Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Shoofly Farm Sheepdog Trial - March

Come join us for the Shoofly Farm Sheepdog Trial, on March 19-20. The trial is near Oxford, NC. Entries are now open, and spots are going fast. For entry forms please click here. It's going to be a lot of fun. To see the Shoofly Farm blog, go here. Hope to see you there! If you come I'll let you see Ginger's ears unfurl in person. See? Great trial, Ginger's ears, what more motivation could you POSSIBLY need?

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Irish Potato


The other night I was weighing myself when the Small Dog wandered into the bathroom. I thought, "Hey! I should weigh him too!" So I picked him up, blah blah blah. I'm not really sure exactly how it happened, but I suspect that the vertigo I've been dealing with this week had something to do with it. As I started to put him down he started paddling at about 1-1/2 feet off of the ground. I dropped him right on his Irish Potato (my Papaw pronounced it more like "arsh tater". We've discussed this paddling thing many times, and he still doesn't seem to understand that doing that might get him dropped. Well, it finally did.

He made a noise like, "YEERRRRK!" and then got up all puffed up. He was going to Kick. My. Behind. 11.4 pound Zippy was going to throw down on me. Never mind the fact that he came up three legged lame - hopping around holding a front leg up in the air - he was going to put the Smackdown on me. He meant business, and he was one pissed off fluffy dog. I should have run for my life. Instead, I laughed.

Is it wrong that I laughed? I think maybe the whole three-legged-lame thing makes it pretty wrong. Is it wrong that I fussed at him for being an idiot and making me drop him? I have to wonder if there's a REASON why I have no children, and that is because I'd drop them on their heads and then laugh?

Had it been one of the border collies they would have slunk off determined I was orchestrating some insidious plot to kill them. I would be untrusted for at least a few hours, maybe more just in case. Not Zippy though, he gets up all plucky. He doesn't get scared. He gets mad.

After a few minutes he was again walking normally. However, I really do think that maybe he could have seriously beat me up. He definitely believed it.