Sheepdog News

Another awful hot day. It did get to 105 yesterday and I think today was more of the same. Trial went very smoothly. The early start got a goodly part of the open run ahead of the worst heat. But four days of this heat finally wore out everyone except Laura and Jamie and Diane Deal our judgeThey never lost their good humor and kept things rolling along when the rest of us started flagging.

Rene LeBree's Jazz watching Cindy Gault at L&M trial

I had a nice morning run with Nel. She had a much more considered outrun and managed an 86. Hemp too ran well tying I'm sorry I can't remember who and I've lost my score sheet–I'm pretty sure it was Kay Stephens.Dan Keaton had a really good go with York and scored 83. Later Dennis Edwards and Craig scored another 86 beating Nel for the win.

Bud repeated his win in PN followed by a nice run by Laura's son Dustin for second and Barb Ross and Wink got third. Gerald Bunny and Ladd won a quilt for overall both trials.

Meg ran away with me again. She seems to have fallen back into her evil chasing ways. I need to do a little remedial instruction before her next trial, the Nursery Finals. I left the post and got after her in PN but she wasn't much better in Nursery. She is running out brilliantly, lifting the sheep with authority but very quietly. After that she is overflanking and generally running like an over enthusiastic one-year-old. Oops, I guess that is just what she is. I'm still excited by the possibilities I have seen in her this trip. It's just going to need a bit more time and work.

Everyone has gone. The trials are over. They were two really good trials. People out here sure are lucky to have such nice events.I'm leaving in the morning to try and get my camper fixed in Rapid City. The wind is blowing fairly well but it's still quite warm out. The stars are great and all's well with the world.

Another scorcher. We think it topped 100 degrees today. Sure felt it anyway.Not much wind, just hot and bright. We are on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation here. Turns out pieces of the reservation belong to non Indians to whom it's been sold over the years. Hence Mike and Laura Hicks' ranch in the middle of the reservation.

Glorious field. Must be 1500 yards long at least. We are standing at the highest point at one end and sending our dogs almost 700 yards over several hills for five sheep, two ewes and three lambs. Some of the old ewes were tough–they would just walk away from the group and ignore the dogs. The course was straightforward but because the ground on the right was so big and rough everyone sent left on the outrun.

L&M trial field

We started with open at 6:00 to try and run as many as we could ahead of the worst of the heatMy dogs went from bad to good. Mirk was marginal, flanking too wide and not pressing his sheep to my liking. Nel ran too big again and when I attempted to call her off the set out, where she ended up, she came back to me. No score, no biscuit. "Bad Dog!" Bud and Delta had a very good run toward the end when it was very hot scoring 90 and winning the trial. Hemp and I ran just after him and also had a good go. Hemp kept a lot of pressure on the sheep so there wasn't any splitting. He was a good boy and got second with a 85. Dennis Edwards was third with 81.

The ProNovice was a bit of a rerun of the open, with Bud winning and Mickey Welsh second. Mickey came from Oklahoma and Kay from Texas to escape the heat. Oops.

Meg ran like an express train and I left the post at the first drive gate to get after her. Too many trials in a row and no chance to school her. I have been letting her run stronger and stronger in order to hopefully win and she has finally gotten completely out of hand. The correction paid off as she was much more responsive in the nursery and had a very good run, beaten by Bud and Tine's even better go. I'm very pleased that she is lifting her sheep very calmly with plenty of authority. We get into trouble when she doesn't think they are moving fast enough and really starts trying to chase. She has a lot of chase in her. Once she starts chasing I have a very hard time getting her stopped and things go downhill from there. We have been working some very tough sheep and so I have been letting her carry on a bit. A bit too much maybe.

Laura had us all up to the house for dinner and some Blue Grass music. Turns out her dad is quite a talented musician.

Mike and the water truck left shortly after noon to go fight a wild fire. Laura said he would probably be gone all night. The fire danger here is "extreme"; everything is as dry as tinder. I don't smell any smoke so they must have gotten to the fire in time.

It's finally cooling off now so we are all hidden away in our campers resting. Nothing like 12 hours of dog trialing in 100 degree weather to wear one out.

Correction to yesterday, Kay Stephens won the PN Dennis was second.

Short one tonight I'm really beat. It was very hot today, mid-90s to 100 at least, with a good strong wind all day. The wind was nice as it made it a bit cooler in the shade but it just sucked the moisture out. I drank at least a gallon of liquids during the day and I'm still thirsty.

