Hi! I have been so busy i havent had time to do much computer stuff. Mom and me have been getting ready for all the trials coming up this fall. We have been going to lessons with Suzy. I go for a run every night so i can get in better shape. We go work sheep and practice and practice. I cant wait for the trials.... you know why.... I get to get sheep!!!!! YAY!!!!
We have been to some trials. We went to paso robles to the mid state fair trial. Those dumb lambs were hard to work! They had no respect for us border collies and some of them even got bit. HA HA dumb sheep. We also went to the scottish games in pleasanton. That was so much fun! I got to see men in kilts and lots of people petted me.
Anyways, i need to go get busy doing something. I am gonna try some thing new and put up a pic my mom's friend took of me. I hope you like it!
as you all probably know by now my mom got a puppy. it was back in february but mom's computer broke so i am just now getting to tell you about it. and, boy oh boy, do i have somethings to tell you! i really think she has lost her mind... why would she want a puppy when all she needs is me?
his name is Jig and i don't really like him. when he first came he was 3 months old and had absolutley no manners at all. mom says he was good boy and such a gentleman (can you see me rolling my eyes?) mom is always making a big deal of him. telling everybody what a good puppy he is and how easy he is to teach things to. (shes gone loopy in the head) good thing i am not the jealous type. he walks on a leash. SO! he rides in the car. SO! he is potty trained. NOT! he doesnt jump on people. SO! he sleeps in the crate all night and doesnt whine. SO SO SO SO SO!!! mom is always making such a big deal of him. it is enough to drive a dog to chase her tail!!
one of the first things he did was pee in the house! i know! disgusting, right? he jumps on me, rude, huh? (obviously he does not realize that I am the Princess Queen Bitch Border Collie). i always bite him on the nose to put him in his place but the dumb butt just keeps getting in my face and irritating me. when he first got here he couldnt even jump in the truck by himself. mommy mommy lift me up. give me a break! i think he is a suck up. and my mom still thinks hes great. (she is now officially koo koo for cocoa pops)
he is always running after me and pulling my tail and biting some of my hair out. i tried at first to scold him and tell him to stop but he keeps on doing it. the dude is not too bright. so now i mostly ignore him but he gets on my nerves. I am telling you that pup is one sheep short of a flock.
and then the very worst thing happened.. i am talking end-of-the-world-evil-bad. we went to work sheep with my mom's friend Eddy and his dogs, Shelia and Joe (i think Joe is kinda cute). of course, the little brat comes along as always. so i get to work sheep and watch the other dogs work. its fun like always. we work on driving and pace and shedding(my favorite thing). and then..... da da dummmmmm ... the evil-bad-earth-shattering thing happens.... mom ties me to the fence and takes Jig into the arena with all the sheep in it. Seriously?!? first im shocked, then i am kinda mad about it. how dare she? here she is telling me that i am her best girl and she loves me sooooo much and she ties ME to the fence. then i start laughing my head off... thinking what the heck is wrong with my mom??? has she gone crazy? i mean, can you imagine? that little pain in the arse trying to do what a border collie does? come on!! he cant even run right with those silly long legs of his. as much as i hate to, I do have to admit he did pretty good. for a dumb puppy, that is.
she seemed really happy when she and the brat were done. i guess that part is ok cause you all know i am all about seeing my mom happy! but now i suppose that that pain in the pup is gonna go work sheep with us all the time. YUK!
Honestly? between you and me... i think mom has lost her milk-bones.
There comes a special time... we have all been there a time or two. We struggle, pray, fight, work and try with all our might to reach it. It only comes a few times in our life if we are very lucky. And only if you have that certain connection, that special bond, that once in a life time partnership, that one certain being that you can come together with and trust with your heart, mind and soul.
I have that with my Cait. We know each other. There have been a very few times when the world melts away and everything becomes peaceful, quiet and calm. A grassy field, a few sheep, her and I. We go to that special place and it happens... a single, small pinpoint of focus. It's far too rare and elusive. A certain time in space when Cait and I are one.
She is in my head as I am in hers. Stillness in our minds as they unite. There is no battle of wills, no indecision, no hesitation. Only unison and a single purpose.
