Things I Learned From Fireridge:

1) Melinda is running a hospice for really old sheep

2) Jai seems to aspire to be the Dr. Kavorkian of the bovine world

3) I find myself wanting to picket Jai's crate with signs that read,

"It's a Choice, Not a Chop!" and

"Only God Can Grip, Unless I Fucking Say To!"

"I Said 'AWAY' not 'FILET'!!"

Jai's first two runs ended in her going Final Solution on a ewe and us being Thank You'd in That Way that suggested otherwise.   Our third run we completed the course, but it wasn't pretty, it was just restrained. Barely.

Pat's runs highlighted my timing issues and his age.  Still, we completed the course and he listened pretty well. I believe he had a good time, and that was my main objective with him.

Now…on to sheep camp.

Hank

1996ish to 2011

She just showed up one day on a run in the foothills.  She followed me at a distance of about 4 feet for 6ish miles out and back to my door. 

It took a few days before she'd come any closer.

I do not know where she came from, but she was a tough dog.  For the first 10 years she was perpetually injured or bleeding from some choice she made that involved speed and teeth. 

She started slowing down, way down this last year.  Now walking is tough. 

We always figured she'd spontaneously combust; get hit by lightning, killed in action— or just disappear racing across the desert after some wild fast animal and we'd never see her again.

She was independant. 

She loved ..or hated, who knows…was passionate about – moving water, oven timers, the conclusion of squirrels.  Insects.  She liked to be petted ONLY in MODERATION.  A wag was a rare gift from Hank's stub of a tail.  She approved of a hose being ON but not IN anything. She didn't LIKE other dogs, but she didn't HATE other dogs, she just didn't see a point. 
This was true of a lot of things – We assumed her to be a nihilist. 

Now she likes sleep. It's the only place she gets to run and kill squirrels any more.   So….

RIP crazy fucking heeler.  Thanks for all those miles in the foothills.

1. What is your favorite Little Debbie snack? If you hate Little Debbie then I bow down to your greatness. (I suppose you can include some other favorite snack. Maybe it'll inspire me to get over LD for today.)

When I was a kid in elementary school in Northern Idaho….near a lot of lead smelters and cyanide leech ponds…there was a girl in third grade for 3 years running named Little Debbie. She was really small but really mean.  She hated being called Little Debbie, but there were at least 6 other Debbies in her class at all times. In Northern Idaho in the 70's children were always named either Debbie or Raymond. It was what you put in FRONT of the name that counted. She wanted to be Pretty Debbie, but that wasn't happening.  She had like 6 hairs on her head and small eyes that looked like twin portals to an unflushed hell.

When you'd address Little Debbie, she'd do this thing with her teeth against her lower lip and then she'd scratch whoever was sitting next to her.  A Somoan kid in our class (Brown Debbie) said it was because her mother had sex with a weasel when she was pregnant with Little Debbie.  That sounded reasonable at the time.  Little Debbie's mom was never seen outside of her car, a beat to shit trans-am with a gold eagle on the hood, but no front panels.

That car was everywhere.  Like a reminder to not have sex with weasels. Little Debbies brother PeePants Raymond had to push the car while their mother popped the clutch.  Probably not unlike what happened with L. Debbie's conception. 

ANYWAY:  They lived in a converted quansit hut…and when I say 'converted' …I mean WHAT THE ALUMINUM FUCK IS A QUANSIT HUT?

And how did a Samoan kid get to Northern Idaho?

Anyhow, Little Debbie's favorite snack was chalk.

2. What do you use for laundry detergent?  While YOUR answer, Laura, was clever and showed a sincere appreciation of thriftiness and our Environment….most of the rest of us shouldn't even BOTHER answering this question.   Except that I hand scrub everything with recycled homemade soap.  I don't even rinse, because that is wasteful and expensive. AND I just wear my frothy almost-clean clothing wet.

3. Tighty Whities or Boxers? (this, obviously, is open for interpretation)  I detest cheapness in anyone of any color.  I love a guy who can take a punch to the face repeatedly for money because it's so useful.  I mean…there's a job skill, right? We shouldn't pay them with real money though; play cash or snack cake currency would do just fine. They are too stupid to know the difference.

4. Dogs: On the bed? In the house? On the furniture? Never? What are your rules?

Depends on the dog.  I have a little too much and too many going on right now. 

