After morning rounds on the mountain, and then a display of some of the best dogs in Wales...what could be better than a trip to see the Rhug Estate. We drove to the Rhug, near Corwen, and met up with John Dyke, and I was so happy to finally meet him! We got some great refreshments in the bistro shop at the Rhug and talked some with John, who is a hoot! Just as I expected. :-)
Then we went to see the farm and John worked several of his dogs on some Swaledale mules. Again we were wowed by the level of training and expertise on even more of these stunning Welsh border collies. I had looked forward to finally seeing John's eight year old Taff in person, and I was not disappointed. He is a Laddie (Derek Scrimgeour) son and looks a lot like him. Taff is the whole package. In looks he is somewhat like my Spot but he is a whole lot more confident than my Spot. John is very proud of Taff, as he should be! We were shown a lot of other dogs and it was interesting to see them all... some are trial dogs as well as farm working dogs...and some have roles at the farm but do not have the high level of reliability and partnership to be able to be successful trial dogs. Luckily, there are many jobs at the farm for the dogs and it takes several dogs to do all the work that they have with the sheep there. John gave us his description of a Fell dog... a long legged, forward dog, who seeks out sheep even when he can't see them... a "lurcher" style dog... much like Taff or Derek's old Laddie, Taff's father.
At the end of this very full day, we drove back to our caravan, ate leftovers out of the fridge and contemplated what a wonderful time we were having! Tomorrow...we would go to the famed Bala Dog Sale! We had printouts of the sale catalog and we had already marked the dogs that we especially wanted to see...given input from everyone we had talked with in Wales about them. No intentions to buy...but just to see and look!
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| on the farm at Rhug |
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| Farm buildings at the Rhug...a mix of old and new... |
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