AKC trial day 3--Dually kills duck

Just kidding.

Dare ran first in ADV a ducks and he had a tough set of ducks and he had to bully them around the course and he did a fantastic job.  I was very pleased with him even though the score was low and he ended up with 2nd place.   After we ran ADV ducks , Janet figured out that the Zchute had been set up wrong for the  last 2 days and there was no wide end for the ducks to go into only a narrow end.  No wonder why there were so many skims the first 2 days.  Can you believe that 3 judges and all of the exhibitors missed it.  Janet wasn't even entered in A course ducks.  So we changed it for INT ducks.

Dually won INT ducks with 89.5 which was good for HIT .  His INT sheep class was a mess. The sheep were crazed and he wasn't helping.

Dare was entered in ADV B course ducks but when we walked to the post , he caught a whiff of some thing and I could not turn him around to face the ducks. When I tried to set him up at the post and whipped around the face the rear and layed down.  I finally got him to face front but when I sent him , he was not thinking ducks and went straight up the middle and then crossed over like he never saw them at which point I called him off.  He "needed " to check out the smell before he worked and that wasn't an option.

I ended up the weekend with 5 HC points so I have a total of 8 now. I think.

AKC trial --day 2

  Well apparently today's judge is stuck in New Mexico trying  to get here, but didn't.  So the club had to find another judge quickly and they could not find anybody so they did the next best thing and asked an experienced exhibitor to judge. Thank you Christine Carilli for stepping up.  Otherwise they would have had to cancel the whole day and many people would have been very unhappy.

Dare ran for the first time in ADV B ducks and did his first ever shed .  We won the class . Go figure.
He got 2nd in ADV ducks and some HC points ( not sure how many)I dont' think we put any ducks thru any panels and we still won.  How does that happen I wonder.

Dually won INT ducks and I pulled him from the INT sheep class because of the judge change I could get my money back and he finished his title yesterday and I didnt want to move him up yet to ADV.

Barb Q'd  and got 5th place in INTducks--go LIzzie and I left before I could see if she got another STD sheep leg but I think she must have. The run was pretty good.

AKC trial day one

Nice day. good weather. sometimes cool sometimes hot but nicely overcast.  Hopeful for tomorrow but they are saying high 80's yech.

My student Meg started the day with 2 stellar runs on her corgis in HT. Unfortunately one was under the same judge as last year so it doesn't count. Bummer. But Cricket was on fire and Meg did a great handling job.  and Nick was Nick but he did work  them .

Barb with Lizzie got her first STD sheep leg Yay. They both did a really   nice job  with Lizzie doing a really nice outrun and trying to  hang onto the sheep.   They did a really nice job in INT ducks but no Q.  :-(

Betty and her 2  BC's bumped up to INT sheep and gave it a good try, but we need some more handling lessons , and we need to work on the outrun a bit.   Dogs tried hard and I was pleased with them and with Betty.

A few students same to watch and cheer us on.  Elaine and Michelle and Muffy and Kathy St of course. Thanks for the support!!

Dare had a really nice run in ADVd -- A little bobble on the crossdrive so we ended up with an 88 1st place and Reserve HIT.  I pulled him from his ADVs run because he ringed them on the lift and it was going downhill from there.

Dually had a nice INTd run 1st place and a smoking INT s run 1st place but trouble on the crossdrive too.
HIT came out of the STD class with a 91.
W'ell see what happens tomorrow.

AHBA TRIAL

Great news.  I have my 2nd judge so I can go foward planning the Sept 29,39 trial.  

Lots going on here

  I  suppose you want me to detail that.  No , you gotta come and see it.  Maybe I will take some pics.  How hard could that be.

I've been working Dare on ducks because we have to do B course ducks next weekend. So I have been doing the shed and he GETS it.  I did calls first and that was nearly impossible to shed so I changed to calls and Indian runners and that was easy to shed but really hard  to keep together long enough to shed. Then I just went to all Indian runners and he got it.  Not sure why and not sure if the runners are shedding themselves but at least he will come to me and take the indicated ducks off as instructed. Now I hope I get that far in the trial. LOL.

Tonight I sorted 7 sheep because I need 2 groups for  the upcoming trial.  I have 2 yearling ewes and one was born here and the other I bought 2 mos ago. I thought Princess was with the program but I must have been working the other ewe and not Princess.  Anyway I put her with 2 well broke sheep and she kept running into the gate and trying to jump through it.  The last time she did that , I thought she was dead , but she came back and it seemed to have smartened her up some.  She kept trying to get away from Dually and he kept covering her and turning her back and she finally got better. That was in the control pen so tomorrow I will have to take her out to a bigger field and find out if she is a kamkazi sheep or what.