We finished the nursery about 6:00 and I finally left Jamie and Lee Spring's ranch for Laura Hicks' Ranch three hours south and east, a goodly portion on tough dirt roads. It was a long day not helped by dismal performances by all of my dogs.

We again started with open. Jack Gault, a universal favorite, won to all of our delights. David Soppe was second with Ash followed by ReneLeBree and Kay Stephens. My dogs were fairly useless. Mirk took too long to gather and I walked off on the drive when he made a wide flank when he was asked for a tight one.Nel failed to get the sheep down the field. Hemp's gather was so far off line I thought he had gotten lost and I walked again. There were a few more scores today in all the classes than yesterday, but still many groups never lifted. We theorized that all those groups that never lifted yesterday had gotten more determined not to leave the set out. Whatever the reason there were many groups that never came down field and many more groups that went around quite reasonably and penned with minimal resistance. Go figure.

I hoped that Meg would end my sorrows but she too failed to lift in the PN. In the nursery she had no intentions of failing again and lifted pretty hard and then chased on the fetch with the sort of disregard for my commands that used to be her normal behavior. The rest of her run was strong but she listened and worked well at the pen. I hope this was a temporary relapse. Tomorrow should tell. At least I now know what she is capable of and we will get there eventually. I was also very pleased to see her really take charge on her second run, although a little stopping would have been nice. I'm pretty sure Dennis Edwards and Boone won PN as they had a great run but by that time we were all so cooked we just lolled in the little shade we had and stopped posting scores.

Did some sheep spotting and got to send Mirk about 500 yards past the set out pen for a runaway group of sheep in an adjacent pasture, which sort of got him back in my good books. Mostly it was a long, very hot day. It's still in the mid-70s at 10:30 but at least I'm camped at the new trial site and who knows what pleasant successes tomorrow might bring.

There were no mosquitoes at this trial. Hordes of grasshoppers eating all the grass and alfalfa, but no mosquitoes.

Don't know when this will get out. I'm 50 miles east of Sturgis, SD on a paved road, then another 10-15 on gravel roads. I arrived in the dark so I'm not sure but I think I'm in the middle of a very large, very sparsely settled part of the great plains. It's cool and the wind is whistling. Not another sound. Was in the 90s all day driving. I miss the cool Canadian weather already.

I ran Nel first in a long ago morning in Shaunavon. She did ok, good outrun, which was reassuring, but not much help at the pen. Scott ran another really good go with Don getting a 93. I missed it as I was in town fueling up and failing to dump the trailer and refill my water.

I got back and ran Mirk 16th. He drew beautiful sheep and we treated them very gingerly managing to score a 96. I don't know how the trial finished up as Ileft at that point for my very long trip across Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming, and a chunk of South Dakota to my current place. Alas, I had to drive about half a mile in here through the great American prairie and somewhere in there I caught the back of my camper, doing it some serious damage. It's ok to drive but I'll have to get it fixed before it rains. I doubt my winnings from today will cover my repairs. Oh well.

Tomorrow is a new trial on wilder range ewes. I'll assess my poor camper's damage in the daylight and duct tape our wounds until I can get it fixed. I hate to waste my vacation undoing my carelessness.

We had a great day. Wonderful trial I can't sing its praises too loudly. Really nice field up a hill outrun, a little hard because the dogs need to come around the back of the hill and come over the top in the right spot, but very doable as most open dogs got that part, about 450 yards.

Four really green yearlings for each dog. And I mean really ignorant and tough. Out of the 32 open dogs we ran only 13 got scores. Most of the trouble came on the top. The girls didn't want to come down the hill big time. They stood off dogs, split up and sometimes just plain outran the dog. Once they were lifted they went about ten feet and then it all needed to be done again. This persisted all the way to the turn around the post. Some dogs handled the turn fairly well. Others, including my Mirk, had a bit of a struggle with yearlings wanting no part of the turn. Once they were turned, of course, they wanted to run back up the middle of the field. After fighting them down to the first gate they would break big for the top with most crossdrives having a hundred-yard bow in their middle as the dogs fought the sheep back down to the second drive gate.

Gerald Bunny started the day with Ladd and a good run. He had trouble with the outrun and a very squirrely fetch but a good finish. I think maybe the only pen in the open. His 72 turned out the best score of the day. Sue Noll 70 and Bud Boudreau 70 both had very tidy runs without pens for second and third. Mirk and I had what felt like a wreck with both drive gates missed for 4th, scoring 67.