5. Favorite dog-related website (aside from my blog, obviously har har har)? Favorite NON-dog related website? Can be blogs, or whatever.

I have a LOT of favorites, dog and non-dog.  Dog related: Aside from Crooks and Crazies, I think Jorgen is hilarious and I like his writing.  Jenny does a good job on the Alta-Pete blogs…I love Lora WIthnell… I hit the Sheepdog News periodically.  And there are many others I cycle through regularly.  All good.  Cannot possibly name them all.

NON-DOG – I am a news junkie so I read NY Times online, and Talkingpointsmemo is FANFUCKINGTASTIC for political news….my daughter writes for Seattles alt weekly The Stranger so I read their 'slog' regularly.  I get twitter feeds of sciencenews and harpers.  I LOVE http://www.marriedtothesea.com for a morning laugh.

Jai and I handled NC Open with all the skill and grace of children going to war.  Young children.  Girls.  Not those hardened young third world boy soldiers you see in CNN news clips.  I'm talking some pony-tail sporting, be-skirted 9 year olds pulled from their PE dance class and thrown onto the battlefield in their pink leotards. With AK-47s. 

On our first run, Jai noticed the exhaust sheep and tried to focus her outrun in the entirely wrong direction….BUT she listened to my redirects, looked in the right area of the field until she finally saw sheep and then she ran nice and wide, but not too wide.  She laid down at the top. I'm sure she also looked back 450 yards in my direction and wagged as I whistled my countless WALKUPS, my several corrections; I'm certain that she licked her lips – but she wasn't moving any sheep for awhile. 

Her second outrun was very pretty, with the same end at the top: OHSHITHEREIAMAND ….IT'S BIG SCARY SHEEP! AGAIN! AND JUST ME!! I THINK I'LL STARE AT THEM AND HOLD THEM HERE FOR AWHILE. SURELY MY CHAUFFER WILL SEND A REINFORCEMENT.  OR RECESS WILL BE OVER!

The Battle of the Lift, both times, was very tentative.  Eventually she brought sheep.  There was a lot of pressure and the field was wheat stubble which may or may not have been a factor.  I think it was a huge factor during the Civil War, but that's just me recreating history and hating grains.

We didn't come within 20 yards of an actual obstacle on either run. The War on Panels ended with alot of overflanking, laying down (Jai, not me, though I considered it)  and refusing to get up until EXTREME COAXING and CAJOLING were employed.  It was ultimately a drill in me being patient and not fleeing the field as soon as it was apparent that it was a drill in me being patient and not a FANTASY RUN. 

The first run ended with a DQ'd in the shedding ring. It was a mercy DQ. One of us was ready to bite something;Jai won the coin toss.  The second run we timed out at the second panel.  JUST LIKE VIETNAM, really. 

Or not.  Either way, the SPANISH were NOT supportive.

So, the BIG VICTORY for me was that I stayed; I tried to help Jai, and Jai did some good things.  We are not ready for Open, not by a long shot, BUT…
I'd do it again. I will do it again. I will run in an Open trial NC if it is a trial that doesn't offer PN.  Or if I'm drafted.

The only real casualty here was my ego. I think I've finally buried that. 

1. If you won the lottery (a big one… I'm talking stupid muchos cash) what would you do with the money?
2. After winning the lottery would you work a day job? If so, what would you do?
3. Do you have any auxiliary dogs? Auxiliary dogs are dogs that are not essential to your main purpose (usually tiny, but not always). If you don't have an auxiliary dog what might you choose?
4. Do you have a favorite crock pot recipe (or other recipe) you can share?

So, if I were really stinking rich, I would be a despot and I would get out of the dog thing entirely and move to monkeys. Only reason I have dogs now is because I cannot afford a monkey…nay, 8 monkeys.  They require more handling than dogs.  They want fashion.  They are expensive and moody and throw shit.  All things I could work with, if I had a lot of money and a monkey designer.   We'd still go to dog trials. ALL OF THEM.  I would wait for evolution to reverse itself and be Queen.

I'd have a dolphin, too. I'd keep the dolphin in a specially modified chamber in my home that looked like a moderately priced hotel room with transparent walls and several closed circuit cameras…king sized waterproof bed, flatscreen television, mood lighting, coffee maker, full bar…little soaps ….I'd hire a human female to live with the dolphin.  I'd replicate that experiment in the 60's that John C. Lilly conducted, only this time the girl would be tough and not into dolphins AT ALL. She'd be DIVORCED from the SEA.  She'd be a dolphin nag,

"Pick up after yourself, for fuck's sake, what…were you born at Seaworld?"

