Happy 4th of July

Today, I went out to Hempstead (Texas) where our herding club holds it's meeting, mostly on holidays. :-) We are the Houston Area Herding Association also know as the HAHAs and we hold herding trials in October and March. Today we had a get together starting about 8:30 am and we finished up somewhere around noon. We invite people out who are interested in seeing if their dog who was bred for herding has the instinct to herd. A lot of the people who come out do go on and and train with Joy (President of our Club and a AKC Herding Judge) and then show for either an HT (Herding Tested) title or PT (pre trial tested) title. Of course there are more advanced titles to get and some people do get bit with the herding bug and go on to the more advanced titles, but it all about the joy the dog has doing what it was bred to do and the team work/love/respect between dog and owner. More information about herding and herding trials can be found on the AKC website. Below are some photos I took of some dogs doing herding instinct tests and a couple shots of more advanced dogs being trained for upcoming trials. Also there are photos of our lunch and our "Chinese Christmas In July". VBG FYI, our website is www.houstonareaherdingassociation.com Info on our October trials will be up sometime towards the end of August.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. God Bless our Military, those in harms way now and those who are now retired, especially my father, Chief Master Sergeant John C Burgess Jr (retired) who proudly served 30 years in the United States Air Force. Love ya Dad!