Shoofly Farm Home Page

Gael

Welcome to
Shoofly Farm!

This page last updated 03/31/2008

BelJac Ben

Hi, I'm Robin French and I'd like to introduce you to Shoofly Farm,
located in the Shepherd's Glen community near Oxford, North Carolina.

Established in 1997, the farm is home to various livestock and serves as a training center
for working Border Collies, the world's premier herding dogs.
I trial my dogs in ISDS style sheepdog trials all over the Eastern U.S.
Click "The Shoofly Dogs" link above for detailed information on the dogs, my pride and joy!

I offer private lessons and evaluations as time and trial schedules allow.
Current students get first dibs on times and dates, but we'll add sessions with new folks/dogs as time allows.
Email for availability and prices.

NEW!!! Click here to go to the Shoofly Farm Blog NEW!!!
Read about the day to day adventures of the dogs and the farm

Click here to go to Youtube for videos of the Shoofly dogs in action

Click here to go to Pbase for pictures I've taken of the Shoofly dogs and others
(please DO NOT COPY any of these pictures or use in any way without permission)

Click here for an article on about a dog's first exposure to sheep/first lesson.

To contact me, email robin AT sheepdogsonline.com (replace AT with @)

(I've been movings things around on the website so if you find any links that don't work, please email and let me know. Thanks!)

Gael

SHOOFLY NEWS!!!

March 18, 2008
We're just home from the Suwannee SDT in Brandord FL, hosted by Cheryl and Dick Williams. It was a very good trial and Cheryl and Dick are always such gracious, welcoming hosts. There were only about 35 dogs running and the sheep were a little less of a challenge than we all expected, being mostly unused to being worked in small groups. The course was flat with about a 280 yard outrun. The Shoofly dogs ran very well with 3 placements among them. Jet was a little pushy for the hair sheep, especially at the sheds. She ended up just out of the placements both days, mostly because of being a bit short on her outruns. Spottie ran very well both days. A cranky ewe at the shed kept her out of the placements Saturday and on Sunday she ended up tied for 2nd with only 6 points off, finishing 3rd after the tie was broken. Fortunately the dog she was tied with was Zac, so we ended up with that 2nd place after all! Zac was very consistent again this weekend, finishing 4th on Saturday and 2nd Sunday. He's turning out to be a really good trial dog and I'm really looking forward to running him this spring.

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February 2008
There's a new puppy in the Shoofly pack! Unfortunately it's not a Spottie pup as I was hoping. She turned 10 years old in November and still hasn't come into heat, so I (and she!) have decided against breeding her. She's as fit as a 6 year old and you'd never suspect her of being 10, but I don't want to risk her health. I'll continue the line sometime in the future by breeding her son Zac.

Introducing Bart, sent here by Laura Hicks of South Dakota. I've tried to get a pup from Laura's Nell crossed into the Henderson line in the past and not been able to get it worked out, but this time he made it."Black Bart" is Nell x Michelle Howard's Moss (my Bill's grandsire) and I'm very excited to have him. Now he needs to grow up fast because I can't wait to see him meet his pototential! He's a very confident puppy and fit right in with my gang and enjoys our daily hikes with the whole pack.

Bart

January 12, 2008
The old girl's still got it! Spottie won the Edgeworth Winter Trial
with a beautiful run on fresh yearling cheviot/commercial cross ewes.
Her work was just gorgeous and her work at the pen was as nice as you'll ever see.
It's such a joy to run Spottie after all these years, she's such a great teammate.
I hope to continue running her for a long time!
In other exciting news, at the trial I was interviewed and Billy and Spottie were filmed for
an upcoming show on Border Collies on Animal Planet.
Spottie thought winning the trial might secure her a spot on the final version of the show!

Spottie
January 05-06, 2008
The 2007-2008 season is off to a good start. Zac placed the second day at
the Lazy J Classic and he and Spottie both ran very well both days.

November 2007
It was an exciting fall season with the Shoofly dogs. Zac was laid up with a pulled muscle
most of the season and Jet stepped up in a big way to fill his spot in the trials.
Our first trip out for the fall was to the wonderful Edgeworth trial, where Jet had a
gorgeous run early in the second round and finished 5th out of 71 dogs.
The following day was the Seclusival trial where we had a heck of day.
I ran 3 dogs and all 3 ended up placing out of 50 dogs. Jet was 2nd,
Gael 7th and Spottie 10th. The next weekend was the Lexington NC trial
where Jet again really ran well, finishing 2nd out of 50 dogs.
That was 3 placements in one week of trialing for her!
Our final trial of the fall was the Rural Hill trial where Zac came back out
to trialing looking great. He finished 11th out of 71 dogs the first day, along with
his mother Spottie who finished 7th. On the second day, Zac ended up 3rd out of 72 dogs.
Quite the nice return to form! Both Spottie and Zac qualified for the
Top 20 double lift finals at Rural Hill and both finished in the top 10.
It was a blast and a wonderful finish to the fall season!

Zac

I've set up a page of wonderful photos taken of my dogs by some very talented friends.
It might take a bit to load but it's worth the wait! Click here to view
PLEASE do not copy any photos from this or any other Shoofly web page for your own use.
Friends have been very generous in allowing me to share these wonderful photos,
please do not reward them by stealing the images. Thank you!!