Puppies and trials

The puppies are here! Four boys and one girl, born Jan 9th, all healthy and fat. I can't wait to get my hands on them and i know already i'm going to have a devil of a time picking one. It's probably a good thing they're 3-4 hours from me or i'd be curled up with them myself.

We're going to have a couple of trials at the farm this spring to raise money for ovarian cancer research and to cover some feed costs. Since i'm not lambing this year, the sheep have to pay their own way in a different manner than usual. It'll be a lot of fun and hopefully fill a niche as there aren't many trials around in the spring, and fewer and fewer all the time for the novice handlers and dogs. Entry forms are on my website at www.sheepdogsonline.com

Zeke had a less than stellar debut at the Edgeworth winter trial last weekend. He didn't quite know what to make of those zippy katahdin lambs. But he mostly kept his cool and i think it was good for him. I saw lots i liked anyway, as he was very serious about the whole thing, spotting his sheep nicely even though they blended into the terrain. He was very focused when it came time to run even though he was Mr Party Boy waiting around to go. He really cracks me up sometimes. I'm surprised he didn't get whiplash from whipping his head around taking in all of the people and dogs standing around. Big goofball.



Plans have changed a bit here and we won't be doing the TX trip after all, just too many miles and too many days off work. Instead i'm going to pack the dogs up and head to the Suwannee SDT in FL for some (hopefully) warm days in mid February. In addition to Zac and Bill in the Open, I'm planning to run Zeke in Nursery and thinking he'll be ready by then. If things go really well between now and then, i may even take a deep breath and try Moon in PN. We'll see!