Feb 28 - March 1 2020

For a while now we have been training every Wednesday we can with a wonderful group of people we have met through the herding dog world. Recently we formed an official ASCA working dog club. The very next thing we wanted to do was host a trial weekend. This is that weekend.

Randy lets us come to his farm/arena every Wednesday. He also hosted the trial and provided the cattle. Les, our club president, helped bring all of us together and provided the sheep for training and the trial. Jane keeps us in line during training, joined Nick and I in providing the ducks.
I also volunteered to help the trial secretary.
So day 1 and 2 I only ran in the morning trials leaving the afternoon ones to give me time to help record scores. By day 3 we had our score recording down to a science so I had more time to pick up the afternoon trial. Nick ran the morning and afternoon trials on day 1 and 2 and then none on day 3 so he could help the judges time and get our ducks loaded for the ride home.

Feb 28

The trial days are split in two, an a.m trial and a p.m trial. All three groups of stock are run in both trials. Marshal and I only ran in the a.m and Beru and Nick ran in both.
We ran ducks first, we both competed in the open class. The difference between open and started is the center obstacle. Started dogs ignore the center obstacle but open and advanced dogs must at least attempt to get the stock through. Since it was our very first run on one we were both pretty happy with our attempts and even managed to get qualifying scores. Marshal and I just barely scored higher than Nick and Beru that time too. Finally starting to get them back for beating us in everything over the Thanksgiving weekend trials. Nick and Beru had a good p.m run but were just a few points under qualifying thanks to center obstacle phobic ducks.

Next were cattle. The judge complemented my ability to move the stock, unfortunately since I had it under control Marshal didn’t work as much as he should so we were just under a qualifying score. The other part of being an open or advanced dog is the handler line. This is a line that the handler cannot cross and is a couple of feet away from the first obstacle for open dogs but half way back for advanced. If the handler crosses the line in open they lose 15 points and lose 50% of their points if they are in advanced. Nick and Beru had two very good cattle runs, both qualifying scores… until he crossed the handler line in his first run. Beru needed a little help with a cow on the cross drive so Nick moved up to give her help but that dropped them below qualifying.

Last of the day were sheep. Again I did too much of the work, mostly because I was having flashbacks to when we ran a sheep into a fence at the Virginia trial (it bounced off and ran away). So no qualifying score for us. Nick and Beru did slightly better, but still no qualifying scores. The sheep are easier to get worked up and since it was the end of the day Beru was starting to get worked up too.

Marshal and I ended the day with two third place and one first place scores. Our one qualifying score was on open ducks so that put us halfway to competing in advanced ducks.

Nick and Beru ended the day with a fourth place, two second place, and two first place scores. Their qualifying run was on cattle so they are halfway to being in advanced cattle.

Feb 29

Ducks were first again and they beat us today. Neither of us were able to squeak out a qualifying score but we were right there at it and managed to place because the ducks did their best to beat everyone.

We did much better on cattle. Marshal and I were able to get it together enough for a very high score for started and won a high in trial prize for this run. Nick and Beru did much better too and were able to win a high in trial award for their a.m run but Nick crossed the handlers line again so he lost just enough points to not qualify on his second run.

The a.m sheep kicked our butts. But Nick and Beru got them back in the p.m trial with an amazing high score and high in trial award.

March 1

Today was just me and Marshal. All of my fellow handlers helped talk me into getting over my fear of running sheep into fences. In part because sheep are crazy and will run themselves into a fence and in part because it’s almost impossible for a green dog to not have that kind of moment. So I worked really hard to take a step back and give Marshal more control of the stock.
It worked out amazing on the ducks. We were able to get our second qualifying open score on ducks and a high in trial award.

We did very good on cattle too. We were able to get two more qualifying scores and a high in trial award for our p.m run.

The sheep beat us again. They were done trialing for the weekend and didn’t want to go anywhere near the first obstacle, running back to the take pen every chance they got.

Beru is still competing in the open class for all stock. Marshal moved up to open cattle, and is still in started sheep. He has two qualifying scores in ducks but with the same judge, he needs just one more with a different judge to move up to advanced.

We are not only looking forward to our next trial but even more to the next trial with our club Rocky Branch!