BevLive: Silver Springs SDT, Day One

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.