The ranch sits on 480 acres of high desert (around 6600 altitude).  It's dryland.  The trial facility consists of three arenas plus a post advanced trial course, several sorting pens, many smaller training areas.  You can tour the training/trialing facility by hitting the applicable link below.In the pictures on the links to follow. You'll note our grass is short.  It's a special type of native grass that carries more nutrition in it than most long grasses.  We always have sheep and ducks on site, as well as our best pals, the dogs.  Insofar as the dogs, we have his, hers and ours and several veteran retirees; we love them all equally and it's important to us to keep our kennel around 15 dogs or less so all can get individual attention and love and the best well care we can afford.   Our dogs are spoiled rotten; they are our best buds and we bought this ranch specifically for them.

    You'll not find any cats as we are allergic to them:(  You will find lots of sheep here and around 20 to 30 ducks.  We are a bird preserve.  You'll see horned and snow owls residing here, frequently their babies also.  We do protect our pups and ducks from these hunters:)

    This ranch used to be a bed and breakfast.   So we have a guesthouse for our doggy camp attendees, friends, visitors, and Classic judges.  It's not fancy but it's comfortable; you can tour the guesthouse by hitting the applicable link below.    Because our ranch was a bed and breakfast, it has some amenities that are fun to tour.  We've put a few pictures up of the implements on site; again, you can take a virtual tour by hitting the applicable link.

    We hope you enjoy your virtual tour.  If you come to visit, prepare to get dog hair on you.  Our house is overrun with 5 to 8 Aussies often as each of us cannot be without a dog by our side (either outside or inside).  It's best to call before visiting as you could be greeted by one of our more protective Aussies; we are remote and appreciate the Australian Shepherd's guardian capabilities.

     This ranch was purchased for our dogs and designed solely for their development, pleasure, retirement, and as a training/trialing facility for us and our friends.  There is always someone home caring for the critters.  The dogs are not just our hobby, they are our passion.

PICTURE TIME

These are the sorting pens that separate Arena B (our front arena) from Arena A (our back arena).  Both arenas are oversize, with the back arena being the largest.  Arena B has enclosed take-pens, thus we chose to make it Course B.  Some of our visitors had problems with their dogs taking stock out of an enclosed take-pens during the sanctioned trials here so we made it easier for everyone in fairness to all.  Arena A is set up for course A and we've also ran course C in that arena.  Directly in front is the take-pen for Arena A.  These arenas and take-pens are utilized for the ranch trial course, plus they are an excellent way for us to train our dogs and our doggy camp attendees' dogs to sort stock.

This is the front arena.  You can observe this arena from our diningroom or front porch.

This is the back arena.  It's our largest arena and can be a challenge for some trialing teams.
It's an outstanding training arena.

This is the post advanced trial dog course.  If you'll look closely, you can see the obstacles,
which have red fencing.  It is set up as Course A.  It's to the south of Arena A and
Arena B.  It's situate in a 90 acre pasture.

Here's the duck arena.  We have sorting pens for the ducks to the right which were
not photographed.  This arena is to the east of the tennis court.  The court serves
as a conformation/obedience training and show area and is pictured below.

This is the tennis court.  It's too dilapidated to play tennis; your ball would go everywhere:)
It has a garage on one end for housing the obedience equipment and having a nice shade
area in which to train.  The shell in the middle is where the tent is placed for the Classic.
One-half the court is conformation and the other half obedience.  We put shade cloth up
on the sides of the court for the obedience folk; it makes doing sits/downs in the a.m. really
nice.

DOGVILLE

Our dogs have exercise areas, plus some have free-rein on the ranch,

and we have a wonderful insulated dog barn for the oldsters who need protected

from weather, elements, and injury.

This is a shot north of our house.  We have several two-acre fenced areas in which our
dogs play.  In this shot, the sheep are mowing for us:)  To the left is one of the old dog barns.
We rarely if ever use this barn; we have a new one closer to the house that is insulated,
more convenient for bringing the dogs in and out of the house late at night.
Our dogs are only in the barn at night, each safely tucked into their individual dog run
protected from the elements, coyotes, plus ... dreaming they are working these sheep, hopefully
not dreaming of lamb dog food:)

Here is the new dog barn which is adjacent to our house.  We have 10 individual dog
runs in it, each 6 x 10, plus room to house dog food, our dog bath, etc.  We can
retrieve a dog to come in and watch TV with us in the evening:)  The pens outside
directly in front are small potty areas so if we have guests, we can potty our dogs
without our dogs having full run of the ranch and bothering our guests.  The front
area to that wooden fence is a 1.5 acre fenced playyard for the dogs.