"Why can't you do tricks? Margaret's dolphin did tricks."

"EEEee EEEeee EEEeeee…you sound like a goddamn broken record. You are not getting a handjob."

"ANOTHER sardine? How many has this been?"

"I don't care how many tricks you do, you are NOT getting a handjob."

I'd like to see how long until one of them learned to say "YOU LOOK (OR ACT) JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER!" in the other one's language.  Then the experiment would be over.  I'm not cruel.   Then I'd get a book deal, and the woman would sell her story to some awful supermarket rag and I'd be sued by Everyone… I'd blame the tuna companies.  Those nets.  Monkeys. In the end I'd be poor and Morgan Fairchild (or Charro) would play me in a Lifetime Channel movie. (It's how every scenario of the rest of my life ends, really).

This whole me winning a shit ton of money is a recipe for disaster.  There you go.

I'll always be middle – lower-middle class because I'm stupid with money and careless with my employment. AND I'll always have dogs.  They are more judicious than a monkey.  Just like always being on the verge of poor, dogs will keep me honest.

Last weekend Jody R. and I "volunteered" at a Farm Days event hosted by a faux old timey Community in the middle of a yuppie subdivision planted outside of Boise just far enough to pretend to be Rural without having to drive one's SUV on unpaved road.
Without having to smell farming or livestock 364 days of the year. 
The residents, seriously, should live in a Pottery Barn biosphere. 

ASIDE!!: I wish. I WISH there were more biospheres. People should be SENTENCED to live in theme biospheres. 

Anyway. The setup was 7 nasty sheep (knee-knockers, I believe they are called in the AHBA community in which they seem to thrive)  barely contained outside a horse trailer in a hastily fenced area the size of my spleen.  The gate was a roll of wire that we had to wrestle to the side for access and egress.  Often I would get tangled in this roll and it would appear to be part of the show. I wish I had worn a mask. DIGRESS!

Upon sending one's dog into this holding area the sheep would dash out at top speed and into the crowd, whose sensibilities and temperment mirrored the animals.  Slow witted lumbering beasts who trundled to and fro stopping occasionally to chew and stare.  The only thing seperating sheeps from peeps was the act of drinking from a cup and eating at a table.  BUT NOT FOR LONG!

Lunch was setup 10 feet, as the sheep fly, across from our 'demo yard' – a strip of lawn roughly 30 x 75 feet.  There was no barrier, natural or otherwise, unless you count children, strollers, a bluegrass band or crying.  The sheep didn't.

The sheep ran through the crowd, over tables, (lunch was pulled pork. WTF? Who is pulling pork out here, I wondered more than once…) behind the barn or outbuildings…into the parking lot, up onto the band stage…
And I would send Jai, who was our community demo rock.  You couldn't see ANYTHING from where I stood, drinking another beer.  I rarely followed. I didn't want to be associated with that craziness.  Blamed. 

Jai would disappear, I'd hear some mild oaths, some screaming…parents frantically calling children…and sheep would reappear with Jai behind, often sporting a wool beard.

Jody and I would then take turns using our dogs to move the sheep around the small lawn area that was our 'demo' spot for about 5- 10 minutes and then put the sheep away.

We'd drink more beer and wait until the sheep and our dogs seemed rested enough to do it all again, usually 30 minutes or so. 

People loved it.  Really. 

I will never do it again. (SORRY JAENNE!)
Until next year. (SHORT TERM MEMORY BIOSPHERE!  BEER BIOSPHERE!!)

Now, in interest of full disclosure this event happens every year and I NORMALLY show up only long enough to drink a few beers, for free, and run my dog around the little arena that Jaenne has set up.  Jaenne handles the details. Jaenne is a MISTRESS OF DETAILS. She makes things run smoothly and sanely.  Under Jaenne's watch there would have been no sheep on the band stage, no sheep at the lunch tables…children would NOT have been knocked into creeks by sheep and dogs on their speedy way to the parking area.   She, however, was out of commission with a last minute back injury the day of this event.
 
It never dawns on me to organize. I just tend to mix in with Chaos.