Every Picture

Every picture tells a story!  Our fab Oneforthebook team photographer has taken some nice new pictures of the gang over the weekend. The pictures kind of tell the story.

Saturday we had a RESDA trial at Oak Springs Ranch in Santa Rosa. The weather was absolutely perfect. Coal and I ran in the Open class and his run started out OK, then disintegrated. This is becoming the story of our summer trialling season. I am ready to make some changes to get us out of the bottom of the upside-down bell curve that Coal and I are in! Anyway luckily there are no pictures of that run (mercifully). It's too bad we couldn't have fared better since it was Coal's birthday weekend. He has now turned 4 years old, which is plenty hard to believe. Coal has been such a blessing for me though and I know we will work out our trialling issues and get back on our game.

Anyway after the Open class was completed, and the sumptuous potluck consumed, we held the Pro-Novice class. I entered Rime non-compete in his first RESDA outing, just to get him some experience in a new place and on different sheep. He did OK.  The saying goes that when you take a green horse or green dog out away from home the first few times you are lucky to get 50% of the performance that you get "at home", so that is what I expected from Rime. I was pleasantly surprised and can say that he gave me probably 65% or better! I just tried to enforce his stop and keep him behind the sheep moving in the general direction of the obstacles, not staying entirely true to the course if it wasn't working for us. I did retire before attempting the pen and pushing our luck.

Rime getting ready for his first RESDA run

Rime on course at Oak Springs Ranch

The next day we got together with friends to work dogs and review the prior days' activities. I concentrated on working with Rime at a friend's place and Coal got to play setout dog for another friend from out of town who was looking for new experiences for her 2 yr old+ dog. It was a fun and relaxing day. All the dogs got a good run at the sheep field while we set out hay and filled waters for our sheep.

Chiefie after his run in the pasture with the gang

Chiefie has had some arthritis problems flare up in the past few weeks. But with some rest and anti-inflammatories, he is getting back to normal. The swelling in the tendons around his wrists has gone down and he is running more freely again. I just have to monitor his activity more carefully so that he doesn't go overboard (which he would if I didn't stop him).

The oneforthebook gang (at least part of it) setting up a chase game in the pasture

The dogs love to run while we feed hay and fill water tanks for the sheep. They have their running and chasing order and in the above photo they have stopped the action momentarily before they start again!
Photos by T. Tucker.