I feel her body tight with anticipation as she waits for the one sound from me that will shoot her from my feet like a race horse out of the starting gate. She feels when I want her to take one step or two. She knows when I make a mistake and she is there to correct it before I am even aware of it. She feels me breath in to whistle but it is too late because she knows what I want and is doing it. We feel the grass whip across our belly as we run to cut off that bad ewe that is trying to escape... we look her in the eye and she knows not to try us. At times there is no need for a command from me, she is there where I want her... with just a thought in my head
And then, alas, it ends. The world bleeds back into our little moment. Our time of quiet beauty is over. There is a sense of accomplishment. A time like no other and might never be again.
We walk off the field... no one the wiser.
She sees the happiness in my eyes and I see a twitch of her tail, that strut in her walk and her little smile that says that'll do, pard.
I reach down to touch her as she lifts her head to meet my hand.
A certain moment when everything fits and is perfect.
My Cait and I.
Mom has been on the computer a lot lately so this is the first chance i have had to write and tell you more stuff.... she has been looking for a puppy.... YUK!!! i dont know why she wants a puppy. but more about that later.
i know when i first started this i introduced myself but you know what? i forgot to introduce my mom.... sometimes i forget things like that cause i am busy doing important border collie stuff.
mom wanted to work with sheepdogs cause she likes dogs, especially border collies. so she went to talk to that guy Guido (he is a famous sheepdog guy). he helped her find a dog to start with. that was Zeke. then i came along and the rest, as they say, is history!
she is a veterinary technician and works at a very busy animal hospital. sometimes she comes home late at night from work. sometimes she comes home from work and she is grouchy cause she had a bad day. and sometimes she is happy cause one of her animals at work got better. and sometimes she is crying. when she is sad or had a bad day i go sit on her lap and give her a big hug to let her know i love her no matter what and it makes her feel much, much better.
sometimes she brings animals that are hurt or sick and helps them get better. that way i get to meet alot of new dogs (and sometimes cats, UGH). when they get better they go back to their people or she finds a new home for them.
some of the dogs i like and some i dont...
there was a puppy named Bart. i didnt like him cause he chewed on my dog house and he dug a hole in the yard... we all called him Bart the fart
Lunatic Luna came and stayed with us while she was looking for a new person. my gosh she could jump really high!
Rocky, the crazy border collie lab mix, also came while he was looking for a new place to live. mom didnt like him much cause he knocked down her cool old dog Willie.
Peaches and her puppies... she had kidney failure, poor girl. she stayed with us a month. Mom got up a lot at night to take care of her and the puppies... she got better and lived for another year with her family! all cause my mom worked so hard to make her well. when the puppies come into her work they all are grown up now and it makes her happy.
Dotty came here too and never left. I guess she is ok.... she is kinda weird. I like to chase her and pretend i am gonna beat her up. but what she doesnt know is that i never would ;) Dotty likes to hang out with the lambs and she lets them chase her... can you imagine???
mom still has her horses. she used to show them, she showed reining horses and cow horses and halter horses. she said it was very expensive to show so she quit. but thats good for me cause that way we get to go to more trials and, yep, you guessed it!!! GET SHEEP!!
we live on a 80 acre ranch with lots of farm land around... we go for walks and we get to run for miles and miles and miles... or she rides the bike and we get to run for miles and miles and miles or she rides a horse and we get to run for miles ans miles and miles.
she works hard. she loves us all very much and she takes good care of us. she bought a bigger truck so i could ride in the back seat. she gets mad when people tell her she is crazy for having so many dogs. but you know what? i dont see them rescuing and fostering and helping dogs that need it. so i really think they should just mind their own business! (sorry, but i get mad when people say mean things about my mom, it hurts her feelings. i would growl at them but i am way too polite to do that!) after all... i am just another one of her rescue kids.
my mom is pretty good. i love her and i always try to be a good girl for her.
Hi there! Cait is still working on her next blog. She won't tell me what it's about. She said it should be ready soon and in the mean time she said I could write something again... she is such a good girl!
I guess it's inevitable... at the close of the year you look back over the past 12 months and reflect on your accomplishments, defeats and your life in general. You look forward to the new year and make plans, set goals and hope. There are lots of great moments and it's hard to pick just a couple. But as I look back over the past year, and see how far my little Cait and I have traveled, four events stand out in my mind...
