why these dogs get a bad rap.

I don't know about you, but what I've seen are the dogs that have been raised on ranches where they are out of working parents and the pups bred for the right (i.e. working livestock) reasons, the pups are easy to train, easy to socialize, and keep their heads about them for the most part.  The pups you see from these sport breeders that have been bred for "speed," or "temperament," or "agility," or whatever other stupid reason people breed non-working Border Collies, the pups have issues.  Not all of them, mind you, but I notice a lot of them are extremely soft, noise sensitive, and go through quite a few "fear periods."  But if people want to keep buying Sporter Collies, more power to them.  I hope eventually the breed really splits into Working Border Collies, Barbie Collies, and Sporter Collies.  But it won't.  Because it's not politically correct -- even though it's extremely accurate otherwise.

Whatever.

I'm just glad that there will always be breeders who breed working dogs.  Real working dogs.  And no, agility is not work.  Neither is flyball, or obedience, or any other little doggie sport you're playing.

Ok ... enough of that.

I've got some photos to edit, and maybe I'll do that this weekend.  I'd also like to get some photos of Reese for her page.  I'll probably change the blog a few times before settling on something I can tolerate for a while.  I'd like to come up with a logo, but I suck at that part.  If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.  Just a simple "KPR" design would work, or something ... not sure.

I hope my eye feels better tomorrow so I can get some stuff done around here.  Being that I'm gone all next weekend, it's not leaving me much time before Jennie and Cheryl (friends from L.A.) come up for Labor Day Weekend.  I'd like for them to see my house looking good, but it's not looking like it's going to happen.  Ugh.

More later,
Jodi

Dovette?

Here's the view from my living room on a cloudy day from a crappy photographer (I can never get the depth right -- or even close -- when I take photos of this pasture).

As you can see, there's quite a bit of stuff for them to munch down in here.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes them.  There's six of them, actually.  Pepe (my ram), a ewe that's about 4 years old, a yearling, and three of this year's lambs.  Right now, it's hard to find them amongst all the brush in here.  Once they chew it down, it will reveal all the crap in this pasture, i.e. rocks, large sticks, cinder blocks, trash, etc.  The other pasture was worse.

Here are my new residents, some more "temporary" than others:

I bought 15 of them yesterday, and came home today five short.  So we'll see how long they last.  I've had mixed reviews -- some say yes this works great, others that say they've never been able to get them to survive.  I wonder if it would have helped if I would have started out with bigger fish.

Evidence of great news!

Green = water flowing through here!  Woo hoo!  The hard work is paying off.

Remember the bush in the pasture I was chopping on the other day when I found a nest with at least one egg in it?  Well, I went to check on it today, and this is what I saw. 

I stepped a little closer, and she took off.  Don't ask me what I had to do to get this shot.

What do you call a baby dove?  (If you're going to tell me that this photo is out of focus, you'd better say it as you're running away from me.)

And in focus or not, have I told you lately how much I love this face?

There are people ... in Minnesota ... that would tape these ears up for months on end with all kinds of glue and tape and tampons and foam and insoles and all kinds of crap.  Isn't that horrible????  I think her ears are perfect just the way they are ... one on each side of her head and they both seem to work.

And these girls are getting very pretty also.  (I don't want to speak too soon, but I think these are all girls ... I don't see any curly tails yet, although, I don't know how old they have to be before it's a for-sure thing.)

They need to get busy layin' me some eggs, though.  I'm down to two nasty chicken eggs.  Looks like I'll have to buy more of those, though, before this cackling bunch gets around to helpin' me out.

Here's the backyard (where the ducks are).  You can see the green -- evidence of the irrigation -- and the sheep are no longer back here, so it will start to really sprout now.

There are always branches laying around this place, it seems.  I guess that just means I have plenty of mature trees, which is great for keeping the house cool.  I didn't really notice when taking the photos, but the trees are looking much better this year now that they have some water being fed to them periodically.  I'll have to take some more photos of the trees and do a comparison from last year ... and then see how much they improve next year. 

Here's the pig pen ... just waiting for its new resident.  First weekend in September, we'll be picking up Bacon II.  Or ... Wilbur, as I've been calling him.  Note to self:  Stop at the Halloween store and pick up Charlotte and some webbing.

I made a lame attempt (too lazy to even pull the hose out of the way) at getting a mother/daughter photo ... first ever.  Echo was not being nearly as cooperative as Reese, so I pulled the old kitty trick on her.  "psss pss pss ... here kitty kitty" ... gets her attention every time.  Reese, however, knew I was teasing and found it quite entertaining.

It's about as close as I came to getting a "worth it" shot.  Here's a couple of individual shots.

Mr. Photogenic Zip.

And Echo ... with duck bokeh.

