When we arrived, I walked up the field to see what was happening and low and behold, they were doing the Novice briefing as they decided to run our class first! Yikes! The walk out to the field where we were running was so long, I had to just grab Fleck and start our trek. We missed the briefing so relied on fellow competitors to let us know what the course was going to be. This was a big class - 19 novice teams.
We were about mid-way in the running order so had several people to watch in hopes of seeing the course as it should be run. The sheep were pretty flighty and it didn't help that most of our Novice dogs were as well. Hmmm, this might be difficult.
Our turn came and we walked up to the post. Fleck did a beautiful outrun (the judge thought so too since he got a 20 out of 20 score) but the sheep didn't care for his "lift" and bolted. Fleck did a nice job covering and brought them quickly down the field towards me - at a pretty good clip I might add. We struggled at the post but got them around ok - well, if you count backwards as "ok". They kept wanting to bolt away from him and we had to retrieve them a couple of times on the way to the panel. They (Fleck and sheep) finally settled down after we rounded the panel and headed for the pen. We had been working on the pen since the last trial and we put our lessons to the test. He was a bit tight at first causing them to squirt around to the exhaust but after some corrective words from me, he listened and took a nice flank to bring them to the mouth of the pen. Once they were all facing the opening of the pen, I took a deep breath and asked him to flank around to push them the rest of the way in. He did take the flank and helped push them in. Yay!
We finished the run with about 10 seconds of the 4 minutes left. Whew! Good boy Fleck.
We didn't finish in the top part of the class but we were among the 7 who actually got a score so not bad.
We then spent the day watching the top 12 qualifiers compete in the Double-lift and International Shed. For those who don't know what those are: a double-lift is when the dog retrieves the first set of sheep (in this case 8) and brings them down the field to the handler. They must then leave this set and then "look back" for the 2nd set. It is predetermined which side they must do their outrun. In this trial, the first outrun was to the right or Away To Me side and the look back or 2nd lift is to the left or Come Bye side.
After the second set of sheep are brought down the field, through the center panels and joined up with the 1st set, all 16 sheep are taken around the course. Around the handlers post (which for this trial is a cute stand that has three steps up so the handler can see more of the course), through two panels and then to the shedding ring. Here, the real fun starts.
Of the 16 sheep, 5 have collars around their neck. Without touching the sheep, you and your dog must "shed" those specific sheep out from the rest all the while staying inside the shedding ring. Talk about a test of nerves and patience. Once you have these 5 separated, you must put them in the pen. Puts things in perspective since I was thinking the pen was the hardest part of the run I had with Fleck.
Out of the 12 finalist, only 1 completed the shed and got to the pen. Oddly enough, that person did not win. The handler/dog team with the most amount of points won, Alasdair MacRae and Star. Absolutely beautiful run and very precise work.
So the biggest lesson I learned from our second trialing experience didn't come to me until days after the trial. I realized that quiet, respectful work - throughout the course is what it is all about. It isn't a race to the finish line, it isn't even about completing all the tasks (although that IS part of the goal) but it is about doing each piece to the best of your "team's" ability. This might sound like a simple statement to some but when you are on the field with a novice dog and both of you are trying to figure out how to get these squirrelly sheep around a course in 3-4 minutes and your mind is trying to process all the details - feels like you need to hurry.
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