First was in February when Cait got the SJVBCA Novice Top Dog award for 2009. We received a nice jacket from the club. I had already moved her up into Pro Novice and we had been to a trial or two and not done very well. But receiving the award made me think back on our first trial in January 2009... when I was so nervous and forgot most of my flanks and Cait was so wild the sheep just ran around me in circles... to the last Novice trial in October where I was able to stand at the post and drive the whole course. During lunch when I received the jacket with every one telling me to put on the jacket and I remember my hands shaking so bad that I couldn't even unzip the darn thing.
Second was the invitational SDT at the Mid State Fair in Paso Robles. I had been lucky the year before and had been invited as a filler, with Zeke, because all the Big Hats were at another trial trying to qualify for the national finals in Klamath Falls. I got invited back and of course Cait was the dog to go. I was nervous because we would be competing against big time handlers with open dogs (here I was a novice with my 2 year old dog and there were dogs there that had competed at the National finals!! Scary, I tell you!) It would be our first arena trial and I knew the sheep would be light and with pushy, speedy Cait it could have been a disaster. We got to do our first competitive sheds and single and we nailed them! My goal for the day was to make it in the top 10 so we could move onto the final round. We did! Everything went well during the second go except a little bobble by me during the single... I got flustered and Cait felt that but we finally got it. You can really tell on the video when I started to get nervous you can see Cait get quicker and tighter... just goes to show how much your dog feeds off of you and your emotions. I think this was the most fun trial of the year for me. Everyone was very complimentary and thought Cait was a really nice dog. I even had several handlers come up to me and tell me that we should have placed higher than we did. WOW!! I was just happy to be there and make it to the top 10.
Third was the Pleasanton Scottish Games. We had never been to a timed obstacle trial and I really had no idea what to expect. The whole weekend was a crazy, loud, nerve wracking time. I was pretty nervous but my little girl came through and saved me... yet again. Everyone was so nice. The spectators were there in droves and they all wanted to talk and pet the dogs. Cait was in her element there... she is a sponge when it comes to soaking up attention! What really hit home for me that weekend was when Cait and I are working the sheep everything else disappears... the bagpipes, the drums, the heat, the millions of people, the screaming kids, time, everything. All that is there is Cait, the sheep, the obstacles and the strategies I have worked out in my head. We won a belt buckle at the trial.. my first ever dog one. I can tell you that, for some reason, I am more proud of that one buckle than all the horse ones put together.
Fourth was the Porterville Fall Driving Trial.... the trial I wrote about last time. A large part of our success was the luck of the draw... we just happened to get sets that wanted to move. (That and the fact that my friend, Judy, set out during my runs and she told the sheep that a bad ass little bitch was coming up the field to get them and they better get their cute fluffy butts moving!) Whatever it was I felt Cait and I walked away from that trial with a even better partnership than ever. And I learned to ALWAYS think positive!
Looking to 2011... My plans are to get an additional dog to trial with. Make more progress with Cait. I feel like I really need to step up my game, as I am the weak one on the team. Cait always gives me 110% and any mistakes she makes is from trying so hard. Moving her and I up to Open is always on the back of my mind but I feel we both need more experience and miles under our belts. Hopefully, we can make it to a lot of trials, work lots of different types of sheep and learn and learn and learn!
Hi! its me Cait! my mom said i have to work on opening up my flanks so i can't post anything this week. she has some stuff to say. i told her she needed to get her whistles more consistent and maybe she didnt have time to post either but she never listens to me!
so i will turn it over to her.......
I am a big believer in trying to move forward and improve in my life. Staying at a stand still or moving backwards depresses me.
This was a lesson I learned two fold at a trial a few weeks ago.
The sheep were tuff... they had never been worked by dogs before. They were not mean or agressive but would just stand and look at your dog. Sometimes they would walk toward the dog and try to figure out what the strange, little black and white things were.
