STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Nancy Creel blew on the whistle strung around her neck, instructing her 6-year-old border collie Rey to go clockwise around the four sheep she was trying to pen in a field off Buttercup Road.
But the dog insisted on going the other way.
“Finally, I stopped asking,” Creek said after the dog had finished her trial. “I told myself: She’s got a reason to do that. She was disobedient but it turned out she was so right in the way she handled it.”
A field lining Buttercup Road north of Indian Creek Road has turned into Border Collie Central through Sunday as a hundred border collies are put to the test in the Trailing of the Sheep Festival Sheepdog Trials.
They have come from all over to try to pen feisty sheep—part of John Faulkner's band, who are coming out of the mountains after a summer of feasting on mountain grasses and other forbs.
The sheep trotted down the bike path on Wednesday scattering half-eaten tumbleweeds across the path. They were then turned onto a green pasture on the Peregrine Ranch to rest up for four days of giving championship sheep dogs the runaround.
“You’ve got to get it together for this level of competition,” said Creel, who lives in Bozeman, Mont. “This is the highest level in the U.S. Border Collie Handlers Association.”
Creel was introduced to sheep dog competitions in 1987 when she and her husband encountered one in the Lake District of England enroute to Africa where they spent 10 years studying the reproductive habits of dwarf mongoose and endangered African wild dogs.
When they returned to the United States, Creel began putting her border collie/Labrador through agility competition. But, always, she yearned to try sheep dog competitions.
“I couldn’t use my border collie/Labrador mix. It’s got to be in their DNA. They’ve got to have the right genetics to be a good herding dog,” she said.
Creel got the dog of her dreams six years ago and named her Rey after a character in a “Star Wars” movie that was in charge of all the boys. And by the time she was 2, Rey was ready.
Creel says she could compete with Rey every week of the year if she didn’t feel the need to spend time with her husband.
“With agility competition, it’s about the dog, some obstacles and you. With this, it’s about the dog and you plus the sheep and the field. The sheep see their friends when they get separated, and the only thing they want to do is get back to their friends,” she said.
“It’s addictive. And look at Rey. She’s like autistic kid--so focused on what’s going out on the field that she doesn’t see anything else. All she wants to know is: Can we do it again?”
Creel and others will test their dogs and themselves from 9 am. to 5 p.m. today and Saturday in the field off Buttercup Road, which offers not only a beautiful setting but brings the sheep penning closer to the audience than it was in the Quigley Field.
The finals will be 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.
No need to pack a lunch--the Gooding Basques are selling lamb grinders, solomo and chorizo sandwiches and wine cake.
There’s also a host of vendors hawking products related to sheep and border collies.
The Silly Bean Soap Company out of Prineville, Ore., has a line of sheep milk soaps and lotions, the fats purported to reduce wrinkles. Operation Sheep Dog has all kinds of accessories for sheep dogs and wannabe sheep dogs. One woman has written several books of border collie stories, as well as one for cat lovers called “The Nine Lives of Milo the Cat.”
There are gobs of wool socks, wool mittens and other apparel. And Hailey jeweler Marcia Dibbs has designed two-sided jewelry pieces that feature a sheep on one side and a border collie on the other.
“Sheep make people smile,” she said. “They’re fluffy and they’re so cute.”
IF YOU GO…
Admission is $7 for adults, cash only. Admission is free for children 5 and under. Bring your own lawn chair. Dogs are permitted if on leash.
Don’t forget the Sheep Tales Gathering at 7 tonight at The Argyros. There are still some tickets available.