Sheepdog News

Second day of open. Exactly the same course. Wasn't a problem, not like any of us had aced it the first day. Mirk ran second and redeemed himself with a nice run and an 80 which stood until late afternoon when Amanda and Roz beat it by a point for the win. Dennis Gellings and Jake had a real nice mid-afternoon run earning 73 with no pen. At the end of the trial Terry Folsom got a 79, I think. At any rate she came third.

The sheep developed a propensity for running into the audience at the turn and shed. This ended several very promising runs as one sheep would take off and refuse to return. For the most part, however, the sheep were much better today. They stayed together on the top and demonstrated more willingness to come down the fetch. The setout also went much smoother with an improved pen design speeding the trial and allowing us to finish in time for the great handlers dinner.

The weather remained clear and while the wind picked up in the afternoon, it never blew too hard and didn't affect the hearing on the course. I think the dogs could hear a bit better at the second drive gate and many more groups went through it. Yesterday out of about 65 runs we had 37 dogs with no scores. Most of those with scores were in the 40-60 range with 60 being a good score. Today I'm sure no more then a third of the dogs failed to score. It was still a really hard trial. Just got a little easier fir those who could keep the sheep from panicking on the fetch.

Nel and Fly both ran much better. Fly had a really good run up to the shed where we had a miscommunication, possibly caused by her being too hot. Nel ran bigger on her outrun than I like but managed the sheep well on the lift and fetch. She had some trouble on the drive and I opted to miss the first drive rather then have her bite a sheep to force it through the panel. Both girls shed and timed out at the pen.

Amanda and Clive had a good outrun followed by trouble on the fetch resulting in a missed gate. A good drive was ruined by a difficult sheep at the shed costing shed points and ultimately causing them to time out at the pen.

Alison's Rhys had a great gather, dead straight and a nice run, just a bit too slow timing out at the shed.

Tomorrow we run the young dogs. This is hopelessly beyond my young dog's pay grade but maybe she will learn something from the event.

Well this was quite an experience. We ran sheep today that have never been worked by a dog. The outrun was 550 yards and they didn't want to come , assuming the dog even found them. The day ran heavily to wrecks with an occasional good run to remind us all it could be done.

Alison and Chip got the first really good one with a 73 in the morning. That stood until afternoon when Amanda got 78 with a very nice finished run marred only by a poor outrun.  Chris Jobe had two good runs at least one of them scoring in the 70s.  Dennis Edwards also had a good run in the 70s.

A long day as we started at 6:00 this morning and I just ran the last dog at 8:30. The sheep slowed things down a bit as they were often difficult to set out.

My dogs all ran pretty poorly and I'm thinking of giving up dog trialing. Mirk actually managed to cross his outrun, proving my maxim that "if you wait long enough every dog will eventually cross over".

I ran Nel in the open for the first time and she managed to get her sheep around, as did Fly, but neither one had a run I wish to recall. So tomorrow is another day and we will all try again.

A very difficult trial. The sheep were very ignorant and quite a bit of fun. The drive wasn't as big but the hearing at the second gate was poor, increasing the difficulty there. A really good trial–I just wish my skills had been up to the course. Maybe my dogs and I will be smarter tomorrow.

I got up at 6:00 this morning to find that Herbert and Alison had pulled in at about 1:00 in the morning. I had my dogs walked and was on the road by 7:00. Long drive. The west has been getting a lot of moisture this year. Wyoming was the greenest I have ever seen it and even more beautiful for it to my eastern eyes. I drove through the Black Hills, always gorgeous, then up the whole of SD. I got to Bowman, ND at about 1:30 in the afternoon.

View of the North Dakota plains from the camper

Bowman is in the southwestern corner of ND. Joni's place is about 3-4 miles down a gravel road off RT 85. The trial field is huge. The outrun is 550 yards. The field must be at least 800 yards wide. It has a few small rolling hills all through it and slopes from right to left. There are no simple 550 yard outruns and this one is no exception.

