Bringing in the sheep is my favorite part of the reunion and means the day has begun.  Here is a short movie of Lexus herding them in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXXRL5Cwfek

It was a windy and chilly day for humans however the dogs loved it.  This is a very special day for me and the folks who volunteer because we get to see the dogs we have fostered, groomed and trained once again.  However we do not recognize them anymore because they are no longer sad, matted, skinny and scared.  They are now healthy, happy, loved, beautiful and a very different collie from the one we remember.  Thanks to everyone that brought them and let us see them again!

The herding instinct test starts promptly at 8:00.  It is simply an evaluation to see if they have the herding instinct.  It is amazing to watch because the collies will go in with the sheep, sniff around and then you see this light bulb go on over their head.  Then they go into action realizing herding was what they were born to do.   This year 38 dogs participated and 29 passed which is pretty amazing.  Here is a video of Colt herding for the first time ever seeing a sheep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PtAnnAUJvA

 This one did not pass however the owner did for the sixth year in a row.

Some of you will remember the Willow’s puppies we had last year and she was a sheltie.  It was wonderful to see Tank that I had held in my hand and bottle fed.  He is a year old now and a special treat to see my grandson.

 It’s time for lunch and the blessing of the collies.  Also time to be thankful for all the collies that have found homes and a time to remember our good friend Donna who would have been sixty this day.  This was our 8th reunion at Finley Vue Farm and we thank Kelly for carrying on the tradition.

We would like to thank Kernal Kustard in Winston-Salem, NC for donating the hamburgers and hotdogs.  They are great friends to the collies in rescue and help in many ways.

Here is our mascot in the lake and you will notice he is wearing a CRC shirt.  We had lots of great items in the silent auction.

Many collies went shopping and their owners now have CRC t-shirts and sweatshirts.

Some of the collies had play time together in the lower pasture.  Just running and playing with each other.

 Did I mention that it was windy?  We had everything packed, loaded and all that was left was to take the tent down.  This is when the wind decided to pick it up and toss it into the pond.  That is except for the three legs we had tied to the fence whick broke off.  At least it waited until the end of the day.

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Dear Collie Rescue Family,

Wonderful news!  As most of you know, what CRC does wouldn’t be possible without the Internet. CRC has grown every year but so has the net.  There are millions of new sites every year and only one CRC. That makes it harder to connect with people that want to adopt from or volunteer with us.  It also gets harder to spread the breed rescue message.  Lots of people don’t know that breed rescues exist when they start their search for a new companion animal, so every person we reach with information about rescue, responsible animal ownership, and information on surrendering a found dog is important.  Every person we reach is a potential canine life saved and human life enriched.

We branched out a lot last year to include new free resources like Facebook and Twitter.  This is in addition to our site (going strong for ten years now, thanks Beth and ConnectNC!) and Yahoo group, but those only go so far.  We need a way to reach people more people without spending money on advertising.  That’s the good news.  Last November Alyssa applied to Google for an advertising grant through their corporate program.  It was six months of hard work and waiting.  They have approved our grant for up to $10,000 in GoogleAds spending.  This is fantastic news!

So what’s all the excitement about and just what are Google Ads?  They’re the small, three line ads you see to the side of your Google search results.  But Google sells their ad service to many, many small websites too.  You’ve probably seen them on a blog or small site.  Any site that is related to the search terms we choose that uses Google Ads could display our ads.  We do ask that you do not use Google to search for us just to look for the ads.  Every time they display it uses a tiny amount of our grant money.  But if you happen to see one, think a warm thought in Google’s direction.  We can’t adopt out 107 collies in a year without 107 forever homes for them to go to.  Every year for the past five years more dogs have needed our services.  Every year for the past five years the economy has gotten worse.  Every year for the past ten years we’ve all worked to make sure that every dog goes home.  This year, someone noticed your hard work and made it a tiny bit easier.  Congratulations!!!!

Jean Smith

Coordinator

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