Soldier Hollow and the story of my dog

I grew up with dogs.  Of course having a farmer for a dad meant the dogs were always outside animals.  Until I was a teenager and my blue-eyed baby sister talked my dad into getting another dog.  My mom said this one would have to be allowed to be a house dog.  And my dad, getting soft in his older age, actually agreed.  So off they went to get our most memorable dog, a golden retriever mix named Angel.  She became one of my best friends.  I still miss her.  On the other hand Brodie only ever had one dog growing up and didn't have the same attachment as I did.

Seeings as we never even discussed how many kids we wanted or when we wanted to start having them before getting married, you can guess we never discussed having a dog.  But when we bought this house 8 years ago I was so happy to see a dog run.  Brodie quickly dispelled that possibility.  But not too long after we moved in our neighbors across the street came home with the cutest little furball named Buddy.  He was a purebred Australian Shepherd runt that was born to my neighbor's cousin's litter, who couldn't keep him because he was a runt.  Brodie got talking with this neighbor and the cousin, who at one point called our house and I happened to answer and found out Brodie was looking at dogs.  We went and saw the puppies and came home with our little Pace.  Seriously, how could you not fall in love with this?

So we brought home my new little baby.  Here are some more pictures I found from when we first got him.  Scanning these pictures made me think of 2 things:  Boy what a difference 9 years makes, we were so young!  And I am so thankful for digital cameras, which we didn't have at the time we got Pace.


Our first meeting



His first bath

(My sister should love this one...)




 

So Pace was our first baby.  And just like the others, he has grown up so fast.  Here are some more pictures as he's grown up:

 

 You can see why he's become an ASCA and AKC Champ.

Okay, so that's my puppy.  Now for Soldier Hollow.  Labor Day Weekend after we got our Pace, our neighbors asked if we wanted to go to Soldier Hollow for some sheepdog thing.  Because both of us had sheepdogs, we thought it would be fun.  This was the first year of the Soldier Hollow Classic.  We watched in awe as the dogs herded the sheep down the hill, around some fences and gates, and worked with the handler to shed the sheep.  We also watched some dogs herd ducks and ate some food.  A few years went by before we made it up there again.  And wow things changed in a few years!  There were soooo many more people up there, and a lot more food vendors.  So we've now made it our family tradition.

Last year we didn't take a family vacation so we decided to stay at a hotel in Heber Sunday night before attending the last day of the Championship on Monday.  The kids had so much fun that we did it again this year.  We came home from church, ate lunch, packed up and headed out.  After checking in we changed into swimsuits and headed down to the pool.  The girls had a blast and Spencer totally froze up as his feet could only touch right by the stairs and he freaks out in the water if his feet can't touch.  He doesn't even like Brodie and I taking him around.  I actually think he's getting more scared each time he goes in the water.

Then we cleaned up and headed out to George Washington Park to meet Brodie's cousin for a picnic dinner.  The kids had a blast on the playground while Brodie and his cousin enjoyed catching up.  I spent some time chatting with the guys and some time playing with the kids.  Of course Tessa and Clara wanted to swing the whole night away.

Monday morning we headed out to Soldier Hollow for the Sheepdog Championships.  Oh, one more change over the years is the price of admission.  It's up to $16 per adult on championship day and kids 5 and under are free.  I think kids 6 through something are $8.50.  We did get some $2 off per person discount coupons from IFA.  And parking was $5.

When we first went in we stopped in the bleachers for the Splash Dogs, a fairly recent addition to the festivities.  Because we were there pretty much right when they opened the gates we got to watch some dog handlers attempting to get their dogs to jump in the water.  Some were pretty resistant to the idea and just watched their favorite toy swimming away from them.  Some of these overcame their fear, and some didn't seem to.  But it was fun watching the dogs jump!

After watching this for a while we headed down and around to the main event.  The kids saw the playground and wanted to play so I supervised about half an hour of play while Brodie watched a run.  Then I wanted to watch a run so the kids were forced to sit for another half an hour to watch.  I really love to watch this.  The run I watched was a team from South Africa and the dog worked on an actual sheep farm, so he was very familiar with the animals.  It starts out with the dog running up the hill and on his own herding the sheep down the hill and through some gates and around some fences and stuff.  After getting them down another group of sheep is released and he has to go back up to herd those ones down.  When they're all together he has to herd them into a circle area where his handler is waiting.  Then they have to "shed" the herd.  Half the sheep have a red scarf (if I remember correctly there are 8 with scarfs and 8 without).  The dog and handler have to get all the sheep except 5 with red scarfs to leave the circle and head over to a gate.  But they have to keep the 5 there.  And these sheep really want to hang with their friends so this is quite interesting to watch.  Then they have to lead the remaining ones into a little pen.  And there's a time limit for all this.  At the end they receive a score.  Here are a couple pictures of the run:

Then we headed to the food.  And in the food area there was a bean bag toss and a hula-hoop area for the kids.  The IFA tent even had a thing where the kids could "milk" a pretend cow that squirted water.  Spencer was pretty good at all of these things.  Clara fell asleep in the stroller for a while.  Tessa was a trooper and walked most of the day on her own.  And we only made 2 visits to the port-a-potties.

There was also a police dog demonstration that we watched, but it was really hard to hear what was being said.  And we watched the other dog show where the dogs ran through an obstacle course, caught frisbees, and one dog was an amazing jumper.

 


















The kids only lasted about 5 hours (well really about 4 so we had whining for the last hour before we gave in).  It was a fun day and the kids are excited to go back next year.  Now that they understand traditions and realize we go here every year, Tessa and Spencer have been telling me that they will still go when they are mommies and daddies.  Tessa even told me what she'd be wearing when she's a mommy so that I'll be able to find her.  Of course she still isn't understanding why she can't marry Spencer when she's older.  I know one day that thought will really upset her so I have to put it on paper to remind her of it later.