October 09
Lambing Blogs: April 08* April 08 Part 2* May 08
June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08
January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 September 09
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5th October All running
Cloud is going quite well now. I'm not doing much with her as she isn't
even a year yet and it's far too early to run her hard for the sake of her
joints if nothing else. She is going both ways however and now calls off,
which is nice! She has plenty of power and push, so hopefully everything else
will be there too.
Tess is keen and there are a lot of nice things there. It's all still to do, but there's a lot of nice natural stuff already in there! She calls off well.
No photos or videos of Rhu on sheep as he is too much of a hooligan. I took him out for the first time today and at first I didn't think he was going to run. I was wrong, once he got going he was as keen as mustard! He is just a wee guy (5 months) but he is bold and brave so far so time will tell how he shapes up.
I was trialing on Saturday with Ffi and Mist. Mist was running on the strong side (nothing new there then) but we got finished. I managed to miss both gates tho which is not much use really. Ffi had a bad packet who took off to see their mates in the next field, the judge asked if I was happy to take them, which I was, and told me to fetch them straight from where I'd lifted them. I think it might have gone better if Ffi had had to put them back on line as they were quite cheeky and when we got to the pen the same ewe who was leading the charge was not inclined to go in. It was also really windy and the pen gate was large and heavy, it was really difficult to keep the pen gate open and give the dog any help at all.
Considering they are getting less of my time and not enough work, I really can't complain. Not long til we are back at work, they are no doubt counting down the days.
8th October Beautiful girlies
We were at Cocklicks Open trial this weekend. I got finished with Mist but missed the drive gates and it wasn't particularly tidy, not all Mist's fault, she was her usual pushy self but also against us was the fact we had three texel cross ewes and a little piggy beltex cross ewe. Little piggy did well to go round the whole course as her leggier pals wanted to go at a rather faster pace than she did, she stopped at one point and let them run on, so I put the leggy models back to her and brought her very carefully to the pen. I was glad to get finished without her having a sit down! I learnt my lesson with the tricky cross drive gate which had tripped a few people up (looked like you were bang on til you missed it!) and when we left at lunch time I was leading with Ffi on 89. I knew there was a good chance we'd be knocked right out of the prize list however we ended up 3rd. Bobby Dalziel won with his Scottish National Champion Joe, on 93. Probably the last trial I'll be at this year so I was pleased to finish on a high note and actually hit all the wood (get all the gates/pen etc), something which has eluded me most of this year!