'Sis', the wonder dog

The annual Lithgow Show was on this weekend. Strictly speaking, it's an Agricultural Show, but Lithgow is really a coal mining town so there wasn't really a whole lot of agricultural stuff...
There was, however, plenty of arts and crafts, flowers, cooking, photography, cake decorating, home brewing, wool, highland and other dancing, a Showgirl, small furry and feathered animals for little children to annoy and a respectable collection of carnival sideshows and stomach churning rides.
Later in the day, there was a bit of agricultural stuff, in the form of a rodeo (we watched them unload about 20 very experienced looking bulls for that) and the very entertaining Dog High Jump.
We were informed that all the participating dogs are proper working dogs - "They don't jump for a living, they do contract mustering - jumping is just a game to them." I must say all the dogs seemed pretty keen on it.
This little dog, "Sis", was easily the smallest entrant and very much the crowd favourite. She had no chance of beating any of the others, who were all New Zealand and Border Collies and much bigger, but she did very well, jumping about 1.6 metres and wagging her little tail joyfully after every successful jump. (Her wrangler looks as if he's throwing her up, but he's actually just being ready to catch her if she doesn't make it. She did though.)
The height of the jump is gradually raised a few inches at a time, so it doesn't look too daunting, and the top board is covered in carpet so they don't hurt their paws scrabbling over the top.
Lots more pictures here, if you're interested.
It started to get even more crowded after about 7.00 pm, in time for the rodeo events - and once it started getting dark and the sideshow lights came into their own, hordes of teenagers arrived to spend their parents' money and snuggle up in the dodgem cars. Much as we would have enjoyed watching all that, it was the 7.30 train home or wait about till after 10.00. We chose the early option, which I think makes us officially 'Old People'!