January 9th, 2009: Hopelessly Behind on Blogs
Sorry, folks, we are hopelessly behind on our blogs. We have no excuses...other than the book has consumed all of our time. It has been a heck of a lot of fun working with people from 19 different countries. Yes, there has been some language challenges but with the help of some friends who have translated and acted as go-betweens, we finally managed it - well, almost as there are just some final edits left to do and it will be 'in the can', so to speak (no, not the garbage can!). What a labour of love this has been!!! We've always wanted a picture book of sheepdogs for a coffee-table so now we will have one. Now all we need is a coffee table...and a home to put it in! Hmmm...wonder what our next project will be?

Oh, one of the neat things about doing the book was spending a day photographing dogs in Lancashire. First stop was Jim and Shirley Cropper's place where we photographed Jim's Dan and Fleet, and Chloe's (Jim's niece) Roy. It was interesting watching Jim work his dogs. He is a master! Unbelieveably quiet and calm with his dogs, and Jim seems to be able to read what sheep are about to do even before the thought jumps into the minds of the sheep. Pure magic! Chloe has the touch too. Both Jim and Chloe did exactly as we needed them to do - they are almost as obedient as their dogs. After a cup of tea and a suprise lunch put on by Shirley, we high-tailed north to Quernmore and the home of Michael and Timothy Longton. Here we photographed more dogs and had a super visit with them. One of the added benefits of the day was being able to ask some 'training' questions and we can tell you, all were very generous in dispensng advice. A huge thank you to them all (hey, their advice even works!!!). We sure enjoyed the day and arrived home with lots of new things to try in training.

One of the worst things about this darned book was having our software crash (again) and losing all the files, including backups! A month's worth of work lost and we had to start the whole thing again from scratch. The good news is that the second version was better! Needless to say, everything is being backed up more rigorously and on more than one computer.

Christmas...been and gone. Kelvin was sick (again) so it was a quiet week between Christmas and New Year other than feeding and exercising dogs, feeding sheep, and working. Nothing exciting to report. We spent New Year's Eve with Mike and Nora, and what a perfect way that was to end a fine year for us...noshing on Welsh Lamb at 'Chez Hemmings' and eating pavlova for dessert. Now we had Maria's (Nora and Mike's daughter) pavlova on Christmas Day and Nora's pavlova on New Year's Eve. Of course, they have each asked us (separately) which was better? What kind of a position does that put us in? The true answer is that they were both incredible...but just to be sure, we're happy for them to have another bake-off and we'll willingly volunteer our time (and tummies) as judges.

You might have noticed that we've been out a few times taking pics of our newest pups. We have many more pics on the camera than what we have had time to load onto the website...but hopefully once the book gets to the printer, we'll sort some out and re-jig our photo gallery to make this more user friendly. We'll that's the plan! We'll slowly get the website back up to date too. Famous last words.

Oh, we didn't do a year end message - sorry. Long and short of it is that we had a great year. We moved from Scotland to Wales for the World Trial and haven't left (yet). The trialling here is super fantastic. In 2008, Kelvin trialled with Blade and Tina, and Angie trialled with Meg, Sioux, Roy and Ace. ALL dogs were placed in trials (more than once each). Kelvin won his first Open trial with young Tina and upon his desk sits 2 beautiful trophies for their efforts. Angie won her first Open trial with Meg on the hill at Bobby Dalziel's place which was a huge thrill for her. She also won a Novice national trial with Roy (and two trophies!), won three nurseries with Ace and placed second in our nursery league, and achieved several placings with Sioux. Sioux's 5th place on the hill at Bobby's was a highlight as it was Sioux's first go on the hill and at 14 months old, she showed just how good a hill dog she can be. In 2009, Kelvin will trial Blade and Tina, while Angie will trial with Meg and Sioux. Unfortunatley we had to sell some dogs in 2008 as we are out of space where we are living and have not yet been able to find a farm. Our search continues...