Okay, I've finally got some time to make a report. The weather was gorgeous, mostly, though it got pretty cold Friday night for those of us who were staying in tents. The afternoons got quite warm, with temps in the 80s.
The trial field was not large, but was rather tricky, with strong draws to the exhaust pen in the lefthand corner and to the set out. The sheep were a well-dogged farm flock, which provided their own set of challenges, as they alternated between heavy and wanting to graze to running, often all in the same run. The judge was Raymond MacPherson from England (I believe).
The class running order was novice-novice, pro-novice, open ranch, and open. This trial is held in conjunction with a fiber festival, so we get a lot of spectators, especially as the day goes on.
I'll just keep the results to the Twist contingent. Short version for those who don't want to read all the details is as follows:
Blue in N/N retired both days.
Sat. P/N: Nick, 1st; Pip, 3rd; Phoebe, 4th.
Sat. Ranch: Lark 3rd.
Sat. Open: Twist just out of the placings
Sun. P/N Pip, 3rd and overall reserve champion; Phobe didn't place
Sun. Ranch: Nick, retired: Lark, retired.
Sun. Open: Twist, 6th.
Detailed description:
Debbie and Blue ran in novice-novice and retired both days. Blue was a bit tight on his outrun, but did get around his sheep fairly nicely to start the fetch. The sheep on both days bolted for the exhaust and Debbie called Blue off rather than risk a wreck. Blue has had some health issues, and Debbie has lacked a trainer, both of which have set them back in their training, but I still think now that both issues (health and lack of trainer) are better under control they'll come along nicely.
Nick, Pip, and Phoebe all ran in P/N on Saturday. Pip led off the class with an okay run, off line here and there, but overall not too bad--he just seemed a bit hesitant at times. I think he was remembering how mad I got at him at Robin's trial (lesson to all: they do remember, so be careful with your emotions, and yes, even open handlers get angry sometimes....). Our final score was a 71 (I think) out of 80.
Next in line to run was Phoebe. I had already decided that this was going to be a training run for little miss "I can't hear you," so we worked on the things we've been working on at home, which is that she stops when asked and then waits until I give her a flank instead of just automatically flanking the other way when she hears a stop whistle or command (assuming she actually takes the stop, which doesn't happen often). Since the sheep were not running toward the exhaust at that point, I let them get off line pretty seriously on the fetch while we worked on the "you will stop, wait, and take the flank I give" exercise. I figured I could have let her correct the line on the fly, but I would just be allowing bad habits to continue to develop that would only come back to hurt me later, so best to work on them now. We still had a nice enough run to end up with a score just a point or two below Pip's (sorry, maybe Laura remembers the actual scores, because I don't).
Then came Laura and Nick. She sent Nick left and he ran really wide and deep, came in nicely at the top and worked the whole course in nice style to get a 73 and win the class. For a short while, we thought Nick, Pip, and Phoebe might have a 1-2-3 sweep, but then another competitor came in and laid down a nice run to score a 72 for 2nd.
So the end result for the first day was Nick, 1st; Pip, 3rd; and Phoebe, 4th out of something like 28 dogs.
Of the 15 dogs in the open ranch class, only 6 got scores, and of those Lark placed 3rd. She had a set of sheep that really wanted to graze (not the best for a dog who tends toward clappiness), so it was slow going all the way around the course, but we kept them pretty much on line and made it around, so managed to place.
I run only one open dog, Twist. She had a lovely outrun, lift and fetch, and was doing a beautiful drive until we got to the cross drive panels, where I made a big mistake that I haven't made in a long time--which is to think the sheep were all the way through when they weren't--and flanked her too soon for a tight turn, with the result that two of the three sheep turned just inside of the panels, costing us a lot of points. The pen was easy and I had plenty of time to shed (we had to take the last sheep on the head for full points), but committed handler error number two when I called her in on an iffy shed and the sheep split around me and she couldn't through in time to hold it. So we had to regather and do it again, losing half our shed points. The end result is that we were out of the placings, even though Twist had done some very nice work.
