Sunday, October 12, 2008

A Trio of Characters

It's nice having three dogs. Four dogs is a lot for one person to handle and two seems like too few. Three is just a nice number, at least for now.

Isn't this a nice looking dog?


And this one is pretty nice, too.

But what about this? Scary!


We've heard of the Headless Horseman for Halloween, but until now, not the Headless Rubber Chicken. Yikes! The trio of characters have had a busy past few days this week. Bid and Chief saw their fabulously talented doggie chiropractor. Bid was pronounced fit as a fiddle and in great weight and muscle tone, only needing minor adjustments. Chief had not been adjusted for about a year; he has problems that are chronic and ongoing but should not keep him from very light work. Chief does not tolerate being adjusted very well but we got it done. My hat is off to our chiropractor who is such a good sport about Chief's reluctance to be handled.

Saturday we went to a ranch in Elk Grove for herding practice in a different location. That was most welcome and quite fun. Bid has worked there before, but Coal had never run out the length of the field at this particular ranch. So we worked on outruns and driving. It seemed to be quite productive as Coal gained in confidence as we went along. Bid appeared to be in fine form. We have a USBCHA trial there in two weeks...fingers crossed.

Today we participated in the last RESDA trial of the year, up in Mendocino County. I wish we had a better report, but in fact Coal did not see the sheep due to the tall grass and a rise in the field which hid them from view, especially at dog level. Several of the less experienced dogs had this same problem. We were able to go exhaust the sheep and I hope Coal got something positive out of that. Bid was kind enough to run out on faith for me and bring me the sheep; however, we ended up retiring at the pen as I was running "out of dog". It has been a long day and this is where we are all headed:


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