Border Collies Gone Wild!

Mr. C and I got to participate, for the first time, in a fall ritual, known around these parts as the MOKAN Border Collie Rescue Annual Reunion. This is the time for all of the rescued BC's to get together and paarrty and generally let their crazies out. There's running, swimming, chasing balls, sniffing butts, rolling in the manure pile and begging for barbeque - and those are just the canine sports. The humans get to chase after them and keep them out of trouble. Although Chloe is a BC mix, we left her home because as sweet as she is with kids and cats, she turns into a downright beeyotch when some strange dog tries to sniff her butt. And at this event, Chloe would have been snarling and snapping at 80+ dogs who would be trying to make her acquaintance. So she and her sensitive butt stayed home.

Which was okay, because we had a little reunion of our own with our most recent foster pup, Bonnie. She is now 9 months old and has grown a bit, but is still such a lovable and gentle girl:

Should I play chase the ball or go swimming?

Having some reunion snuggles with my sweet girl

Bonnie is now in a long-term foster home about 2 hours away. She lives with a family who has 2 kids, 2 other dogs and 3 acres. She remembered us and was as happy to see us as we were to see her. We hung out with her and her foster mom most of the day. We miss her a lot, but it's good to see how happy and healthy she is.

The day was beautiful, but hot. Great weather to take a dip in the pond.


Most of the BC's were swimming fools and just like little kids, they didn't want to get out of the water until their moms and dads made them.

One of the highlights of the day was group photo time. BC's are incredibly obedient dogs and they got organized and down to business way before their owners were ready.


After the group shot, there is a down/stay group shot (most of these are dogs who do obedience or herding). Their discipline is pretty impressive. You'd never catch a pack of Brittanys or Beagles doing this! (Sorry Dianne, I couldn't resist. Although Emma might be the exception!)

"Down, stay...."

"That'll do!"

And now to tie this into some Actual Knitting Content. First of all, I made some progress on the ribbed baby hat while driving to the reunion. But not enough to take a picture.

Also, where there are border collies, there will inevitably be sheep:

Of course they all turned their backs on me when I started to take their picture. But they're so cute - they look like they're wearing little wooly pantaloons.

The reunion was held on a small sheep ranch - these are just a few members of the flock. During the reunion, the sheep are usually put to work for herding demonstrations but got a break this year because they were breeding. The pens all had tarps covering the fences so the BC's couldn't see the sheep and get too hyper and crazy because bc's are already hyper and crazy enough.

We left before it was over, having tired ourselves out eating barbeque and running around with Bonnie. We're getting too old to party with the bc's all night long.