Will he or won’t he?

I used to love starting pups. All that potential, promise, anticipation, hope- dreams just waiting to come true.

I’ve kind of gone off it now. So many hard decisions, big expectations, anxiety and the ever-present threat of disappointment… But then it doesn’t help that I’m a bit over sheepdog trialling too. The logistics of finishing a workday to race home and throw some tinned food and clean bedding in the caravan, wrestle permanently snot-infested, feverish and cranky small children into carseats and drive for hours to some random paddock in order to work dogs I’ve hardly seen all week just isn’t lighting me up the way it once did. Ah well. Hopefully this too will pass.

And if it does, perhaps this little man will be out on the trial ground with me. Or not. Gibby is the sort of pup that makes me the most anxious, because I like him so very much. And doesn’t that always seem to end badly? Of course, it didn’t end badly with Bill, who was a very disappointing pup, and it’s because he’s so like Bill that I like Gibby so much. He’s just a big happy klutz of a dog, all jump and leap and kind of sweetly ugly, but he thinks the sun shines out of people, and will trot along happily behind me (when he’s not savaging my Cape Gooseberry). He also has a quirky personality, just like Bill (“quirky” being my favourite euphemism for psychotically deranged), and I always get along best with dogs other people dislike.

Gibb might turn out alright on sheep- his father is Grant Cooke’s Grassvalley Moss (G. Tod x G. Lisa), who has produced a pretty impressive crop of young trial dogs, and his mother Gem (Boylee Fred x Pendalup Tess) is a nice young dog with some of her mum’s style and her dad’s calmness… but then lots of well-bred pups don’t make the grade.

R is starting Gibby’s sisters soon- this one is Daisy, because she looks like a cow.

Here’s another one I’m worrying about: Katy. She’s a Fred-Queani daughter, but she’s a handful. Looked awesome as a young pup, but now she desperately needs a decent recall, because she’s intent on bringing home any sheep within airscenting distance… I guess Queani was something like this as a pup, and she’s turned out alright.

And these ones- I worry about them, too. They’re grubby, opinionated, noisy and bring home all sorts of things I’d rather they didn’t.

And while I have all sorts of high hopes for them too (happiness, health, high-paying career that enables them to care for their aging parents in the manner to which I’d like to become accustomed), if they don’t live up to them it probably won’t end with an ad in the Farm Weekly. At least I hope not.