FTB Ranch - July 2009

Well, we are just back from four days of trialing in New Mexico.

Unfortunately we could not stay for all 6 days as real job work requirements intervened.Before getting to our experiences first a hearty thanks to Gerri Abrams for hosting. Her fields are amazing and seem to go on forever - just ask Piper (more later).

Also it was a great trial for watching some REALLY TOP HANDLERS work their dogs. Handlers of five of the top 11 dogs from last year's nationals were there including Jennifer Ewers, Ron Burkey, Trica MacRae, Herbert Holmes and that does not even include Alasdair MacRae who was at the world championships last year, plus many other really top handlers. Plus several of them were running young dogs in Open Ranch (same as Pro-Novice) so I actually was competing with the likes of Alasdair, Burkey and Hub Holmes -- they beat us of course.

Anyway - in May Maggie was unable to lift the range ewes so my hopes were somewhat modest. Maggie performed pretty close to her current level of capabilities and I was very happy that she brought sheep to my feet all three days that we ran and her outruns were all good with only a slight reditrect needed on the first day.

I was especially happy to get sheep to my feet considering how hot it was and I did not want to have to run 300 yards up the field.

I had higher hopes for Piper and my goal was to get numbers instead of letters all 4 days (we only did that 1 out of 4 in May) and hopefully move in the direction of being competitve soon. Well we met that goal and on day 2 we were actually competitive and would have been very close to a check but for a minor grip.

The video below is from our first day att the trial. It was not our best run - by far -- but hopefully it shows some progress from our prior trip. The run on Day 2 was our best of the trip. At least I can't be accused of cherry picking.