Off I went to Canby today to take in the sights and sounds of the Oregon Flock and Fiber festival.
And what a festival it is! By noon today, there were no parking spots left in either parking lot adjacent to the fairgrounds. Hundreds of people were in attendance looking at all the fiber-licious goodies to be had.
My good friend Shannon was there along with four of her Jacob sheep, two of her dogs, one of her siblings and a booth full of stuff to sell (and a partridge in a pear tree).
I got to watch just a bit of the sheep show held in conjunction with the festival. Having raised and showed livestock in my youth, I’m always up for watching a sheep, goat or pig show.
One of Shannon’s ewes won an award for having the best fleece of any Jacob sheep at the show:
This was the Jacob ewe awarded “Grand Champion”:
And the Champion Jacob ram:
Yes, Zoey got enough points this weekend to give her her 18th performance title, The “FDCh-G” title (that’s Flyball Dog Champion-Gold in the world of NAFA flyball). She racked up somewhere around 600 points this weekend and we now have a total of about 2700 or so. The next title requires that we make it to 5000 points, so it could take awhile.
We had a great weekend in Idaho–our teams did great and I got to be a team captain for the first time. I’m exhausted, but it’s a good kind of exhaustion. Zoey (and the boys) are all crashed on the hotel bed.
I didn’t have much time to take pics this weekend, but here’s one I got of a lovely blue merle Aussie.
With just one UFL-I tournament under her paws, Zoey is officially ranked as the #3 Cardigan Corgi in UFL-I (United Flyball League International).
With the 665 points she earned at the tournament last month, she also picked up two new titles: Top Flight and Top Flight 1 bringing her total number of performance titles earned to 17.
And today in Coeur d’Alene Idaho she earned over 300 points towards her next title in NAFA: Flyball Dog Champion-Gold! With any luck, we’ll get that title tomorrow.
Love my merlie-girlie!
Rugby doesn’t really care to have his photo taken although the older he gets, the easier it gets. He doesn’t have much eyesight left and his hearing seems to be pretty much gone at this point as well. He sleeps a lot but his appetite has never been better–Rugby’s first love in life is food (note the string of drool hanging out the side of his mouth).
I took the chance to snap a few pics of Rugby out on our front porch. Astute blog readers might notice something seems a bit different in the photo–last week we had our house painted! It was overdue to be done and with the summer days running out, we finally found a contractor who could get it done before the rainy season started. I’m so pleased with how it turned out–it’s like having a whole new house. Previously the house was a faded blue-grey color that was about as cheerful as an Oregon winter. Now it is a bright sunny golden color and it makes me smile when I see it.
Another case of Zoey’s tongue being just a bit too long.
Apparently when she gets really excited (like she does when she plays FLYBALL!), the tongue cannot be contained:
(That’s our friend and flyball teammate Jonae holding Zoey during a pre-race run-back)
Ever since she was a puppy, it was apparent that Zoey’s tongue was just a bit too big for her mouth. I’d catch her walking around the house with about half-an-inch of it sticking out between her lips. When she sleeps, it slowly creeps out from between her teeth–it’s an excellent gauge of her level of exhaustion. The more tired she is, the more tongue shows. I do worry that she might have a dream someday where she’s chasing a KITTY or a SQUIRREL and accidentally bite the tip of her adorable little tongue off…
2: Number of new performance titles earned by Zoey this past weekend (TF and TF-1).
46: Total number of performance titles earned by Rugby, Riley and Zoey over the past few years.
5.8: Number of seconds it took Zoey to run 102 feet, clear 8 jumps, hit a flyball box and carry a ball back in her mouth during her best run this weekend (and that was a NEW personal best time for her!!!)
5.8: Number of yards per second Zoey covered during the run described above–coincidentally this is equal to the speed that she ran a NADAC agility jumpers course a couple of years ago.
I am now confident that Zoey loves flyball every bit as much as she loves agility! We had a terrific weekend playing in our first U-FLI tournament.
Photo by Eric!
