Away we go...

Zach the intern and one of the bunnies

This week we are off to another dog trial. This time our travels take us to Tremonton Utah. The dogs are still ill prepared due to the distance issues, but what the heck we need practice. I am not sure how the young dogs will do on the infamous "range ewe's" but it will be good experience! Ron will also have 2 runs in the Pro-Novice; it's a good chance for him to get more practice (I think this is his 4th. time to the post) Hopefully this time we will have service and so we an update things as we go along. We have agreed to do a bunny transport for a friend. She raises show bunnies and needed to get them as far as Utah. We have agreed to do it and...well at least they won't bark! 
Every summer we have a ranch hand "intern" join us. Before we hit the road Zach has 17 chickens to butcher.  This year Zach will also make the trip to Utah. Part of his work will be helping out with dogs along the road and working in the set out pens when we are at the trial.

Our friend was nice enough to send rabbits that match

Don't bless this on anyone..Fightin the fight...God bless her soul

And the love began..Callie (aka DOSHI for calidocious)and I are very close.

 

I imported Callie in November of 2008. She is a royally bred little dog (my first and last import). Callie was a dog that I started before a year of age on the sheep.  Callie was so keen and so tough and so hard. She could easily work 2 hours straight with no drink (still going FULL SPEED) her talent was evident but the extraction was tough. Callie has hundreds of hours of training, she was so  difficult she became an obsession to get trained (even though there were easier youngster sitting in the kennel ready to go) I was finally breaking through (or what I thought  I was breaking thru) Nope I guess I wasn’t breaking through…come to find out she was dying.  In late September I noticed Callie had a "little cough" like so minute you could barely notice the throat clear. I ignored the little cough thinking dust, whatever. One day I was working her, and I thought to myself and asked myself “does she always breathe like this?” I had never heard that kind of breathing from her (trust me she and I have had a lot of hours of breathing, me breathing and her breathing).  I made an appointment with the vet.  Next question how do you tell the vet the dog isn’t breathing right on the field after 2 hours of work?  Does any dog breathe right after 2 hours of work..well Callie did.  Immediately the doctor took a chest x ray, the heart looked BIG and the lungs worse. My vet Dr. Hampel took one look at the pictures and said “this looks like Valley Fever”..HUH? STUNNED..I said there is no way, we don’t have that here..Well the next step is a fungal titer..10 days of questioning there is no way in hell she has valley fever…I just spent $700.00  for nothing..until the phone rang. Yes Callie is positive for valley fever…SILENCE. Valley  fever? Are you sure? That was 8 months ago. What is valley fever? Valley fever is a fungal spore that the dog sniffs up. Where did she get it? God knows, is it contagious NO..The battle starts..The regiment is Anti-fungal medication…the side affects are vast.  We have gone along as a "mid-grade" illness the titer was 1:16 (which mean it took the lab 16 times to dilute the fungus and get rid of it)..was she the worst case no, but progressively she has gotten worse. The vets can't help but think due to being an import she has no natural immunity to this at all...Titer numbers are beginning to mean nothing symptoms means everything. For 8 months this dog has not left my side...she was restricted from work right away, she was put back on work duty after the restriction didn't do a thing...Mentally she is okay as long as she does not lay eyes on a moving sheep. She is a fairly quiet girl for the most part unless there are sheep. I have spent hours teaching her tricks only for her to feel so poorly she cannot preform. All I wanted to do was trial her once. After getting valley fever I knew her carer would be shorter than normal. At our trial in December Callie felt good enough to run 1 day at our trial in the Nursery. She won the class with a score of 70 (the only highlight of her career) I was proud as a peacock  that day my baby had risen from the ashes to trial just once and  we could put all the hours in motion!

I don't love this pond but I'll go cause you asked me to!

 So 8 months into this (not supposedly deadly disease) Callie has lost 4 lbs. in a month in a half and she cannot breathe. The medication makes her so sick she won't eat. We cook for her and she is allowed to eat whatever she wants.  Her titer number looks good however we are battling some sort of secondary infection. (mind you every time she wheezes differently she is in the vet to check for pneumonia). her breathing has gotten progressively worse. Her breathing is so bad at rest is sounds like she just ran 5 miles. Today was our breakthrough. Her breathing has hit the all time low (for badness) I made her an appt. and when the vet walked in there was 2 minutes of silence (between her and I) all Dr. Hampel was doing was listening to Callie suck for air.  Vet response" She sounds like she has heart failure"  I said well something is failing..we have to figure this out. So 3 hours of tests we come to the conclusion we are going to have to risk killing her to hopefully get her better. The prescribed medication is Prednisone...which is an absolute NO with valley fever. Valley fever cases can have NO immune suppressants only Anti-fungal meds. The start of pred. not only means we are playing with fire but it means no anti-fungal meds. The specialist in Arizona recommends this regiment for 5 days and says if we kill this dog, well she wouldn't have lived anyhow and we need to try.  With a heavy heart and a big sigh I go with the vet(s). We have to do something and the reality is I know this. We are going a "very risky" route says the doc. I respond I know, but Callie and I are willing to try. The alternative is we throw in the towel, Callie hasn't thrown  it in so all be damned if I am. So here we are the start of the 5 day regiment starts today, the good news is Callie might actually eat, the bad news is if nothing changes...well we cross that bridge when it comes. For now Callie has the best of health care, the best of food from prime rib to whatever she feels like eating, to all the kisses and love and pets from Ron and I that any dog could ever want.

Ready mom?

Gardner extraordinaire...you want to water?

Since she cannot work she has adopted a new habit...usually such behavior would never be allowed..but she decided gardening with mom is her new obsession! 