The Slash J trial field

Joni Swanke is taking 3rd dogs in the Open so I have moved Nel into Open. I'm very eager to run her and I'm tired of messing about in Ranch with her. I want to see how she handles the big time stuff. I think I have picked a very tough trial to start her out in.

This trial and the next one, which happily is only 20 miles away, are giving a beautiful pottery plate for the dog with the highest combined score from both trials. So whichever two dogs run the best here I will run at The Big One (the next trial).

Dinner/Handlers Meeting

Joni had us all up to her house for dinner prepared by a neighbor who is doing all the cooking for both events. The neighbors slaughtered a steer for the cooking so we are having all this spectacular beef all week. If tonight's great hamburgers were anything to go by we are indeed in luck.

Amanda arrives for some friendly competition

68 dogs to run tomorrow so we are starting at 6:00. Only running on three sheep, which is pretty rare out here where 5 is the norm. But to have fresh sheep for each dog they cut us back to three. It will be interesting to see how they go. Herbert's up first. I'm up tenth with Nel.

By the way, cause for confusion, Nel was bred in Wales and named Awel, Welsh for breeze. However, I bought her from a Scotsman who called her Nel. So I call her Nel but her registered name is Awel.

11:20 Torrington, Wyoming on my way to Joni's in ND.

Trial Course

Mirk ran early and extremely well but like an idiot I failed to pen. I believe he tied Herbert's young dog, Cap, for second with an 82. Alasdair won with Nap and an 85.

Handlers Meeting

There was some nice work but the sheep were pretty sick of dog trialing and tended to spread out and put their heads down then take off at a fast clip when the dog got too close. Tricky.

Linda Tesdahl and Ryan

We ran 8 sheep. Had to split them and pen four. The whole thing proved more difficult than it sounds.

Trial course judges booth

Not much traffic through Denver and now that I'm in Wyoming traffic is a thing of the past. I should get to Joni's tomorrow afternoon.

Novice day. We ran two of what this trial calls Pro-Novice but is elsewhere called Open Ranch and one Nursery today.

The course was pretty near the same as the open.The outrun was shortened a bit so you could see the sheep at the lift. The cross drive was also about 30' shorter. It was very hard for the nursery dogs and moderately hard for the ranch. Much more failure then success.

At the end of the day more and more groups of sheep were going past the pen and off course. That may bode very ill for tomorrow's Open when the sheep run once again.

This outrun has not been nearly as long as the Table Top outruns that most dogs had little difficulty handling but it's has proven much more of a puzzle for many dogs. I think the abundance of obstacles on the field have been a major problem. There are about ten cross country jumps for horses and six huge hay bales at the top end (also horse jumps we have surmised) on the course as well as much local flora some of it fairly tall. Combined with nearly invisible sheep and a steep hill it's proven a real test for the dogs.

Nel ran well in both Ranch classes. She decided the sheep were too slow on the crossdrive on the first run and gave them a little heel nip. This increased their speed so dramatically we missed the panel. I handled her very poorly on the top end of her second run but she worked very well.

Meg never got up the hill. Confirming my opinion on the difficulty of the outrun and her lack of preparedness. She runs again tomorrow, but as she still has no idea where the sheep are I'm not expecting a different outcome.

Constant mystery how you can get so tired sitting around doing nothing. Easy day really. We started at 7:30 with the handler meeting first dog at 8:00.

In the morning it was sunny and warm with a good, strong wind down the field into the handler's face. The outrun was up a fairly steep hill300+ yards. Sheep were spotted expertly by two riders. These were real range sheep ignorant, stubborn and smart. The morning got off to a good start with Maury Harris completing the course with a 74. It was a long time before anyone else got near as good a score.