On Sunday, Laura made the big decision to move Nick up into the open ranch class, so just Pip and Phoebe ran in P/N. I had sent Pip left on Saturday so decided to send him right on Sunday (again, these lower classes can be viewed as training classes, so I decided to experiment with sending the youngsters both ways on their outruns), and he did a gorgeous outrun and lift. His fetch was pretty nice, except he had one sheep that didn't want to stay with the other two and kept leaning toward the exhaust, so I had to keep flanking him around to the right to force her back with the other two, which of course made at least that one sheep off line. The drive was similar, with the same sheep leaning to the left toward the exhaust while the other two drifted right, so Pip had his work cut out for him to keep all three in the 21-foot lane, but we managed to get them all through the panels, with one sheep to the extreme left side and another to the extreme right and the third somewhere in the middle. To get them back together, he had to make a pretty wide turn, but we got the line on the return leg to the pen back under control and penned easily. His score was a 70-something, don't remember exactly.
Miss Smartpants again had a nice outrun and lift but again refused to take my lie downs on the fetch. This was compounded by a flyover by two fighter jets, which were deafening (not that it would likely have mattered if it were quiet as the inside of a crypt as far as Phoebe was concerned). The only good thing the flyover did was distract the spectators from Phoebe's misbehavior on the field.
Her drive was pretty zig zaggy because again I was working on making her listen and not really worrying about the lines so much. What I discovered is that for Phoebe it's a fine line between not enough forcefulness and too much, so that's what we'll continue to work on.
End result on Sunday was that Pip again placed 3rd and ended up Reserve Champion overall for the weekend. We owe part of that to Laura and Nick moving up because probably had they stayed in P/N they would have done well on Sunday and taken the championship, which would have pushed Pip back to third.
Then Nick and Laura made their ranch debut. Nick had a gorgeous outrun, lift, and fetch, but the sheep were really touchy and wanting to run on the drive, so they did a lot of zigging and zagging, all on the fly, and even so, managed to make both panels, but after making the cross drive panel, the sheep bolted for the set out, and Nick flanked around to try to catch them, but once they went over the hill, Laura couldn't see what was happening and so called Nick off. It turns out that according to the people sitting at the exhaust (which was uphill from the trial field and so afforded them a view of what was going on back near the set out) Nick had nearly gotten them covered when Laura called him off. So she retired, but still had to be proud of the good work Nick did.
Lark's run in open ranch was fairly disastrous. She was clappier than usual and although we managed the drive away--with the sheep running, no less, she kept heading the sheep and stopping them on the cross drive, and didn't want to take my away flanks to come around and push them from behind. I realized about halfway across the drive that it just was going to be a struggle and retired her. I probably could have finished the course, but I think it would have been too frustrating for both of us. Interestingly, she was acting as if she was feeling strong pressure from the sheep back to the set out and so wasn't going to let them move, period. Thinking back, I can remember Twist doing the exact same thing at this very same trial a couple of years ago. Sometimes the dogs just feel too much pressure and rather than risk letting the sheep escape, will just stop them and hold them there, no matter what the human thinks!
Twist ran toward the end of open and laid down a gorgeous run right up to the shed. I should have known there was going to be trouble when she refused to flank around the pen to push the sheep back out to the shedding ring. I did make note of the fact, but didn't act on it proactively as I should have done. Twist knew what I didn't, which was that when the sheep came out of the pen, they were going to bolt for the exhaust, which is exactly what they did. And I had her out of position to cover well. She caught them and brought them back to the sedding ring, but we wasted precious time doing so. The same big ewe that bolted the first time, bolted again in a big arc to the right, and of course when Twist moved to cover her, the other two took their opportunity and headed for the exhaust as well, since they were in a more direct line to get there, and Twist was off trying to catch the third sheep. By this time we were down to just more than 20 seconds, and we timed out at about the time Twist got them back to the shedding ring. Our final score was an 82 (out of 100, which means not counting the 10 points lost for not getting the shed we lost just 8 points on the whole run). The winning run was a 92. We ended up 6th. For the want of a shed, a trial was lost....
Laura, feel free to add your observations.
J.
But hey, I was clean, right?
Big congrats to the Twist contingent on their placements. And way to go, Laura, moving up to Ranch! 
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