Movin' On Up

Ready or not, I moved Liv up to Open last weekend.  She was scheduled to debut a few weeks ago, but suffered an injury while working that required extensive dental surgery to remove two teeth and do a root canal on an upper canine.  After two weeks of rest, I was pretty sure we were not ready.  Livy is the kind of dog who needs regular work, and then some.  I could only attend one day of the GSDA trial at Patterson's Farm, so was feeling disappointed that I wouldn't even get a second chance to run her.  But I drove down to run her, Spain, and Gabe on a small but very challenging course that featured difficult terrain, pressure, and sheep. 

Spain was my first dog and we were incredibly rusty.  As in, there were times I couldn't remember my whistles rusty.  After a frustrating run, she gripped off in the shedding ring, something I knew she was very capable of, but I hadn't seen it in a long, long time.

There were almost 30 dogs in between her run and Livy's run, which provided me with plenty of time to get super duper nervous!  I was worried enough about running her when she was unprepared, plus I was scared she would grip and damage her recently-healed mouth.

Liv doesn't fully understand the concept of looking for sheep.  It's really hard with her because when we go to the post she stares at me just waiting permission to go.  We have really been working on it, and I think it will come with more experience, but for now she is still really excited to be at the post.  I had told her where the sheep were, but in her defense, it was difficult to see due to the harsh sun at the time.  She was starting to come in early when in a blind spot, so I had to give her a couple redirects to get her in a proper position, but when she found her sheep she cast thoughtfully and stopped for a nice, controlled lift.  She was listening really well for the first part of the fetch, made the panels, and then for the second part she was able to bring the sheep on her own without any input from me.  The pace was much slower than what SHE would have liked.  Dogs were really struggling to move sheep who were hot and tired, but she kept on and to my surprise, kept her head about her.  Nice turn and decent first leg until we missed the panel.  Cross-drive was offline but she was still working really well for me, missed the cross-drive panels, but a nice return leg.  As I went to the pen, I couldn't believe she hadn't yet gripped in frustration of the slow pace.  We had a nice pen and then I took my sweet time going to the shedding ring in hopes of keeping her calm.  I had planned to be very cautious in calling her in because that had recently been a common gripping trigger, and because I'd never singled with her!  She behaved herself and came in to the gap but turned on the wrong sheep!  I quickly got her on the single and she held it very nicely!  OMG!  We finished our first Open run!  The score wasn't pretty but she did end up finishing about middle of the pack of 40 some dogs, and most importantly, she was working very well for me.  I was handling her very cautiously because frankly, I was scared of her!  So I have plenty to improve upon on my end.

 

 

Turning the post.

 

 

 

 

Pen.

 

 

 

 

Liv's first single.

 

Gabe ran at the very end of the trial and laid down a very nice run...only problem was that he surprised the heck out of me and crossed on his outrun!  What?!  He was a handful and I really had to sit on him around the course, but he worked really well and handled the sheep well, too.  He would've placed without the cross-over :(  Even though my throat hurt after running him, I was very happy with him.  He hasn't had a ton of work lately due to the weather's effect on the hay season.  The other dogs have things to work on at-hand on my small farm, but for the most part, he needs course work.