Jumpin Boots

This year the USBCHA National Sheepdog finals are back in Alturas, CA, September 24-29. We have a fun new way to be involved this year by guessing what the cut-off will be for the open class. If you’re interested in making a guess, the donation is $10, of which you could win half the pot back! You don’t need to know anything about herding to to make an educated guess! For more info please see the link below. Thanks for your support! https://www.sheepdogfinals.org/open-point-cut-off

Sorry, didn't mean to post 3 times, Internet connections are trying over here at times, admin, please feel free to delete extra posts ☺

The 2017 World Trial has begun in the Netherlands. Today and tomorrow are the qualifying rounds. 3 fields, each handler gets 1 run. The top 7 from each day and each field will move onto the semi finals on Saturday. There was a parade yesterday and opening ceremonies inviting 30 (I think) countries to the trial. Many of us are individually posting photos, etc. You can also visit the Washington Association of Stockdog Handlers fb page for photos. Here's a link to scores. http://wkschapendrijven.nl/scores/

See this link of Nutrisource that is pulling from Chewy due to the buy-out. Will be interesting to see if other pet food companies follow suite. http://www.nutrisourcepetfoods.com/nutrisource/chewy-com-statement/ Also, PetSmart is associated w/ HSUS, which has close ties to PETA; something to keep in mind if you choose to support them. We've been ordering through Chewy and have been very please with the service and products, however, won't be ordering from them anymore.

This website answers a lot of basic questions. http://www.littlehats.net/

I'm in the PNW and have a wet yard w/ poor drainage. I recently laid down straw and am very happy with the results. I did a 10-15' arc around the front of the house where the dogs come in and it is helping a ton. It acts like a door mat and does a great job wiping their feet off before they come in. Don't get me wrong, there is still mud, but a fraction of what there was prior to the straw. I'll be putting out a second bale around the back door in the next few days. Thought about wood chips, but decided the straw would be easier to pick up once the sun returns and the straw doesn't seem to be getting mixed into the mud as much as I think the chips would have.

Dave Imas is in that area too. He has a great winter one day clinic series going, this Sunday is the Drive Away clinic. http://www.catbirdstockdogs.com/

I tortured the boys two years ago into being a ghost and a magician, didn't last long, they weren't real impressed

Another great resource for hearing lots of different whistles is the video membership with Catbird Video (there is a link listed in the video section of the bc boards). Gives you the opportunity to hear the whistles of many top handlers while they are working their dogs, great to whistle along to as well. Plus you can learn lots about trial handling from the videos.

My entry is in the mail! Looking forward to it.

Good mojo from the PNW.

My dog has a tattoo on his inner thigh with his litter ID from his CBCA papers. It's not easy to read and has been overgrown with hair, so I would not rely on it being a good id system. But I do think tattooing spay scars is a great idea and should always be done.

Please see the below quote from the USBCHA website regarding allowing AKC herding judges to judge the sheepdog finals. If you are concerned about this contact your local board member and voice your concerns. There is a very good discussion on fb in the district one group going on as well. "2016 Judge Nominees: The BOD passed a motion modifying the rule that prohibits AKC judges from judging USBCHA National Finals to state that AKC Confirmation judges are not eligible to judge,but AKC Herding judges who are not Confirmation judges may be nominated. The nominees to judge the 2016 USBCHA National Sheepdog Finals are: Andrew Dickman, Johnny Robinson, Patrick Shannahan, Joyce Geier, Michael Gallagher, Charlie Torre, Ray Edwards, George Northrup and Terry Parrish. Board members of both the USBCHA and the ABCA will vote on the nominees by between February 1 and February 28, 2016. If you have comments, you are welcome to contact a Board member."

The third person on the list has been banned, correct? I'm a little surprised his name isn't * with a comment below stating that or having a link to the list of banned breeders on the page with the list. Might make it a bit more obvious for people to really look into someone, especially someone off the list.

Timber and I are looking forward to round two! This is a great mini-clinic series, I would highly recommend other local trainers in their areas to offer similar one day clinics for local students; this is a great educational opportunity at an affordable price and not as intimidating as some of the bigger clinics can be. Thank you Dave for putting these together! And to Tip for the miles of pasture covered

