Herding Clinic

Bandit waits his turn at the clinic.

Friday night we hung out with Vicki and our friend Elaine, who's in town for a couple weeks. We rented Spanglish, which wasn't bad, but felt very, very long.

Saturday was the Marc Christopher herding clinic! I was pretty excited about this. We got to the farm at 7 am, an hour early, to help set up. I left Bandit in the car while we were working, and he immediately moved to the driver's seat. He knew we were around sheep, so he was pretty anxious. At one point he actually honked the horn! Not on purpose obviously, but it was still pretty funny.

We were the 11th pair to go, so we spent the morning just watching other people go and seeing what their mistakes and problems were. I think I probably learned the most just from doing that. There were lots of border collies there, and a couple other breeds, although I think Bandit was definitely the cutest dog there. I saw some guy go up to him while he was tethered up and take pictures of him (I was surprised he didn't bark at the guy).

When it was our turn to go into the training pen, I was pretty nervous. We made some mistakes right off the bat, but after he told me what I was doing wrong, I think we did pretty well.

Overall it was a great day. I learned a lot, and got to see a lot of dogs and handlers. Marc and I both got REALLY sunburned though. My arms still hurt, and they look like lobster claws. We'd originally had the option to sign up for two days of the clinic, and I'd only signed up for one, but regretted that after experiencing it. Luckily they had some private lesson spots available for Monday, so I signed up for one in the morning.

After the clinic was over on Saturday, Jan and Marc (the trainer) and some other people were going out to dinner, so we decided to join them. We ate at this pub in Danville, which was pretty good. It was fun, too, to sit with a bunch of people all talking about dogs and horses.

Then we came home, and I fell asleep at like 10 pm. On a Saturday!

Sunday I was TIRED. I don't know if it was from sitting out in the sun all day Saturday, but I was wiped. I did manage to wake up and go watch the Sunday clinic for about an hour, but then I came home and basically napped some more. Marc took some pictures of the pets while I was sleeping, and got this cute one of Bandit and Stubby:

Then I guess he decided it would be funny to put all the pets on the bed while I was sleeping and take pictures. So here's me napping with all the pets:

Cynthia came over in the afternoon and we watched Sideways with her, which was another so-so movie. I thought it was funny in parts, but nothing great.

Alright, bedtime, I've got sheep tomorrow! I'll post pictures from the clinic tomorrow sometime.