The field was small and the sheep were quite trial-wise; impossible to hold at the top and always looking to run from the dog (not to any place in particular, just *away*). Due to the sheep circumstances, I was very thankful I hadn't planned to run Rae.
Bowl-shaped field.
Gabe and I were first in the Ranch class. After being in the 40s all morning, the temps skyrocketed to about 80 in what seemed like 10 minutes. And just in time for our class. Gabe ran out nicely and actually took his stop whistle at the top (HOORAY!). We had a fortunate draw in that the sheep actually were sort of held by the setout, so he had a nice lift and start to the fetch. I gave him several downs, which he took (HOORAY!), made the fetch panels and then the sheep bolted for the exhaust which was directly behind the post. Nearly every run had sheep booking for the exhaust, ours was unique in that we had a straight fetch before this happened. He got them back to me, we had to unwind the post (like many others), and then he finally got into a good flow pushing them along. They wanted to run numerous times, he'd catch them and we'd try to get going again...but after some meandering around the field, I decided to quit while we had control of them, so we said thank you and exhausted our sheep. I was really pleased with how hard he was trying to do what I was telling him, even though there was a lot going on out there for him to think about. And, I kept my cool running him!!
Spain's sheep were at the driveaway panel by the time she arrived at the top of the field, so we had to play catch up the whole run, never having made that good dog-sheep connection. She was listening but didn't take her away whistle very well. I'd just tweaked her whistles last week and the new away whistle didn't hold up during that run. We muddled around the course and finished, though none of it was very pretty.
Sunday I decided not to run Gabe. One of my biggest priorities right now is correct top end work from him...no slicing the top of his outrun and no crashing into them like a freight train. Lie down and calm down! The sheep absolutely wouldn't allow themselves to be held...if you sent left, they watched as the dog was coming around and they ran right. If you sent right, they ran left. So smart of them! So I figured this would be very counter-productive for where Gabe and I are at right now, and though I'd have liked to push them around the course, it just wasn't worth it to have a bad top end experience. I did run Spain because she is an experienced trial dog, so I didn't figure I'd ruin her with one bad experience. She listened beautifully even though we had to run like our butts were on fire. She is very fast and responsive, so even though the sheep ran like mad, we were able to catch them and somehow slide through the fetch panels with them. After retrieving them from their bolt-to-the-exhaust, we got them going well for the first leg of the drive. Near the panel they bolted again and she caught them, but we missed high. Had them lined out well on the cross-drive but I gave her one of Rae's flank whistles and boogered that whole situation. She caught them just before they broke the plane of the cross-drive panel and we managed to save it. We didn't get our pen this time...they ran around it twice before I changed my game plan to one that would've worked had we just a few seconds more. Another ugly run, but I was really happy with how well she listened to me. She even took a number of her new away whistles.
Gabe watching the course being walked.
Hotel coming back from OH: Gabe, Rae, Spain.
Lots to practice in the next few days before another trial this weekend.
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