In early December Timber became obsessed with Renoir's hind end area. To the point the boys got in a few scrums, which prior to this has only happened a time or two over the 3-1/2 years we've had Timber. A small mass ended up being found in one of his anal gland sac's and after an fna the mass was confirmed as anal gland adenocarcinoma. While, this is not good news, and this form of cancer is rather aggressive, early detection is key. Renoir's calcium levels are still completely within normal limits, and neither radio-graphs or ultrasound showed any metastasis to his chest/abdomen/lymph-nodes. We saw an oncology specialist yesterday, who was wonderful and gave a great layout of our options. The next step is surgery, then once the pathology report comes back, we can decide whether to pursue radiation and/or chemotherapy. Thank goodness for pet insurance! I just wanted to share this to encourage people to watch their dogs and if you have multiple dogs, keep an eye on their interactions. Take note if there is a change in their interactions and consider whether it could be from a medical change in one of the dogs. At this point Renoir is showing no symptoms or signs of disease; the average age this is detected in dogs is 10.5 years, Renoir is 8 years 10 months old. Many times the mass is caught when it is either bulging out the back of the anus, during annual rectal exams by a dvm, or the dog begins to have difficulty passing bowel movements. Good boy Timber!

This website has wraps and weights. http://www.canineicer.com/

If I was in this situation and he passed x-rays, I liked him and he was fitting in with my other dogs, I'd be making it official, keeping him, putting him on some supplements and starting training. The two agility dogs that I have adopted and been successful with were found as strays at about 10 months of age, neutered and adopted. Boots ran successfully until he was 11 when we lost him to hemangiosarcoma, he had been at a trial 2 months prior to diagnosis and was still running strong. Renoir is now 9 and while we do chiropractics to keep him supple he has no issues from being neutered at 10 months. In the future, if I were looking for a sporting only companion, I would go this route again and find a dog between 8-18 months of age. While yes, things can creep up, you can tell so much about a dog and their work ethic, play drive, movement I think it's a perfect time to evaluate a dog for sports. When I met Renoir, I took him into the play yard at the shelter, which was surrounded by the outside runs for big dogs, he had over 30 pits, shepherds and hounds barking at him and lunging at their kennels and the little dog still played chase games with me, made eye contact and would go pounce on a tennis ball when I rolled it away and then come back to me; I figured if that didn't phase him a dog trial would be a cake walk. Best of luck!

All the examples above are good ones, and I'm sure there are many more individual cases as well. I commend people who retire at a smart time in their run. There are few things more painful to me then watching a dog sweep a field back and forth in confusion searching for their sheep, while their handler continues to redirect again and again hoping they will find the sheep. Or the stalled out pack of sheep that are standing up to the dog only shutting the dog down while the handler hollers for them to get the sheep moving.

I have no problem w/ someone sitting in my chair, but would add, if the chair isn't yours don't move it. Several times I have strategically placed my chair in a specific spot for viewing or shade, only to come back to find it was moved to a group of chairs, presumably for visiting and someone else has moved into my coveted spot. Rather annoying.

Is it possible for you to take semi-private lessons instead of group classes? Timber is dog reactive, we did private lessons for about 6 months, then have been doing semi-private lessons w/ a friend of mine for about 18 month which has been great for him. I tried an intro class once when he was around 12 months and we ended up working outside of the arena, which was really still too much for him at that point. I have found that as his understanding and enjoyment of the game of agility has increased, his attention to other dogs has decreased. However, when he was more in the novice stages of agility, he wasn't sure that the value of the 'work' of agility was higher than the distractions of the other dogs. This probably explains part of the reason that he has never had a major issue with other dogs around stock, the keenness to work stock is above everything, though it doesn't hurt that he only has to deal with other working dogs and not bouncy -doodles and such.

Thank you to all who made this happen and those that will keep it going. Keeping fingers crossed for quick progression on an EOD test.

He was so lucky to be part of your family. I'm so sorry for your loss.

Like Kate, I also work in property management. But my numbers are flipped, about 90% of our houses do allow pets. I encourage owners to allow pets, as it opens up the tenant market, and when you find a good pet tenant they are typically an amazing tenant all around because they are so happy to have their pet allowed in their home. We do require an additional refundable pet deposit, pet references, and I personally request to meet dog(s). I figure if the applicant can't get their dog to be somewhat obedient in the front yard of the house with one new person, then they probably aren't a good match in general. And like Geonni, I heard of a horror story of someone who had a grey parrot and pet rabbit that were loose in a finished basement while the person was at work. Apparently, the bird ended up making it's own bird door through the floor into the upstairs of the house!

If the allergy ends up sticking around you might ask your vet about Apoquel by Zoetis. They may not be able to get it, it is super popular and is still on limited allotment ordering and I believe only going to clinics that got in on ordering from the get go. But it is suppose to be a lot safer than Pred for long term use w/out all the side effects. Best of luck; we had a dog that battle allergy flair ups, found that he did best when rotated through grain free foods, with never being on the same protein for more than 2-3 months; no one protein seemed to bother him, just if he was on any one for an extended amount of time.