Animal Places

Alright... couldn't resist... here's another puppy. They are so soft and cuddly. Then the grow up to be, well... soft and cuddly!

Of course the best thing about visiting the Meeker Classic in 2006 was... the PUPPIES!

Man... those kids are so cute. It's a good thing that none of them were for sale that we knew of. Not like we could handle a 5 pound ball of nuclear energy at the moment...

This weekend we visited the town of Meeker, Colorado, to see the 2006 Meeker Sheepdog Classic. The Classic is a herding challenge for border collies and a very few other dogs who can keep up (this year we saw nothing but border collies in the last two days). There were around 16 countries represented, including Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and many more. The challenges got harder throughout the competition, but were generally grouped into long distance dog handling and close-up flock handling between the handler and the dog.

As you can expect, the dogs were smart, goofy, and generally amazing. The sheep were... well... MEAN. I've never seen sheep kick, stomp, and attempt to jump on dogs before. One of the handlers there said that the sheep are meaner in Meeker than other similar challenges. The dogs handled them, well, though... staring them down with focus and intensity.

The best part for us was that it was a general border collie festival. Too bad Milo couldn't come! He would have fit right in. Except for the whole sheep herding thing, of course.