That's all for now!
Jodi

Gettin' there ...

Well, the front pasture now has fence all the way around it.  None of the fence has been stretched or secured to the t-posts yet, but for now, it's at least making the sheep think they can't get out.  I have about 5 more T-posts to do, then I can stretch the whole thing and secure it all.  The hard part is done.  Finally.

Took a weed down to the neighbor for him to identify it for me.  Turns out it's milkweed.  Anyway, got into a pretty chatty conversation and am learning about the different characters that live in this area.

The clickercrackheads are everywhere.  Watch out for them.  They're coming soon to a theater near you ... and they will tell you how to train your dogs.

Oh, speaking of training dogs, Echo has been quite out of control lately.  I'm having a hell of a time handling her.  I hear that homeopathic remedies work great, so I have decided to clickertrain her in the fine art of smoking pot.

Before:


After:


With the Western Idaho Fair trial coming up, I am so glad I found something that will calm her down just a bit so that she doesn't end up eating any more of Don's sheep this year.  We might be able to get around the course.

One can hope.

Jodi

Front Pasture

For those who haven't seen it, this is the pasture I'm busy fencing.

If I turn to my left a bit, this is what I have:

Seeing how nasty that looked, I went out and worked on that big bush for about an hour, pulling out and chopping out old, dead branches.  At one point, a dove scared the daylights out of me as it flew out of the bush.  I figured she had a nest in there, and at the time, could care less.  Until, of course, I saw it.  Then all production on the bush stopped. Here's what it looks like now.

Yeah, doesn't look a whole lot different after all that work I just did.  Frustrating.  After this project is done (remember, I am only about 1/2 way through the fencing, although, I'm keeping the sheep in this pasture anyway ... the brush is so thick, they don't know they can leave yet), I have a few more things I want to do ... like pull out these dead grasses and decide whether to take out this tree:

Another undertaking is going to be cutting this bush down to size.  I took the shot just as a truck passed by so you can get an idea of the true size of it.  I'm sure it hasn't been trimmed back in a dog's age:

Oh and if anyone has any ideas how to slow the growth of algae in the water trough, please let me know.  It seems that heat + water = algae, period.  But if there's something I can do ... apart from emptying and scrubbing and bleaching as often as i do ... I'd love to hear it.

And here's one of my guilty pleasures.  I love these little guys.  I have 8 of them.  They're Phyllis' Cayuga ducks that I am growing out for her.  Their wings are just starting to get iridescent and their heads are starting a bit also.

I can't wait for them to start laying eggs.  Chicken eggs suck.

Anyway, I guess I need to decide if I'm going to continue fencing, or take a nap.

Later,
Jodi

Fences ...

There are a lot of people that don't really understand the level of work it takes to run even a small place like mine. When I say to them, "Yeah, I've got to put up some fencing this weekend," I'm sure 90% of them have never driven a T-post into the ground, no less 40 of them in a couple of hours. Even taking a large roll of fencing and putting it where you need it and rolling it out is probably harder physically than what most city people do in a week, nevermind stretching it and wire-wrapping it to the t-posts. And my place is tiny. While it's the same type of fence, and the same type of work as is needed for a large place, it's small beans in comparison. Sure, I need to fence in my six sheep the same as a real rancher would need to fence in his 2,000 sheep because sheep are sheep, and they poke their heads through whatever they can, and their feet are sure to follow, but I couldn't imagine trying to fence in a large place myself ... not with a full-time job and a life (as pathetic as it may be), anyway.

I have a splinter and I can't get it out.

Was cleaning off the BBQ tools off the deck yesterday, and a bee ... just as random as hell ... decided to sting me on the inside of my leg. The last time I was stung by a bee, I was pregnant with Justin and ended up in the hospital. So, when I got stung, the first thing I did was "phone a friend" in case I passed out. Good thing I called Teresa. She gave me some great advice as I was whining about how much the little friggin' thing hurt. She said, "baking soda and water ... make a paste out of it, and slap it on the sting." Worked like a charm. The good news is, I am not allergic to bees. The better news is, according to the numbers, I am probably not due to be stung again for another 21 years. The bad news is ... there are plenty of bees here. Oh well.

The fencing is waiting for me. I popped several posts into the ground this morning, laid out the other roll of fencing and propped it up, and laid out all of the needed t-posts. I actually sorted my t-posts, not only by size, but by color. Hopefully, when I am done, this won't look all obnoxious. The ugly white vinyl fencing give it a "Dallas" appearance, and who would want to mess THAT up?

I was fartin' around on the internet a bit ago, and popped on to one of the many "puppymill" sites I have save in my favorites, and found this gem. She was talking about and upcoming litter, and basically, paraphrased, the announcement went something like:

We couldn't find anyone else, so we've decided to use our own dog on her -- and he just happens to be a perfect match, which is why we have been looking all over the place for a stud dog in the first place. And the perfect one was right under our nose all along! Imagine that.

