October 23rd, 2009: Cian Goes Gathering

This is Cian.

He looks so angelic...and cute (although some think he is the ugliest thing on the planet). But behind those big ears is a mischievous wee boy who is always up to something. He'd be labelled ADHD is he was a child, but he's just a hyper-active, super curious, mischievous scallywag. This week being no exception.

I went off to a trial on Wednesday and was rushing to get the chores done before I could leave. My plan was to run my dog and go home because I hadn't finished the chores, and I had to go to London the next day. As I left, I grabbed Sioux, Jamie and Joe and took them with me. Joe and Cian are next to each other in the kennels.

I was late to the trial, arriving only a few runs before my turn and still I had not decided whether to run Sioux or Jamie. Last minute I grabbed Sioux and proceeded to have a rubbish run! Oh well, there'll be another day. As quick as I could, I raced off home to get ready to go to London. Just as well I didn't go shopping on the way home as planned. As I drove up to the front gate, I could see the lambs just starting to move on the main training field. We have about 85 lambs grazing there at the moment. The thought crossed my mind that Arwen, the owner of these lambs, was at our place and moving the lambs to another field. As I parked the truck, Kelvin's dog, Blade, came to greet me with his best choir boy face. Uh-oh, how come he was out of his kennel? Did I forget to shut his door in my haste to get to the trial? Was it him who had been out with the lambs? As I went to put him back in his kennel, I saw the lambs were still being moved. I stopped by the gate to watch the dog working the lambs and casually glanced around for Arwen. Which dog was this? Arwen has dogs but none of them are very good at moving sheep. I thought perhaps he had bought himself a real sheepdog. I looked again and noted the dog was doing a fine job. Double-take - Oh my goodness, it was Cian out in the field. Before I could think how he had got out of his kennel, I called "that'll do, Cian" and to my shock and amazement, he came sprinting towards me. There is a god!

Now just how did these boys get out? Well, it seems that Cian must have been bouncing against the front of his kennel and just edged the side panels of the run away from the concrete wall at the back. This left him and Blade enough room to squeeze behind the back panel and into Joe's kennel. Of course, I had left Joe's door open so Cian and Blade sniffed freedom. The day before this, Kelvin had purchased a new drill that drills into concrete, specifically to bolt the back of the runs to the concrete wall. Job now complete. Escape hatch sealed.

Went and bought some new gates today too so they should arrive on Monday! Still not sure how the Cian got the gate to the field open but it is past time to in a new gate! Now I just have to find the time to hang the gate.

Funny thing is, I took Cian up training today and I swear that dog learnt something out with those lambs. He was - well - different. More thoughtful perhaps. I can't quite put my finger on it but he was a different dog...until he decided to have a wee wool pull, to which we had a very stern discussion.... Cian seemed to agree with my point of view, at least temporarily.

My trip to London was LONG! We were late leaving, late arriving to our destination and the person we were meeting was late too. This, however, gave Bailey and I time to go for a nice wee run along some beautiful horse trails. It reminded me of Ross Creek in Dunedin (New Zealand), a favourite running haunt. We finally met up with our friend but we were just as late leaving London and got caught on the M25 in parking lot traffic. Whoever coined the term rush 'hour' traffic needs to rethink that! It seemd to take hours and hours to get off the M25 and onto the M4 with just as heavy traffic. A couple of things struck me as we drove to London. The roads get wider but the cars smaller the closer one gets to London. Where we live, our roads are more narrow than one lane of the M4 and our roads re filled with trucks and trailers, and milk tankers. In London there are dinky little smart cars driving along these big wide roads.

There are a lot of cars in London! Imagine if we swapped every one of those cars for a sheep - wow, we'd be in herding heaven. Did you ever stop and think about how similar Londoners in thier cars are to sheep? They seem to hurtle mindlessly in the same direction for some greener pastures. You can tell I had too many idle hours on my hands. Arrived home from London 16 hours after leaving home. Tired!

We still have Bobby's Joe staying with us and he is a total delight. He is such a nice natured dog, and well behaved! He has been out walking with the other dogs and he gets on well with them. Of course he knows Jamie well so the two of them seem to spend most of their time wandering around together. It will be sad to take Joe home!

Oh yeah, I judged two nursery trials last week. That was - well - hard! It is easier to judge a good run than it is to judge a ran where the wheels are falling off! I needed to have taken my vacuum cleaner to vacuum up the points that were dropping to the ground! I wondered if perhaps I judged too hard but consistency was the thing I was working on. Would I judge again? Not for a while! It sure makes you think about your own handling, though.

Next week I'm back off up to Scotland while Kelvin is at home on mid-term break. Looking forward to 3 days of dog stuff with no gardening, gorse, chainsaws, etc. Yippee.