Yet - in the face of it all Sandy Milberg and crew (special note to computer guru Jack Mathieson, The Healdsburg FFA, the set out crews - Amy Coapman, Bill Swan, Derek Fisher and Sandi Anderson) for persevering in the face of some of the most adverse weather conditions in a long time. For a while we thought we were at Zamora.
Amanda Milliken was sending her friends links to the song "It Never Rains in California" as a joke. It was probably the best comment of the weekend.
I ran Rylee in both rounds of Nursery on Friday. I really did not expect her to be competitive yet as we had never completed a drive in the three trials we had run before. For us this was about getting trial mileage together and I also wanted to see how she would do with a second run on the same field - hoping to see a learning curve kick in.
I am very fortunate that both of my dogs seem to have arrived with a good outrun built in. The first Nursery Run at Sonoma is combined with the Pro Novice. Their were 51 dogs in the run order. There were only a handful of full point outruns. I sent Rylee to the right and she had a gorgeous and deep outrun for one of those full pointers. Her lift was cautious but I thought pretty good (the judge thought it was worth 4 points off). From there the sheep pulled hard to my right (their preferred route of escape on the fetch Friday) and Rylee had trouble covering them. She did get them back and around the post so we could start the drive but we rightfully lost most of her fetch points. It was not as bad an escape as the prior week at Poway but she still needs to cover it better. We had trouble getting it together on the drive and timed out.
Second run Rylee showed herself to be an apt pupil. Hopefully it was a glimpse into the future.
For her second run I decided to send Rylee left for two reasons. First, viewing Nursery as a training ground my philosophy is to send opposite directions on a second run unless there is a strong reason not to (like there was at Poway last week when I blew it.) Second, by this point the sheep had already run the field once and the lifts were starting to lean to the left toward the exhaust so the pressure had shifted from the first run. Rylee did another full point outrun. Her lift was a little better.
Then came the learning part. This time she held the sheep pretty straight on the fetch line and even took some steering. Five points off the fetch for a 12 point improvement from the morning. We worked our way through the drive and it was cautious but she took most of my directions and we made it through the drive for the first time. Judge took 22 points but I thought that was a bit much - felt more like a 15 to me. But that's why it is a judgement call. Anyway the big news was that we completed the drive.
We got to the pen with under a minute left and range ewes that - while pennable - were not entirely thrilled with going into the pen. And Rylee and I had NEVER penned together before - we had only even practiced once. Knowing our time I did not think we had a chance but thought we should work it as well as we could. Working together we got the sheep into the mouth of the pen and I started to apply pressure by bringing the gate around (careful not to hit the sheep). Rylee went to the back of the pen and amazingly enough the sheep went in just as time expired. It did not count by half a second but I was very proud of her.
Piper ran on the "Flat" Field on Saturday. Her outrun was its usual gorgeous self losing 1 point. Her lift was better than normal as I was able to slow her down a bit - also losing only one point. The sheep pushed hard on her to my left - toward the exhaust side - and the fetch was off line the whole way. We got around the post and the drive away was going reasonably well until we tried to make the turn after narrowly missing the panels.
Try as I might I could not get Piper to take the inside flank and she brought the sheep down more than halfway to my feet before we got them started back where they belonged. It looked like she was trying to take the sheep on a wine tasting tour of all of Sonoma County and I should have retired. But stubbornly I did not and when Piper took her second ride the side of a sheep grip the Judge made the decision for me.
Sunday we got another chance on the Hill Field. The terrain is such that the sheep are set on top of a hill and if the dog is anywhere close to right the dog is hidden from the handler's sight for the last part of the outrun and the entire lift. Given my need to put control on Piper and slow her for the lift this was a recipe for potential disaster.
I sent Piper to the right - really the only way to send. When she started to cut in early I hit her with a big AWAY whistle and she took it well. When she disappeared behind the terrain Piper seemed to be on a good trajectory so all I could do was wait and watch the sheep for signs that Piper had arrived. For many dogs that sign was a calm and subtle lift of the head. Not Piper. She arrived with the subtlety of a hand grenade and suddenly the four sheep turned and started down the field - but pretty straight. Judge did not like the lift and hit us for 7 points.
On the fetch Piper stayed on the muscle and the sheep wanted to split a bit - but she kept them mostly together and on a fairly straight line. I think we got two through the fetch gates. Then we had a stall and continued down the rest of the fetch. The turn was a tad wide but not horrendous. Ten points lost on the fetch.
Then the drive. Again it started fairly well but ran into problems after sliding just to the outside of the drive away panels. An away over flank brought the sheep through the panels the wrong way. We did make it through the two trees marking the early part of the path before she went to the high side again and brought the sheep probably 30 yards off line toward me. Some forceful voice commands got Piper listening again and we made it to the general vicinity of the cross drive panels finally missing them high and turning them down to the shedding ring.
This was my first attempt at a shed pen single and we made it to the shedding ring with nearly five minutes left. She got the shed on the first split without too much back and forth and Judge called it OK. There must have been something he did not like though because he took 7 points. Then it was on to the pen with a reluctant group, We worked them into the mouth several times and one reluctant ewe broke away in an attempted escape. Ultimately we got the pen and moved back to the ring for the single with over two minutes still left. One ewe split off the front but the judge had said "any single" so I decided to call her in. Piper came in and turned on the single for a completed full open course.
From the "So and so always gets the good sheep" department: On Friday, one of the Pro-Novice Handlers posted on Facebook that the morning runs were lucky because even though the weather was better in the afternoon the sheep were "tougher" or "worse" and harder to handle. Well "magically" once we went back to the Nursery dogs the sheep suddenly got "better" and "easier" to handle. Perhaps the dogs handled them better (no coincidence that the top Nursery dogs also did very well in the combined PN standings.).
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