Jobe

Congratulations to Dan, Cherri, and the entire Wilson family, for your purchase of Jobe. They are a perfect match. Jobe will spend his days with Dan working as a cowboy, and his nights will be spent with his new little girl. 

Dogs seem to find their people, people seem to find their dogs........

Arizona Clinic

From hospitality to organization, the Arizona group really hit it out of the park. We want to thank Molly and Mary Alice Wisecarver  for all the help setting sheep, and Rocky and Karen, for all the time and energy they invested to make this clinic amazing. Linda Tunick was kind enough to send me some pictures to share, and a wonderful video she made of the clinic. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLBOTHWs4_A.We appreciate all who attended the clinic. Thank you for your nice emails.
Vicki Campbell, the organizer and trial host, has taken the time to drive up to Idaho from Arizona  twice to stay with us and work with Norm. She has worked hard to learn, and it was her goal to share what she has learned with her friends in Arizona. Our hat is off to her for the effort and outstanding job.

Smiley has been sold to Joyce and Gary Heibertshausen. You will remember them as they live in Montana, raise tons of sheep and also purchased my Drift. Joyce braved the roads, came for lessons with Drift and picked up Smiley. It was great to meet her in person and see my handsome Drift again. 


Spot has landed a job and found his person.
Pedro is from Peru. He works for Sam Hunt and was in charge of his 800 lambs. Spot arrived just in time to help Pedro load the lambs to go to market. Sam has 2 herders helping him with his flock of 1300 ewes. Rodelson is also from Peru. He has two of our  dogs, you may remember them, Bailey and Ben. Rodelson has really come along with the dogs, his background is engineering, not shepherding,  so it was all new to him. Sam purchased Ben for him first and Norm gave Rodelson a lesson. He speaks very little English, so it was challenging, but Rodelson was determined to learn. They needed two dogs, so they purchased Bailey as well. We typed out instructions and ideas for Rodelson, and then used Google Translate to translate the information into Spanish. It worked great. Sam called a day ago to tell us that Rodelson had sent Bailey out and she had gathered the entire flock of 1300 head. We are all so proud of them and happy that these really nice men have 3 of our dogs as partners .

Arizona Clinic

Norman will be at the picturesque Soda Springs Ranch, Verde Valley, AZ. (100 miles north of Phoenix) this weekend for a clinic.
Vicki Cambell is hosting the clinic at her brother's beautiful ranch. The ranch has a round pen, and two large fields to accommodate all levels of dogs and handlers. Vicki is also treating everyone to a special dinner Saturday night. I am feeling jealous because I will be home puppy sitting.
I think there is still room to audit, and maybe take private lessons. If you're interested in attending, drop us a line and we can hook you up with Vicki's information.

Spa Day 
Our friend Chris is a groomer at the Dog House doggy salon. She was kind enough to treat our older girls, Lassie and Ice, to a day of pampering, I took them to the beauty shop and they got the works, even a cute bow,

Norman was horrified with the bow......... : o )

New Puppies
Hanna & Gale have had their pups. They both whelped the same day.
Gale started on Sunday afternoon, digging and being uncomfortable. She tricked me into staying up with her the entire night. Finally, around 9 a.m. Monday, she had her first pup. Gale went on to have four more. We had six pups that had been spoken for, leaving us one short. So I had a little chat with her and six hours later, after I had completely given up and was sure that she was done, she had one more for our friends, Don and Jeannie Helsley.
It was now around 6 p.m. and Hanna was making quite a ruckus digging to China, so downstairs I went. Her eyes were wide like a woman in labor, stuck in traffic. Once I was holding her paw, so to speak, she started to whelp. She had her first pup within 10 minutes of my arrival, two more followed right behind that one, and then came the waiting. That night I made my bed in the mud room. On pup number seven, I must have dozed off. Hanna climbed out of the kennel and had her pup by my pillow. Ok, I'm awake, she didn't want me to miss that one. She finished sometime around 8 a.m. Tuesday. She had eight pups, seven of which are girls.
I gave myself the title "Placenta Woman," took a bath (since Gale was using the shower), and tried to take a nap.
The total pup count is fourteen. We have three left for sale. Gale was bred to Suzy Applegate's Buzz and Hanna was bred to Norman's Blaze.
Now comes the picking. I have my eye on one, I call her Pocket, since she has a perfect, little white pocket on her bum.  We will see if I pick Pocket!
Feeling Thankful....................

The Shearing

This blog is brought to you by Sam Hunt. 
Sam is a sheep farmer who complains very loudly when I am not timely with my blogging. He and his friend Dylan are quite the entrepreneurs. They are just young men, but their work ethic is impressive, they have achieved much at such a young age. Sam invited us down to the shearing in the Tri-Cities. We were able to work our dogs on his ewes He has a quadrillion sheep, unofficially. We had a great time. I hope you enjoy these! 
P.S. The man in the second photo holding the wool has a cigarette in his mouth. I knew smoking was dangerous, but this just seemed to up it a notch.