BevLive: Tabletop SDT, Double Lift

These trailing days start with such possibility. Nice high country weather. Sunny with fleecy clouds. Alas the wind came up around noon and really blew pretty hard. It was at our backs which was good, but it blew so hard it wasn’t always easy to hear each other talk, which is of course the principle activity of dog trials.

Today was the last day. It was a double lift trial. Two groups of 4 sheep spotted about 350 yards away up a pretty steep hill and about 400 yards apart. After the gathers you were to split the sheep and pen the 4 your dog turned on. Unfortunately, encouraged by Larry Adam’s nice fast first run, I set the time too short at 10 minutes. If everything went very well it was time enough. But one error and you couldn’t finish.

The running wasn’t great. Many failed attempts. Even the successes usually included at least one missed fetch panel. There were plenty of finished runs but not every good run got done because of the short clock.

Hemp again had a “take no prisoners” attitude and while his sheep moved pretty fast they were very unsettled. We weren’t able to hold the shed long enough to pen. He had a moderately good turn back and was still in third place when I left.

Nel was not very good. For some reason she assaulted a sheep at the fetch gate and we were lucky not to be called off. This ruined what had started as a good go. I left right after our run but I know it scored poorly.

Tom Wilson and Sly had a good turn back marred by Sly losing track of the sheep at the top of the first out run and a missed second fetch. Carla had a beautiful turn back but again missed gates. Linda Tesdahl with Juno and Alan Mills and Sis were tied. Linda had some trouble with the turn back but good fetches. Alan had a beautiful run with a missed fetch. There were still some to run when I left but those runs would have taken some beating.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy the different challenge and the opportunity to help their dogs to find the sheep even if they didn’t get it on the first try. It felt less like a trial and more like friends running dogs. Probably because we were all so bad at it with too few exceptions.

This was once again a great week of trailing. A wonderful field and great sheep. Lise had more help this year from Terry Murray and a great set out crew. I’m not sure who all else helped but it all went off very well and was a lot of fun.

I’m currently in Torrington, WY at the fair grounds camped with Robin French. I’m on my way to Bud and Sarah Boudreau’s ranch for a couple of days then off to rainy North Dakota.