 Besides being a hard ass on the sheep and having more work ethic than most...you can see she is just a cool dog, very easy to love and that's just what we are doing. Thanks everyone for your kind words, Ron, Callie and I really appreciate all the love.

Not the norm..but just as rewarding..well almost!

Aren't I cute Jesse?

Every couple of years the sheltie rescue group of San Diego contacts me for a group instinct test. Well as much grief as I take from my peers I always agree to do it. I would NOT do it if it were a group of AKC showdog fanciers, but this is far from that. A lot of these little dogs, started in a rough spot. They have been taken in by rescue, rehabilitated and re-homed. So this weekend was the weekend we had 20 or so shelties to instinct test! 

Really how can you resist me?

We had to modify a pen to work them in because as most of you know, I do not have round pens and arena's, I generally start all dogs in the field. Soooo we modified the round pen, we used 3 sheep at a time,  we had water, we had shade, all in all we set it up as if we were having a miniature dog trial. I use a border collie in the pen at the same time. This year I was just not sure who I could use, I am strapped with young dogs that don't need stimulation, and Ron's dogs 1 which is sore and the other which is Jesse. I used Patrick's Rylee most of the day (who was great) and I used Jesse. The shelties are notorious for pinning the sheep on the fence and well that's just that. A lot of the shelties have plenty of instinct to chase, not necessarily to herd. Their people just want to see their dogs do something, therefore I do not push the envelope for perfection.. Why? Because the little one's will lose their spirit, and it's really not important. These people that own these dogs will never herd sheep, it's just all about a fun day for the meet up group. We had a really grand time withe the people, and the dogs. All but 1 dog did something...that was really cool!! It will be 2 more years before I see them again, but it feels good to know that Ron and I made their day, dogs and humans alike!

By FAR..one of the best we have seen...

Camping at Dry Lake

 A 1750 mile round trip journey to the Dry Lake Trial (run by Geri Byrne) was by far one of the greatest trial fields we have seen. The field is several THOUSAND acres surrounded by trees and scrub brush. The camping was absolutely great!! The setting of the trial goes without saying "BREATHTAKING"!

Sly first up in Open

I drew up first in the running order with Sly...let me tell you I was a nervous wreck. The sheep were set at 650 yards and was a basic run of the mill(YEAH RIGHT) outrun. The sheep were insight to the handler but to the dog...not so much. Sly reached wide off the left side on the outrun, flew passed the set out and stopped to have a look around (in her mind I was hearing...I know they are out here somewhere) she took a quick glance and off she went. Sly came up about 11 o'clock..and yep she was right as the sheep broke right to her and sideways down the field. She gave the wrong ground on the sheep, thinking bigger was better instead of hugging the pressure and coming forward...the sheep felt the great escape...she had left a big hole enough for them to take up the slack...and that they did. We got that squared away forward the sheep came...although the fetch was lost Sly did a great job around the course, with good finish work. Score was a 65...but after watching the rest of the Open and seeing the dogs struggle on the outrun (good dogs were crossing) I was really happy with Sly. Needless to say in Open 1 Soot was one of the dogs that fell into the outrun trouble. She went out great was staying out great, but about 620 yards she thought she was just about there...making a right turn crossed her 30 yards in front of the sheep she was as shocked as I was and was unable to get her head back until the drive.I must say old faithful became unfaithful for a moment in time! She is allowed a mistake or two!!

Soot Pen Day #2 Open

 Day 2 yielded a much better return for us. Soot was up 5th in the run order. I sent off the same way, gave a quick stop/re-direct (in other words bought insurance). I would risk the slight deduction to get a clean start! Soot went correct, the sheep were determined to go back..but Soot (my top end girl) got them with no problem and brought them on a straight as a dime silent gather. Score was 85 to win the day!! Sly had another solid go, only for me to let her down in the shedding ring a 77 would put her right out of the points. During the course of the trial we endured a variety of weather conditions.

Snow starting to fall

 There was drizzle, rain, snow, sleet, wind lots of wind..so to say we weren't scared for our nursery dogs is an understatement to say the least. My nursery dogs are not competitive yet, although this trial proved to be both good and bad for them. Lace was my star in round 1, although she started out a bit crazily I got her under wraps and we posted a decent score of 71. Suede...let's just say the wheels fell off right from the start and ended him in a DQ. Round 2 nursery Suede actually looked trained, and Lace's wheels fell off right out of the gate! Her outrun was not great landing her in a bad spot on the top, which then gave the sheep the idea they should run to the let out as fast as possible (which they did) I took the walk of shame to get the scattered group and scatter brained dog for that matter!! (By the way the wind was blowing 50 mph in our faces).

Ron had a couple tough goes in the Pro-Novice. He is running veteran dogs, but is still trying to pair up with Sweep. His outwork on both goes was great, Ron missed a flank at the post with Sweep and the sheep ran up against the fence. Sweep refused to get them off the fence and so Ron retired. Ron set Jesse off and she too had great outwork, around the post and off on the drive. The dogs claimed to have been hard of hearing (I am not so sure they could or couldn't hear but the majority of the class had trouble on the drive away) Ron had a lot of difficulty stopping Jesse and she circled the sheep Ron decided to retire when he couldn't get Jesse on her drive line. Still Ron got good experience running his good dogs and had a great time!

We had a great trip all in all, it was good to get out and about to a trial that we had not been to. The people are so friendly in the "State of Jefferson". This trial is on the "do again" list for sure. Thanks Geri and crew for such a wonderful event!!! (p.s. Now I know why Geri laughed at me when I asked her if we could get our 40 foot trailer in to camp)!!!!