Catching Up - A Bit of This and That

I have been a bit delinquent in getting these posts up so these will be fairly brief racaps of a number of items.

Starting with the Porterville Fall Trial at the beginning of November. Originally I was not going to run as I had a work committment for the Monday of Pro Novice. My work committment cancelled and I managed to beg my way into the trial. I would have been better off not getting in.

The sheep were very difficult, the field was muddy and the rains came heavy overnight forcing a nearly 4 hour delay in getting started. Piper ran out nicely and got behind her sheep. She even managed to move them about 20 feet the first run before they dropped anchor. The second run they would not budge. Two retires. We did work exhaust in between for several runs and she had no problems with them on exhaust.

The next week was Hopland. The only complaint I can have about this trial is that it is a LOOONG drive to get there. Beautiful field, beautiful weather, nice sheep, good wine tasting close by. Piper ran well although she had what seemed a mystery (to me anyway) 5 points off her outrun. She placed 13th in a pretty competitive group. More importantly - although the final leg of the drive suffered badly from a wide turn and the sheep escaping towards exhaust - her first two drive legs were some of the best she has given me at a trial. Since that has been our big trouble area I was very happy with her.

The big news is that I finally took possession (at least temporarily) of new dog Rylee last Saturday - one day before my birthday. That is Rylee in the picture below with Piper. I worked her for the first time on Saturday and while she was not real sure who I was she works nicely. There will be a get acquainted period and she will be a very different dog to work than Piper but I am excited about her and looking forward to it. Depending on how soon we team up we may make our trial debut in Nursery at the Snowbirds trial over New Years weekend at Jennifer's.

Poway Trial - Have A Plan and Enforce It

I almost called this post "accept ownership" for your run and your "bad sheep" because you probably caused or at least contributed to their badness.

Anyway we ran at Terry Parish's Poway Trial at John Doyle's Farm on last Sunday (Halloween) after going to Jennifer's for training on Saturday.

Training Saturday was a small group because most of the regulars were either at the Poway trial or Pt. Pleasant. But we did receive early morning reports that several dogs were having outrun troubles in Poway because there were some sheep housed in pens on the right side part way out on the outrun. So to practice against this we put some sheep in the pen right in front of the dogs and made them outrun past the full pen to get to the sheep at setout. It was tricky because all of the dogs wanted to go to the pen (some more than others) but with well timed corrections we got them all out where they were supposed to be. Piper actually did fairly well at this as I hit her with a timely flank direction just as she was starting to curl in toward the sheep in the pen.

Before I get to Sunday's runs congratulations are in order for Mike Burks and Sport for capturing their first ever Open Class first place on Saturday. I did not get there till it was over but I understand it was a lovely run. Good job guys.

As for our runs Sunday we had two chances - first a non-compete Open Course run and a compete PN run. Watching the 40 or so Open runs which preceded us and the topography of the field I decided in advance to send on the "Bye" side and to give a kick out whistle just as the field widened out. It seemed to me that most every dog that went away was getting drawn in by the slope of a hill to that side resulting in many sideways lefts and even a few cross in fronts. On the left side it seemed that many dogs were hitting the spot where the field widened out but instead of bending out they were accelerating toward the sheep also resulting in problems at the top. The dogs that bent out were doing well, There were also a large number of crossovers including from some top dogs for whom the crossover was very out of character.

Anyway I gave Piper the kick out whistle just as planned and she took it bending out as I had hoped. Terry Folsom - who was helping with set out while Piper ran and for several other dogs - later told me that Piper had one of the best approaches to the sheep she saw while she was up top. Even with my whistle redirect we lost only 2 points on the outrun.

Unfortunately I trusted her too much after that and our run started to disintegrate on the fetch. The sheep wanted to pull to my right and I kept having her cover but never fully turned the sheep back on line. At the time I was thinking she had a rogue group of sheep but after speaking to Jennifer between runs realized she had caused quite a bit of it by not taking calm control. Jennifer suggested we needed to slow our approach to the sheep after getting to the top of the outrun and not start the sheep off at a run. So I had a plan for the second run.

The PN run the sheep were brought way down the hill and it was a relatively short outrun. But based on talking to Jennifer between runs I had a plan and this time the will power to stick to it. I sent Piper to the right and she started out like she was going to do the full Open Outrun. Just as I was about to give her blow in whistle Piper started to arc across the field toward her sheep. She was plenty deep - probably deeper than any other PN dog but she stopped short at about 1:30 or 2 on the clock face. I gave her a come bye whistle and she went right to 12 o'clock where I hit her with a hard lie down. I walked her up slowly with some there whistles and a lie down or two thrown in and continued the hard control throughout the fetch. It worked as we lost only 3 points on the fetch and 0 on the lift. I tried to keep the same level of control on her through the drive and mostly succeeded until the cross drive panels where we got most of them through but it turned a little wild. I thought I had the sheep settled on the return drive and turned my back to go to the pen after lying Piper down. Well she kept the lie down while the sheep made a mad dash for the exhaust about a 100 yards away. She got them back but they were pretty upset by then and while we got them in the pen we did lose most of the pen points.

The 2 runs with Piper showed the value and the need with Piper of having a plan and the will to enforce it. Piper is a dog that requires active handler involvement and when I gave it to her and insisted she follow instruction we did fairly well. When I relaxed the control it fell apart.

Sara Goodman - who has seen Piper a lot - told me that the 2d run was the best she has seen Piper right up until the sheep escaped. Sort of like the line from Top Gun "That was some of the best flying yet. Right up until you crashed and burned".

So we have a plan going forward. Make a plan, stick to it and have the will to enforce it.

Added note - I got to see Rylee on Saturday. She has been working with Jennifer for about a week and a half now. She looks like she is going to be a very nice dog and a very different dog style wise from Piper. I am really looking forward to working with her soon.