Sheep Dogs and Splash Dogs

Jenny called this morning and said the she and the kids were on there way to Soldier Hollow Border Collie Competition. Cheryl and I said, "Why not" and hurried and packed our belongings and headed up to meet them.



Now I nor Cheryl have ever been to a Border Collie Sheep Herding competition and had no idea what to expect. I had imagine a collie chasing a few sheep around, yelping at their heels and driving them into a pen. Hm, well I was somewhat close but it was much more complicated than my simple mind could imagine.

The collie would have to search and find the sheep on the hillside and then drive them through a gate, drive them to the sheep herder, turn them and drive them back up the hill through another gate, across the hillside through the last gate and then back to the pen. Once at the pen, the collie would spilt the herd for a brief moment and then drive them into a fenced pen. The owner and their dog would receive points for each task and it all had to be accomplished within 15 minutes. No small feat when you consider that the owner would give directions to the dog by way of whistles. Nothing but amazing.


Included in the competition were the Splash Dogs. This was a lot of fun to watch as the dog owner would hold a retrievable toy (rules would not allow anything that was alive or could be eaten) and throw it into the pool and the dogs would run and jump into the pool and retrieve the toy. Just look at these dogs fly!

Well as you can see by the pictures, we had a lot of fun watching these skilled dogs compete in an amazing way. We'll definitely keep this as a fun activity for future years to come.