We play country/western music in that dog barn. Dogs have beds,

toys, chew bones, and think of this barn as an extension of our house.
  Here is a partial shot of a dog run in the new barn (this is a shot of 1/3
of that dog run.  This is actually Claugene's dog run.  She has a bed which is raised off
the ground, plus her toys, and a chew bone.  That's a mat on the floor.  There is cement
under it.   She's on the end pen so there is a solid mat on one side of her pen but the other
side is simply wire so she can visit with her neighbor.  She's not in this pen right now
cuzzzz she's playing in one of those one and a half or two-acre play areas this morning.

Our relationship with our dogs is very important to us and to them both. No matter the

age, no matter if competiting or not, our dogs get individual training, play

and love time. We have full-time house dogs, and others who come in for

occasional sleepovers or some TV time:)

Here's an old shot of some of our dogs fence chasing, something that annoys us to
death but seems to make their day.  Pictured here is Hank and Gus on one side of the
fence and Lucky and Claugene on the other.  We have igloos out in the exercise areas
and/or quasi huts in case the weather turns ugly so the dogs can hide out.  All dogs
go into their individual dog runs at night and some come in the house and snooze with
us humans.  Some are actually full time house dogs (we have about 8 in the house at
any given time).

These are INEXPENSIVE cattle:)  They hang out at the garage.

These implements grace the side of our garage wall.  They are a fun tour:)

Lots of old farm implements grace the ranch.

GUESTHOUSE

This is the queen bed room. It has a radio and a porta-air, window seat, closet
and private entrance.

This is the twin bed room.  It has a TV, window seat, port-a-air, closet and private entrance.

This is the shared bathroom.  The kitchnette (pictured below) and the bathroom are
inbetween the two bedroom.  There are doors to close off each bedroom, keeping
them private.

Small refrigerator.  Coffee pot and sink afford the guest a few luxuries.

Each room has a private door entrance.  The guesthouse is situated next to the main house
and shares two courtyards (both pictured below).

You can join us on the porch and enjoy the ambiance or watching your buddies
practice in the front arena.

Or you can snooze in the hammock.

MISC PICTURES

You are on the ranch looking up at the entrance into the ranch.  It's nice and private here,
just the way we like it.

This is a shot looking back at the house.  There is a small pond here in which our dogs
love to play.  It does have fish in it.  We keep the natural grass mowed very short
around the pond since we do have rattlers visiting from time to time.

This is a shot standing at the side of the sorting pens between Arena A and Arena B, looking
back at the house, the duck arena, and the tennis court.  We have wonderful views
to put us in a good mood as we do our chores:)

Here's the view from our porch and the guesthouse courtyard.  We have a nice lawn,
a few flowers, and we can watch folks practice in Arena A while we visit.
This Courtyard
is immediately adjacent to the guesthouse.  It went a bit nuts with the wild flowers
this year.  The windows to the right of this shot are those in the lap pool room.  We
are way too tired to swim, as are most of our doggy camp guests, but once in a while
it sure is nice to take a quick dip in the pool and relax after a hard day's work.

Remember the snows I told you could hit here - here is a shot of one of those storms.
That's Steve trying to dig us out:)  One year we had 6' drifts and were snowed in for three days.
Normally, however, the snow comes and goes quickly.

We have some really nice trees here.  Here is Hank standing by those in our
driveway.
 

This sign was made by our good friend, Jimmy Hartnagle, and was a surprise gift to us.
It greets you as you approach the tennis court on the drive into the ranch.   Don't be
impressed we have a tennis court; it is dilapidated.  We use it as a dog training site.
It's sufficient upon which to train our dogs but if you played, tennis, your ball would
go everywhere but where you intended:)  That's a picture of Legends MasterCommander
(Jack) taken by Anne.  Jack now resides in Germany.