May 20, 2010: Cian in Brazil
After my Dear John blog from last week it seems there is more than one person reading this blog. YIPPEE! OK, our lives aren't THAT interesting...but thanks for reading.

I am absolutely delighted to report this week of Cian's progress in Brazil. As most of you know, Cian was a little urchin that crept into my heart and I returned his love and affection by selling him to Brazil. Yes, guilt, guilt. I miss the little guy heaps...and he is well and truly in the "what the heck was I thinking" category. Well, he is working out really well and is becoming an accomplished wee cattle dog, in addition to being a sheep dog. It seems that if he is not allowed to bite sheep, as he liked to do when I first started him (and taught him not to unless on command), he might as well bite cattle...and he does, on the nose. So Cian entered his very first trials this week - Saturday on sheep and Sunday on cattle. He won on sheep (71 points out of 75 - only dropping 4 points on the drive) and he was 4th on cattle. WOW! I would never have picked Cian to be a cattle dog as he always barked at our cows but perhaps with his bite, he was destined for this. I am so thrilled for the wee lad and his owner, Adao. He has done me proud. I hope one day to visit Brazil and my wee lad. Wouldn't it break my heart, though, if he did not remember me? People say dogs forget...if that is the case, how come my Jamie goes and stands next to Bobby and jumps in Bobby's truck everytime I go to Scotland? Is he hinting...?

It was a week for Jamie youngsters to shine. One cannot write a blog and not mention Kuro winning one day of the famous Bluegrass Classic (nursery class). WINNING! This young lad has so little trial experience as he has just started trialling and there he goes and wins one day of a prestigious trial! Good for him. Kuro was handled by our friend, Scott Glen (who was Reserve Champion in the Open class with his nice young dog, Don) but is owned by Diane Pagel in Washington. Major 'high-fives' for them. Pressure is on me now with Steffi!

More gorgeous weather here in Wales. It is so dry, despite some light rain one day this week, that our pond is perilously low. Kelvin turned the tap on last week to try prevent death and mayhem in our amphibian population but evaporation appears to be winning. The dogs think it is wonderful to be able to puddle around in the wee bit of mud in the bottom of the pond. Even the young pups have discovered a way down to the pond. Drat! Almost 10 weeks old, these little scallywags are getting very good at evading capture. They are fast little tykes and just as you reach out to grab them, they jig and jag away from you, pin their ears flat and take off at great speed - completely gleeful, of course, at sidestepping certain capture.

It's been a busy week sheepwise. All of the sheep and lambs are back from winter pasture and testing our fencing! We had 200 or so on the top hill and 200 more munching away on prime grass in our main training field. One night we had a 'prison break' with almost two-thirds of those on the training field breaking a temporary fence and escaping to the hill. Once they realized the grass was indeed greener and more plentiful, they begged and pleaded to get back in from whence they came. No luck...so they stood right outside our window bleating until we finally went to see what all the racket was and discovered the prison break. Rather than sorting them out, we sent every last one of them up the hill until yesterday when we gathered them all up, brought them in, and then they were treated to dosing, foot trimming etc, and turned out into the training field once again.

It was Meg who gathered in all of the sheep for me. I have not been able to do a lot of work or training with her as she has had a major bone infection in her feet caused from hawthorns penetrating deep into her feet. It has taken us about 3 months to work out what has been wrong but one sharp vet identified the problem, got a specialist consult, and all agreed - bone infection. We are now at week 4 of a 6 week course of heavy duty antibiotics and this is working! For the first time in almost a year, I was able to work Meg fully the other night and I was so pleased with her that she got the nod to go gathering yesterday...and she was awesome. What amazes me about Meg is that she can move anything. There are a couple of tricky ewes in the flock and they'll come right at the dog to attack. 'Bring it on' is Meg's response! She just keeps coming forward, no fear. You can be confident about getting a job done, and not taking all day about it, with a dog like this. Now to put the worries of her feet behind me when we are at the post together! It is good to have Meg back.

Last night after all the sheep had been turned out into the training field, I was up the top of the hill attacking some thistles when I saw sheep escaping from the training field to the lower part of the hill...where our training sheep were grazing. ARGHHH!!!! I raced down the hill, grabbed Jamie and sent him to bring all of the sheep back to the training field. We have a fenceline in desperate need of replacing and the sheep had broken through our temporary fix. Once all the sheep were back in the field, Jamie got the unenviable task of cutting out almost 20 ewes who were quite happy to get better quality grass. Surprisingly, it didn't take long to find small bunches of them and cut them out group by group...until we were down to one. Thankfully she saw her buddies disappearing up the hill again and decided she'd rather be with them than a field full of strangers. Just as well as Jamie was completely spent by then. I confess, I gave him a wee treat for all his hard work. Sorry, Kelvin, it was Jamie who got the last BBQ'd sausage.

Busy day ahead. The sun is shining here and some more thistles are about to get their comeuppance. Probably no blog next week as trialling is calling. Two weeks in Scotland. Yahoo! Perhaps Kelvin will take a turn and write a blog as he is staying home.

Oh, oh, our bees arrived! Finally! For those of you who don't know, Kelvin is a beekeeper (amongst his many talents). Fresh honey will be available in a couple of months. Yummy!