Sheepdog News

BevLive: The End

Dog trialing is over for this trip and so is the blog. I'm at Joni's house now. This morning we went to the wool yard and picked up 18 fresh training sheep and in an incredible act of generosity Joni let me work all the fresh out of them. I think it did all of my dogs a world of good and gave me some good ideas to try when I get home.

I worked on improving everyone's walk forward and keeping Nel in tighter contact on her flanks. I could see improvement in everyone. I wish I had about a month here.

I'm going to miss this wide vista and endless view. When the wind blows all the grass moves in different waves. It's very dramatic. I think I could live here. Which would be a big change for a forest dweller such as myself. It's very attractive. But of course it's summer and 70 degrees with a nice breeze and no humidity.  What's not to like?

North Dakota sunset

I leave tomorrow to go back to Terri Warner's to do a clinic and then home for the summer. All my dogs now need tuning up and more training before the big fall trials. This trip has shown all of our strengths and our many weaknesses. I shall try to address them in the next few weeks. I am no further ahead in deciding which two dogs to keep for my open team. I wonder how that will turn out?

Big Sky country

So long readers. Thanks for your interest in my trip and the ongoing Amanda/Beverly rivalry.

BevLIve: End of The Big One

Another lovely day of dog trialing. Perfect weather, less wind then yesterday. Sheep were better but still difficult especially at the fetch panel and pen, at least for me.

Both my dogs ran really well, pleasing me but failing to pen and not getting much score. Nel took too long to lift but then handled the sheep well. We missed the fetch and had a mediocre drive so I quit at the pen. Mirk had a good gather missing the fetch. A good drive and no pen. This hasn't been my most successful trial but it sure is a good one.

Herbert won the first go around with Juno and is in the lead again with an 87. We still have 13 dogs to run in the morning to finish the second trial before we run the nursery. Bud and Joni tied for second with Bud winning it.

 

Not much else to report. We ran dogs from 6:00 this morning until 8:00 tonight. I was assisting with the setout for the last few hours and our two riders, Mindy and Tom, are still cheerfully setting sheep for the fifth day. They are the ones that deserve a prize.

 

Amanda and Roz didn't get on well as Roz seems to be feeling unwell so Amanda retired. She runs Clive in the morning.

 

BevLive: The Big One, Day One

Long day makes a short blog. We were scheduled to start at 6:00 this morning but it took two riders, two people afoot and two on four wheelers almost two hours to move the sheep up the field and into the pen. Scary start to the trial.

Amanda and Clive started the trial with a nearly completed run and it went downhill from there until Herbert and Juno got a 83 for a great run. Their score still stands in spite of assaults from Joni and Bud who both got 73s with no pen or shed.

The sheep were frequently crazed as with the three poor Nel valiantly fought for 12 minutes, finally timing out at the pen. At least half the runners have lost the fight at the end of the fetch when the sheep would break back toward their home ground and could not be stopped. There has been some great work today rewarded with no score.

Mirk did a great job but his sheep just couldn't be charmed and we timed out at the pen. Amanda and Roz had more luck finishing with a 64 currently in 4th place.

Because of our late start we stopped with dog 54 and will finish in the morning. Gloria and Harry Kerr, our wonderful hosts, had us all up to their home for dinner tonight. So we stopped running at 8:00 to give us a chance to enjoy their hospitality.

 

Handler dinner at Gloria and Harry Kerr's

Nel and I spent about three hours assisting with the setout. That hill got very tall. I sure admire Mindy and Tom, our two riders, who spent the whole day in the wind spotting sheep for us.

 

BevLive: Slash J, Nursery Day

A most amazing day. Gorgeous, perfect weather, sunny slight breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Today we ran the Nursery and ranch. Nel and I spent about three hours spotting sheep at the beginning of the trial. Great experience for us both. Sure got Nel over her horse concerns. By the time we finished she was all but walking under Tom's very good-natured gelding.

I ran Meg in the Nursery. The course was basically the same as the open with a little modification to the drive and the outrun brought in to about 400 yards. We ran on four sheep and whether because of the extra sheep or the extra day of running they were little darlings. Perfect for the youngsters. Amanda judged.

This turned out to be too big a course for all but a very small number of the youngsters. Many never got out to the sheep at all and a good number of the ones that did lost control of themselves on the fetch. Dennis Edwards and Boone made it look very doable winning the class.

Meg made it look very hard. She again didn't finish her outrun stopping at 9:00. I don't know if this is the people or the horse or some horrible regression in our training. Since she doesn't really know her sides we never recovered from her off line lift. But she listened, stopping every time I told her to. She never lost her head and brought me the sheep like a good girl. We had a pretty good drive going but just as we got to the second drive she made a critical wrong guess on a flank command and we had a big miss. The pen was very ragged but we got them in the end. This was the first time she ever put sheep in a pen. I wonder if she learned anything. All of the effort garnered us a 43 and as it turned out 4th place and our first qualifying leg for the Nursery Finals since there were over 20 Nursery dogs running. Way to go Meg.

We finished running at about 1:00 and all packed up and drove the 20 miles to the Kerr Ranch for our next competition. This is easily one if the best trial fields I have ever seen. It's  beautiful and really challenging. Because of the large entry this year the post has been moved up some reducing the outrun from last year's 900 yards to about 800 yards.

"The Big One". Setout is between the biggest hill and the little one just down from the horizon line.

I just got back from walking the dogs up one of the surrounding buttes. Great view of most of North Dakota. It's very scary walking dogs here. There are sheep turned out in the same thousand acre field as the campers. I'm scared to death one of my youngsters will get into the sheep and get us all thrown out of this dog trialer's paradise.

Rene Labrie in the blue explaining the course.

Handlers meeting at 6:00. We will be running late as there are almost 70 dogs and it's a 12 minute course. I suspect we will be running to a standard before the day is out.

BevLive: second verse, not the same as the first

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.

BevLive: Slash J SDT, Day One

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.

BevLive: At Joni Swanke's Ranch

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.

 

BevLive: CHP Stock Dog Trial, Day Three

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.

BevLive: CHP Stock DogTrial, Day Two

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.

 

BevLive: CHP Stock DogTrial, Day One

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 hill 300+ 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.