Amanda: Judging the Slash J Nursery

There was a slightly anticlimactic Ranch/Nursery today.  It was partly my fault.  I judged it and set the course.  The outrun was  too big for very consistent success so many runs did not get off the ground.  A few pens were completed but most ran out of time and there could have been an extra thirty seconds.  It seemed OK, and then it was disappointing.  The retrospectroscope is twenty twenty.  There were about forty dogs running.  Dennis Edwards carried the trial with a young dog he does not plan to take to the National Finals.  Shoot.  I see so many of those in California and here in the west.  They can't tell me anything about the trouble it takes to get to the Finals every year.

The nursery course

We went to tomorrow's trial field today to deliver some set out pen acoutrements and a few other appointments.  Everyone boasted about how wonderful the was.  It's all true.  It is a big one. Harry, whose place it is, has it all spruced up, lawns mowed, yard right.  The last of his 800 ewes are now lambing and a couple of hundred open ones are ladies in waiting for the big trial. Maybe I'm too dumb to be scared but I am thrilled to be first up with Clive, in whom I have a lot of confidence and I hope it is not misplaced.   The spotting will be done with horses so it really helps dogs locate sheep for the big outruns, seven hundred yards up the side of a grassy bute.  I have not done such a big outrun.  Maybe Bev will send you a picture.