BevLive: Tabletop SDT, Day 3

Sun came out to all of out delights. The wind blew but not at the 60mph forecast. Still we were all bundled up in all the clothes we had brought with us. It was cold but a huge improvement over yesterday. The road has dried out and except for being heavily rutted is quite passable.

We started an hour later at 7:30 with a combined Ranch Nursery class of about 45 dogs. The out run was about 200 yards with a small drive. There was some very nice work in the class but also a lot of struggling and some dogs just totally flummoxed by the sheep and needing rescuing. Vicky Yablonsky (sorry if I misspelled but I can’t find my running order) had a great run with her dog to win the class. Mindy Bower probably had the best gather of the class but came to grief on the drive. Carla King had a really great go as did Bridgette Strang with their nursery dogs.

I ran Joe with great trepidation as he has never worked anything remotely like these sheep. I need not have worried. He handled them with great aplomb even taking a stop at the end of his outrun. I let him carry on a bit to make sure he had a good time with them so we missed most of our panels. At the pen he was pretty clueless and we finished with not much score but I was over the moon with him.

Meg had one of her over active days and while she showed plenty of speed she didn’t get much done.

After the Ranch/Nursery Lise changed the course and we ran a straight nursery. This repeat performance was hard for a lot of the dogs and most didn’t run as well, Joe ran first. His outrun was not as good as his first run but he was otherwise a bit more confident and really listened except for the fetch panel and first drive where he got a bit carried away and zinged the sheep. Joni Swanke’s Possom also ran much better the second time showing much more authority and having a good run after a difficult gather. Generally though the running wasn’t great and Joe ended up winning with a pretty mediocre run.

We hadn’t seen anything yet though. The course was reset yet again with the longest gather yet and we started the third open at 4:00 with the plan of running until 6:30 and then finishing in the morning. Talk about rough running!

We ended up running 12 dogs. The first 8 got no score either failing to bring the sheep or disqualifying. Tom Wilson and Sly were the 9th up and happily for those of us still to run got the sheep around. I ran Nel next and she had a very credible run to my delight. Her outrun was too wide but she kept her sheep moving so we had time to finish. Alas we wasted much of the time when we couldn’t shed. Finally we got the shed and I went to the pen with 21 seconds left. I encouraged Nel to push in and closed the gate as the timer went off. Way too close for comfort.

Clearly the sheep had begun to improve and the next runner also finished. I missed the 12th run but it looked like they were getting the fetch done so the curse had been broken. I think it was the longest run of no scores I have seen. It was scary. The sheep didn’t look that bad and spotted okay but they were ornery. We were all watching the clock wishing for 6:30 so we could run in the morning when we hoped for happier sheep.

This is a great huge field. Each run has been different. Lise has two setout pens so she keeps shifting the set out, the handler’s post and drives to keep things interesting. Makes for a lot of different trials in one place. Nice with fuel at $4.00 a gallon.