Made it to KY

Trial starts on Wednesday.  Today we have a free day to hang out, walk the dogs and find the trial site.  Best to take the guess work out of it as much as possible.  The driving wasn't too bad.

On Sunday we stoped in SD to visit with Jamie Spring.  She bred Z and is was cool to meet her and her family.  It was also really nice to meet Z's siblings and mother.  I was able to watch his sister Hope (same litter) work a little bit and she is a very nice dog.  I met Rye ( litter brother) and Pink(sister same cross but the year later).  I'll post some pictures in here when I figure out where they are! :)

It was also great for Z and Merckx to have an oppertunity to stretch thier legs and work some sheep.  Jamie had a nice group of fresh shorn yearling ewes off the range.  She had been woring them a little bit so they weren't completely rank and fighting the dog.  They would how ever turnaround and look at the dog and the boys had to work at getting them lifted.  Once they got moving they were sort of light, but the dogs still had to push a lot to prove to those sheep that they had to move.  Z's session went great, best lifts I have seen him do in a long time.  He just kept walking in with a some encounragement, but mainly on his own.  He also was fairly quick to take charge of them and push them around.  Maybe he wants to work sheep the put up a litttle fight and be naughty.  It was really cool to be able to have a traing seesion on sheep like that.  I'm sure it really built his confidence.  As for my side of the bargin, I didn't yell.  I gave a few nessary corrections, but I minded myself and my dog went really super.  Hope we can hang on to half of that when we walk to the post tomorrow.
Jamie in conjunction with Laura Hicks is having a trial at the end of August and I would say it would worth the drive, two days on Jamie's unfenced and then over to Laura's for two days.  I hope I can squeeze it in, but if not you all should go.