And then ... no joke ... word for word:

"He is a star hearding dog, and has loads of talent."


Yes, yes ... I'm sure.  I wonder what he "heards."  I am sure tons of people who need "hearding" dogs will be knocking down the door to get a pup from this litter.

Amazing.

Anyway, yesterday, I brought in a Great Pyr to see if he would stay with the sheep.  I cried when I met him; I miss Jag so bad.  Still.  I promised myself I would keep my focus, and that if he didn't stay with the flock, he was not going to become a house pet.  Well, as cute as he is, he didn't stay with the flock, and found jumping my fence in various places was quite fun.  He liked to yap when I'd walk away from him, and he was quite snuggly.  I had the rescue woman come back and get him before he wormed his way into my house, my life, and ... my heart.  It almost seems inevitable.  While I escaped it this time, I don't really think I'm going to remain that lucky.

Okay, okay.  The fencing is screaming at me now.  Back at it.  More later,
Jodi

Blog Blahs

Since losing Jag, I'm having a hard time writing. I am not sure why. I hope it passes. So here's a post -- a bit forced -- but a post all the same.

What have I been up to? Not much, really. Mitch and I broke up over "shorts" v. "cutoffs" ... something very substantial. Mature, isn't it? Please don't ever tell him he's wearing shorts. He'll have another heart attack.

I am going to be meeting "Clifford" this week or next or something. Cliff is a Great Pyr from the Idaho Falls shelter. He's 5 years old, and if he works out with guarding my sheep, he'll stay here. Keeping my fingers crossed. The Border Collies here are kind of lost without Jag ... who apparently was their leader of sorts. Zip, Echo and Reese ... do not bark ... at much of anything. Even when they're supposed to. They don't. It's unnerving.

I picked up a ton of my T-posts yesterday and put them out in the pasture. Took a big long roll of fencing and laid it out. I am going to line the while vinyl fence with pasture fence, but the weeds are SO bad along the white fencing, I'm going to have to wait a few days to put the fence up. My neighbor came by and sprayed the fenceline for me, so I will be able to get this taken care of. I know there are some judgmental people out there who feel I should have done this a long time ago, and who feel if it was up to them, they would have done it ten times by now ... and to them, I say, good for you. Everyone wishes they could be perfect like you.

The irrigation ... where the water comes across the foot of my driveway ... that's an interesting process. There are concrete blocks buried in the ground side by side by side, which forms a "pipe" of sorts underground right there. The problem is ... there's dirt packed firmly in there, along with roots and rocks and stuff. I've had to dig all of those concrete blocks up, line them out and spray them clean so I can put them back in and hopefully get the water flowing properly. I bought some welded wire mesh stuff to make a screen to put on either side. I imagine it will take some practice to get all this running correctly, and that's ok. The main goal for this year is getting the entire place fenced and irrigated. Yeah, that's it. That's all measley old me can do. I know there's other women out there that could have run circles around me, and would have had a full blown garden in, all pasture grass planted and probably even put in an escalator to go from the bottom of the driveway to the top, but not me. It's going to take some time, unfortunately. I wish I could be a superhero, but for now, I'll have to just live vicariously through others.

Went on a date Thursday night. Gorgeous guy, perfect gentleman ... hoping I get to see him again.

I miss Jag.

Something awful.

The dogs are all doing well, despite losing their nerve to bark. Yesterday, I took all three of them out to the irrigation canal. I started just grabbing Reese by the scruff, and making no bones about it, throwing her in the canal. It was warm enough out that if something went wrong, I had no problem jumping in and saving her. But I need to know that if she falls in, she'll be ok. And she is. Couple of times I threw her in, so went completely under water, came up without freaking out, swam to the side, got out, shook off, and continued about her way. I love this dog. So, I was hoping that some day she would just jump in after her mother or something.  Here's the VIDEO.

Hee hee ... go Reese!

Oh, I almost forgot to blog about my big trial this weekend!  Whew!  The trial at the Canyon County Fair ... it's in a huge arena ... it's got to be oh, at least 2 1/2 feet long and about 12 inches wide.  Something like that.  The sheep were like 150 years old and quite cooperative.  The course ... outrun, lift, fetch, around the post, drive, crossdrive and pen. Time and points.  The judge was one of Couch's boys.  It was nice to see everyone ... all six handlers.  Drank beer, ran dogs, in the blazing heat, then went to the Keith Anderson concert.  A fun time was had by all.  I could have done without the heat, though.  Really.  It's old now.

I'll try to post more ... and more often.  It's therapeutic in a way.

Jodi