I was delighted that all three if my dogs got the sheep to my feet. It was in the mid 90s all day so I walked after Hemp's very protracted fetch. Nel did great handling the sheep very well on the top and had one of the day's better gathers. A bad drive and an unfortunate yearling cutting back on our shed got her a 60 and no prize but one of the days better scores.

My star for the day was again Meg. I thought she would just split the sheep on top and chase one off. Actually, as she had never worked sheep that stood and fought I had no idea what she would do. In the Pro-Novice (350 yard gather just drove to the first drive gate of open) there were 18 dogs and I think 5 scores. Most of the dogs never got the sheep lifted. Meg ran out perfectly, a delight in itself as her outrun is still very much in its evolutionary stage, and was some time with no sheep movement. Just about the time I thought I was due a long, hot walk she lifted the sheep and brought them beautifully. She sort of chased but never once overflanked and kept them grouped and moving great. We finished our run with time for the only pen in the class and the win. Truth be told, Dennis Edwards and Boon had a much better run but no pen. She repeated her great performance in the nursery, again taking 30 seconds or so to let the sheep go on their own before pouring on the gas and shifting them. No over flanking. She got away from me on the drive and I couldn't hold her as she ended up running right through the middle of the sheep. Still for the first time she really helped me at the pen and I think we had a 10 pointer, no mean feat on these sheep and definite progress. I'm sure it was the pen that cemented our win as Kay Stephens also had a good nursery run.

As you can no doubt tell I'm delighted with her. She won't ever have to run on sheep much tougher then these and these she handled with great confidence. This is so exciting.

The sun has set and it's finally cooling off. It was a very long day as the sheep were really hard to spot usually taking three handlers and dogs to get each group out. We often had to wait 10 minutes or more between runs for sheep. Makes for a long day.

Tomorrow is supposed to be as hot or hotter. But the sheep should be more manageable as they will have had today's experience to wise them up to the ways of dogs and trials. I look forward to having another go at them. This is a really good, tough trial in a beautiful location. I don't think they can run any more dogs then are here and I just barely got in but if anyone were to come this way don't miss it.

A beautiful summer day. A little breezy in the afternoon but not too hot. Mirk ran first and had lovely sheep with which we did an adequate job ending up 4th. Dale Montgomery ran right after me and had a bit better run. Later Norm Sommer and his young Lexie beat him and finally Scott Glen beat us all with a nice run with Dan. Nel ran very well missing a really difficult flank command at the second drive gate, but pleasing me all around. Hemp too did a good job but his sheep started running before he finished his outrun and never stopped making for a difficult job.

The sheep were good although some groups were a bit nicer then others. There was a strong draw to the exhaust all day which undid many of the ProNovice dogs who just couldn't get themselves over to cover the pressure. Meg ran next to last in the PN and was a bit too much for me and the sheep. She pushed too hard and while we got everything 3 minute of frantic running by Meg wouldn't pen the sheep. She was a good girl a bit on the muscle but we got what had become a difficult fetch gate and we'll have to be satisfied with that. Scott won with Sweep and I think Randy Dye was second with Tuck.

The sheep ran hard with little encouragement especially whenever they thought it might work toward the exhaust. They were nice to shed and tricky to pen but always very workable.

Jamie VanRhyn managed to garner quite a bit of local support for the trial and had a variety of prizes from local sponsors as well as cash for the top 4 places in each class.

Tomorrow I'm going to run two open dogs and then leave to drive to South Dakota for the next trial. I hate to leave Canada except for the Mosquitos it's been great weather and really fun people. But time to hit the road again and put another 600 miles on the truck.

No action to report. Was a very windy travel day to southwestern Saskatchewan, a little town called Shaunavon. Tomorrow we begin the next trial. The course is not too big, 300 yard or less outrun, very flat with the top end unmowed. My guys should be accustomed to tall grass by now and they will be spotting the sheep on horseback again so I hope we’ll be okay. I’m up first with Mirk I think.

Turns out this isn’t the communication black hole I had feared so my little iPhone still works. Please forgive my occasional misspellings, my finger is so very big and my keyboard so very small.

Interesting day. Started out very cold, windy and wet with some fairly steady rain. By 1:00 it was warm, bright and sunny with no smoke from the British Columbia fires still burning.

