BevLive is back!

Perfect day to start my 2009 western odyssey since the sun is shining and it’s not raining. I am at Amanda Milliken’s farm in Kingston, Ontario. Sunday was the last day of the Kingston Sheepdog Trials and Amanda very kindly invited me to stay over at the farm and leave from here for my western trip, saving me a seven hour drive home for one night before starting west.

Let me introduce my canine traveling companions. I will be running Mirk and Hemp in the Open competitions.  Mirk is a three-year-old imported dog that I bought a year ago this spring from Florence Wilson and ran last year at Meeker and Soldier Hollow. Hemp is my husband’s dog raised and trained on our farm. He is five years old but has not had a great deal of experience since he has always been third dog to my old Bill and Pippa, now both retired. I ran Hemp at the finals last year, but a crossover cost us a place in the semi-finals. I was pleased with both dogs last year. While they didn’t place in any of the big trials, they managed the courses and sheep reasonably well. I hope this year with the additional experience they have had over the spring and summer to have more success.

I also have on this trip my nursery dog, Esther. She turned two in May. She came from Amanda, being a daughter of her Ethel and Star and littermate to Amanda’s very successful Roz. While Esther is not nearly as far along in her training as Roz, I like her quite a bit. For a long while I was not sure Esther would make a dog for me, but just in the last month I have begun to get quite enthusiastic about her and am now trying to hurry and get her trained well enough to be competitive at the nursery finals.

Yesterday was a rest day for the open dogs since they had both been lucky enough to make it through and run in the double lift final on Sunday. I had an opportunity to help move the trial sheep with Esther which was great as I don’t think she had ever worked anything quite as aggressive as the Wapoose sheep we use for the Kingston Trial. She had a little trouble moving them but hung in there in the face of stamping feet and threatening heads and got the job done.

The enjoyment of the sheep work was followed by a bit of real work as I helped Kate Broadbent and Amanda by running a few errands and generally acting as a gofer while they did the work of taking the course down and moving all the equipment back to the farm.

Today I plan to begin my driving so while I will keep you all posted about my progress–it isn’t going to be very exciting for a few days.