Our third (and last for the season) USBCHA Trial

Fleck & Tresa, Crook & Whistle Trial 2010

On Sunday, September 12th, we ran in our third and final (for the season) USBCHA trial.  The Crook & Whistle trial was part of the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool festival held in Jefferson, WI.  The novice portion of the trial is held Sunday afternoon, after the 2nd round of Open runs.  Done this way, the sheep have been worked for three days and are usually pretty ornery.

For our novice runs, the course was re-designed to where the sheep set out and exhaust were the same location.  This makes for a tricky “lift” especially for these little novice dogs.  We had watched the open runs that day and were pretty keyed up by the time our runs came around at the end of the day. The outrun was fairly short so we were all worried that we wouldn’t have time to settle our pups and sheep by the time we came around the post – we were all right.  Fleck started out on his outrun to the left or come bye side.  He was very shallow. To my amazement, he took a lie down and a redirect and kicked out nicely to continue his outrun.  His fetch was not great (on the list for the winter projects) – therefore the sheep bolted back to their buddies just a few feet away.  Fleck bolted too and kept them from reaching the gate and then continued to bring them down the field towards the post.  He took his lie down and flanks nicely and we continued around the post, through the wear panels (two chairs) and calmly walked them straight into the pen.  Yay!  We had a good run!

With a small novice class (I think there were only 6 of us) we were up again pretty quickly.  Both our adrenaline levels were still maxed out so it was anyone’s guess how this was going to go.  He left the post in a nice kick out to the left, picked up the sheep and started his quick push down the field.  Fleck (and I) were feeling the excitement and lost our concentration.  The sheep escaped a couple of times – once took shelter at the feet of the judge and scribe along the fence (oops!).  Fleck got them off the fence very well but I was a bit flustered at that point.  We struggled to get them through the wear panel and then they bolted back to the exhaust/set out and we called our run.

We ended on a little bit of a downer but after thinking about the first run and portions of the second, I was very happy with our progress.   I am really proud that we have steadily improved after each trial and I have seen that Fleck has matured in a short time and is starting to fit into his “herding shoes” quite nicely.

Our big thing we learned at this trial – focus on your sheep!  Once my attention was set on settling the sheep and getting them through the course – things went very well.  The moment I lost that point and my attention switched to “what is my dog doing” then the whole thing didn’t work.  For those of us who are in novice, we spend a lot of time worrying about “what is my dog doing” and forget that the whole reason we are out on the field is that there are SHEEP out there.  For sheep dogs, they look for someone to be in charge.  They’re more than happy being charge of the sheep as long as we are in charge of where we’re going and what we’re doing with these woolly creatures.  When we has handlers forget the plan or worse yet, don’t have a plan, well, then that’s when things get interesting.  So I must always remember my map and directions when stepping out onto the field.   I just need a GPS that says “flank him right at the next turn” and all would work out fine.

Not sure if any of you have attempted it or not, but try to move unwilling, flighty sheep away from their group and through panels and into a holding pen that they cannot escape from – all without a dog.  It doesn’t work.  You need your trusty pup to get the job done.  AND – they need you. Most stock dogs would be just as happy to sit watching “Sheep TV” for hours on end.  So it truly is a partnership of handler and dog.  You need each other to get the job done, but both of you must focus on the sheep all the while staying “connected” with each other. Talk about multi-tasking!

Stay tuned for more reports from “Fetching with Fleck” as we have a couple more trials before the end of the year but they are in smaller “arena” style courses. We look forward to continuing our progress in the “off season” to be ready for an amazing year ahead.