After the one hour lunch break the wind swung around to our backs and the sheep cheered considerably. Wilda Barr scored an 88 on a rerun for the win. Linda Tesdahl and her young dog, Suede, had another nice run scoring 80 for second.Don Helsley had a very smooth run and got third with a 79 and no pen. 4th was a 76, I'm sorry I'm not sure who got it.Mirk and I tied with Maury and Missy Parker with our 74s for 5th.

The outrun was tricky with the sheep at the top of the hill and mostly out of sight to the handler and dog. The more experienced dogs no doubt ran to the horses but there were plenty of outrun problems all day. Several packets never left the top of the field as they split and the dogs failed to get them all gathered or the sheep just refused to move.

I was pleased with both my dog's outruns which hasn't always been the case this trip. I gave Fly one insurance redirect and she was perfect.Mirk needed no direction and didn't run too wide. Maybe he learned his lesson at Lise's when he ran 1000 yards and never found his sheep.Better handling would no doubt have earned me a better score with Mirk. Fly and I just couldn't managed one of our ewes. She left the group repeatedly. Fly turned her back and kept rejoining the group but she ate too much of our time and I finally surrendered at the second drive gate when she broke for about the 20th time. We'll see how we get on next time.

Campers in foreground trial field quarter mile beyond.

Tomorrow we run the young dogs. I don't think it's going to be pretty.Monday is the second go around of the open. The trial field is a long walk from the parking area. There are golf carts running back and forth to give us rides but we have all been getting a bit of much needed exercise.

Hot, sunny day with a good strong wind. Very wearing sort of day.

Day started with nursery. The outrun was shortened to about 200+ yards. Don Helsley started the class with what I think was the winning run. Meg pleased me by doing the outrun and never losing her head.However, she pulled up when she saw the horses and never did get the sheep back in line. The whole thing was sort of barely controlled chaos.

Nel was up first in the ranch/nursery and overran but otherwise had a very respectable run. The sheep became very heavy as the day went in and she hocked them a couple of times to get them moving. A reasonable but not stellar debut.

I'm in Parker now at the next trial. We are parked about half a mile from the trial field, no motorized vehicles allowed so we will all be doing a lot of walking. The field is big, but the course is very small, the outrun maybe 200 yards up hill. The drives less then 100 yards each.

Great dinner out with Alison and Herbert at a sushi place. Amanda would have loved it. Now I'm off to walk my dogs. Handlers meeting at 7:30, so we can all sleep in.

The Tabletop trial was really good. Great sheep and very challenging courses.

Editor's Note: I'll be away at trials myself this weekend, so updates from Bev will be delayed until Sunday evening.  Sorry to one and all!

Another day just like the other day, partly cloudy but mostly very sunny and windy. Hottest day we have had yet–if there hadn't been a good strong wind I think it would have been very hot.

Sheep were quite heavy today. Outrun was pretty similar to yesterday about 400 yards. Drive was reversed and went up and down a new hill.The second drive gate at the bottom of a hill was particularly tricky.

Fly ran early and nailed the outrun and generally had a very good run.Alas, like many folk we couldn't pen the little buggers. Mirk ran late, and happily for both of us had no difficulty with the outrun. His 90.5 turned out the high score. Tricia MacRae and Cap tied us and I think came second on the outwork by a point. Linda and Suede had another strong showing for third.

Charlie Torre and Bill 4th, 5th Thad Fleming, 6th Alasdair and Star with Alison and Chip having a nice early morning run for 7th.

Tomorrow I get to run Nel finally. I also run Meg who is probably not ready for either the heavy sheep or the big course. Oh well, she'll be ready soon I hope, might as well start trying now.

Cars parked behind the handlers post with Pike's Peak in the background.

Wind is whistling around the camper and it's getting dark, time to turn in. Lise Anderson has been such a great hostess, every day after the trial she goes out and changes the course to keep us all entertained. Been a really testing trial. The sheep have been good every day, but different. I don't know what the young dogs will make of them, they have flummoxed plenty of open dogs.