Cait did not do well with this. Friday when the sheep were unloaded from the truck to wander around in the field... Caitie got to keep them from wandering too far. She was a bit overwhelmed. She would hold her ground til they came toward her and then off she would go.So all weekend I went back and forth between pulling her from the trial and letting her have a go at it. My reasoning.... I didn't want her to have a bad time of it... she had not been on these kind of sheep much before and I wanted to be able to work with her to build her confidence more before I tried to run her on them. I DID NOT want them to go after her or fight her or scare her. We got a few chances to help move the sheep to back and forth form the pasture to the trial field and I helped her as much as I could.... also at the set out pen we got to move them in smaller groups.
Trial morning rolls around and I am still undecided. I am out at the set out pen and my mind is going around and around. What my heart and what my mind are telling me are two completely different things. Finally, I think... what the heck??? Give it a try. I can always call her off and go help her.
It comes our turn... I am running late for cause I had to hike from the set out to my truck to get Cait and then back to the trial field. No more time to sit and watch and worry, just walk up to the field and it's our turn. Up to the post and then off she goes... I have half a minute to continue worrying and then...... HERE COME THE SHEEP! I didn't blow her down at the top cause I wanted her going in a quick as possible, no creeping up to the sheep to give them time to stand and face her. The fetch is not pretty but I let it go cause what is important to me right now is that the sheep keep moving... I don't want to flank her too far and get her up in their eye to give them cause to stop.
I retired her during the drive, after the sheep slowed down they decided they didn't want to move. That's ok... we accomplished what we set out to do... we moved the sheep and, hopefully, Cait gained some confidence with these kind of sheep. The next run was better! We completed the course and did quite well.
So the moral of the story? Actually there are several. The most important... trust my dog, she always comes through for me. Let her run and get the experience. Give her the chance to prove herself. At least to the best of her ability. We learn from our failures... they show what we need to work on.
And, of course, by letting her run... we moved forward. A very important goal in my life. I didn't let my fears, doubts and insecurities get the best of me and I let my dog do what she loves best. That, to me, is moving forward. When you don't do what's in your heart and believe in yourself (and your dog)... that is not really living your life it's just existing.
Hi! its me Cait, again. i met you last time. i wanted to tell you about the first trial i ever competed in.
i was about 1 1/2 years old then and i was still learning about how to be a good sheep dog. (my person was just learning about sheepdog stuff too and i had to help her sometimes. shes kinda slow. but she tries hard so i have to have alot of patience) we had worked and practiced to get ready for the trial and we were both excited about going.
when we got there she told me that Zeke was going to go first in the big dog class. then my class would be later in the day... i didnt like it too much i was ready to go!! i was not very nervous but my mom was... alot! so i got a good nap in so i could be all ready to go.
i watched Zeke and he did great... as always. he is a very cool dude!
it was my turn and my person was so nervous her legs were shaking and she was about to throw up!
EEWWWW! good thing she didnt tell me all this til later.
i dont remember much about the run cause i was so excited. she sent me on my outrun. i ran down to get the sheep quick as i could!!
GO GO GO GO!!! SHEEP! SHEEP! SHEEP!! YAY!!! YIPPEEEEEE!!!! SHHEEEEEPPPP!!!!!!!!
i brought the sheep to her fast i could, it wasn't very straight cause the sheep were going soooo fast and i forgot to lie down when she told me and i wouldnt take the flank to get them straight. im sorry, but it was all so very crazy!! the sheep were running fast and i had to keep up. we went through the panels and i was in a hurry cause i was so excited.... i think it was cause my person was too. the sheep kept going around and around her... and i had to lay down alot. then we took the sheep to the pen, a little quick footwork and in they went. YAY!!!! WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!
it was over so fast! my mom picked me up in front of everybody and gave me a big hug!! I think she was crying too. it was a little silly but i put up with it cause i love her.
she was very proud of me and i was proud of her too cause she didnt throw up and embarrass us both.
that nice lady, Sally, gave my person a big compliment and told her that i was a good dog and i was going places. the judge, Bill, told my person some things we should work on for next time. then we got to do it again!!! WOW this is FUN!
and you know what? we got FIRST PLACE!!!! now i dont really care about that but it i was happy cause my person was proud of me and everyone told her what a good dog i was and that made her very very happy.
we got to come back the next day and do it again. two times! and you know what?!?!? we got first again!!
i think i like this trial thing! and you know the very best thing about it?..... i get to get sheep!!!!