We ran two nursery classes in the morning. Meg continued to absolutely delight and impress me by winning the both handily. Her first run was better than most of the open runs, earning an 80. Way to go baby. I can’t believe how much she has learned thus far on our trip. I see a bright future for us if this keeps up.

The double lift final was tricky. The outruns were not long but the second gather was at nearly right angles to the fetch gate along a ridge. If the first group of sheep ran down the field while the dog went back for his second group all went pretty well. But if they stayed at the turn back post it was nearly impossible to get the second fetch gate without the sheep joining the first group and ruining your fetch.

Scott had a good early go with Maid marred only by her losing two cheviots on the back side of the ridge on his second fetch. When they popped up to join their comrades at the turn we were all very surprised. His scored of 125 was high until Hemp turned in quite a credible run, severely damaged by an awful second fetch, but with a good finish that got him a 130. Lee Lumb tied this later. These scores stood until the end of the day when Scott’s young Don had a good run with a bad shed and no pen to score 136, followed immediately by a really good run by George Stambulic and Kate, deservedly winning the day with 148.

Mirk worked really well, especially heroically at the pen when he was tired after a hard shed. He managed to pen his five recalcitrant collared ewes with seconds to spare.

The day finished George first, Scott second, Hemp and I third, and Lee fourth.

Nel and I took the flock of 250 ewes over to the waiting truck and with help from Ian Zoerb and his Sam finally managed to get them loaded. I’m sure all the pushing and fighting must be good for her as long as she doesn’t grip off at our next trial in an over abundance of self confidence.

We were done running by 3:30 and had the course down and stacked by 4:00. All the pens needed to be dismantled and removed by tomorrow but a bunch of people stayed over tonight to give Ian help getting it done.

So the trial is all over for another year. A really good event, very difficult and a lot of fun with great prizes. Joann gets great jackets for all the top placers and Meg won a cookie jar in the nursery.

Tomorrow we all make our way to Shaunavon, Saskatchewan for the next event, which starts on Tuesday. I will again have an opportunity to run all three of my Open dogs as well as Meg. I’m especially anxious to see how Meg and Nel do. I don’t think there will be cell coverage in Shaunavon so there might be no blog for a few days. After Shaunavon I go to Union Center, SD, where I’m told there is for sure no coverage. So wish us luck and I’ll let you all know how it turned out as soon as I can.

Was a lovely day. Got up it was foggy and a bit smokey and cold enough for a turtleneck and a winter coat. It got warm but never really hot in the middle of the day and has now cooled back down to coat weather. Except for the ubiquitous mosquitos it's been great running weather.

We ran PN first. The PN course was a 200+ yard outrun up a hill and over a little swale to another hill. The dogs had to run at least half of it off either hand blind. The drives were not huge but made tricky by the sage brush and long grass. Meg ran 3rd and did a great job. Not stopping quite as readily as yesterday but figuring out the pen a bit so we finally managed to get the sheep in and the gate closed. She won the day and ended up winning the dog bed for overall as well. Her first win.

After the two youth runs we moved into the open. The sheep were more difficult then yesterday and I didn't handle as well, an unfortunate combination. My shedding was terrible so after Hemp managed to get a very cantankerous ewe around in good shape I blew the shed and pen. Nel ran much better than yesterday handling the outrun with aplomb. She handled two eager cheviots very nicely and had a good run except for my poor shed. Mirk had reasonable sheep but, you guessed it, I blew the shed. So no day money, but Mirk and Hemp managed to make the cut for the double lift in spite of my poor management.

George Stambulic and Kate won with a really nice go. Nancy Stephens was second. The top twelve combined went into the double lift: Scott Glen, Lee Lumb, Joann Zoerb and I with two each, Norm Sommer, Chris Jobe, George Stambulic and Wendy Schmatz with one I think.

Had a really great handler dinner tonight after which we did the prizes and the draw for tomorrow. I drew up 5th and 9th. I sure hope I'm over my shedding screw up by then. It's a cinch if anyone gets a Cheviot with a collar it's going to be very tricky. The outruns will be hard too with the ground being so hilly. Hemp managed it well last year and got first but I doubt he remembers how and I know I don't. Still I'm looking forward to trying to figure it out.

We'll start tomorrow  with today's left over nursery run followed by tomorrow's nursery first then the double lift. So I get two more chances to run Meg. I'm really looking forward to that as well.