The New Clearing

 Yesterday they all showed up at once, the excavator guy, the dump truck guy and 3 helpers and then Ed showed up and Kathy and later on my Brother in Law Michael. It was a very busy day.  Gradually the helpers left and so it was just Ron and Tim and Ed.  We were having trouble coming to an  agreement on how the work should be done.  They didn't want to do it the way I was describing.  They worked till lunch and then came back and talked me into doing it their way.  Probably will be better and more useful in the end.

Anyway , they were starting to maybe hurry closer to the end of the day and overfilled the dump truck which then sunk a little on one side in the soft sand and when he tried to dump it , it tipped over.  Totalled. Glad I'm not paying for that.  NOTE: It's leaning against my pear tree that I was trying to save.  Hmmmm

Trial in Pa

   Sorry I wasn't able to blog until I got home because the motel did not have wifi.

Betty and I packed up and left around 10:30 am on Friday morning.  We had a good uneventful trip down to a location we had never been to before. The GPS gave some problems when it deposited us into the middle of the motels town and said we had arrived when in actuality we were a few miles away from the motel. I need to get a new GPS. This one has given me problems from the get go.  The motel had promised me a ground floor room which of course they could now not supply even though it was obviously not full and never got full.  Pretty good location though.  It was in an industrial park so there were places to take the dogs that were safe and there was even grass.

All 4 dogs stayed in the room, with my 2 in crates and her 1 in a crate and 1 loose.  Only problem with that is Peak got up on my bed a couple of times in the middle of the night and woke me up.  I wasn't sleeping well anyway so I was annoyed with her.  Bad doggie.  Beds were good and no bed bugs.  Thank goodness.

So after a night of fitull sleep, we packed the dog back into the car and went to try and find the trial site. Again the GPS  was stupid but it did finally get us there. Seems like it was a circuitous route but maybe not. The trial site was wet and muddy but it apparently gets way way way worse when it rains hard.  I found out  later that it was the site of an old grist mill and the arenas were where the old holding ponds had been and the drainage was horrible.  Very shady site , parking was tight and the arenas were only minimum regulation size.  The sheep were broke to go around the course, but if your dog was truly working them, they were a bit panicky.  The dogs that were off pressure and slow and barely moving did well. Mine not so well. The cows were great!.  Nice broke cows that had to be moved by the dogs but were not trying to kill dogs or fight much at all. Ducks were calls and they said there was no draw but there was definitely a strong draw to the back and the dogs had to work hard to get them up the arena.

Dare was horrible on sheep and I pulled him both days from the course after the outrun lift and fetch on day one and after the outrun and lift on day 2. pushy not stopping and  just being Dare I guess, but it's just not acceptable and I need to address it.  He placed 2nd both days in ADV ducks.

Dually won STD cattle on Sat and so with one leg on STD cattle I decided to move him up to INT cattle and he won that on Sun. He was a little pushy on Sunday but nice control and had fun.  He placed 2nd both days on INT Sheep.  Again pushy but still pretty good control on my part.  I didn't have him entered on ducks.

If I go again I will enter Dare on cattle and not sheep and Dually maybe will do ducks.

Bettys dogs did phenomenal!  She finished Zests STD sheep title on Sat with 4th place and Peak got her 2nd leg and then on Sunday Peak finished her STD title on sheep with 4 the place. Betty moved Zest up to INT sheep and gave that a try and almost Q'd.  The dogs covered well and Betty handled well and I was quite proud of all of them.

On the ride home, the GPS almost sent us the NYC, but I caught it in time and we redirected ourselves, but seemed to get stuck on a slow road for a number of miles before we got back on a main highway.  We drove into and thru  Hartford and a warning light came on the dash. It was low tire pressure. I pulled off of 84 but we decided to get off the highway before we looked at the tires. It wasn't too far to a gas station with air.  I pumped up the tire, but as I was putting air in, I could hear the air coming out just as fast. So called AAA  and they told me if they had to tow the car they would not tow with the dogs in it and I would have to get alternative transportation. Not happy with that being on 43 miles from home and having the extended tow service.  But the tech came in 15 minutes and was able to get my spare off the car. That was the problem I had anticpated.  He changed it in no time flat but then we couldnt' get the damaged tire back where the spare was because the cable would not wind up.  so we had to move crap and dogs and crate around so we could get the bad tire in the car.  Finally back on the road around 10 and home at 10:40.  Betty loads up her car says goodbye and promptly loses her keys.  Yikes.    I went inside and got a flashlight and we found them pretty quick.  yay.

All in all , we had a fun weekend and would probably do it again.

BAD DARE

   I finished my lessons at 6:15 and was showing one of my students where the roots to the big pine tree had been pulled out and no dogs came to the fence.  The roots had been pulled out  from under one end of the dog kennel and one kennel panel had been left loose. Bad Diane, I hadn't fixed it and Dare had gotten out yesterday but only went in the front yard and I was close by.  But there was only one dog in the kennel and it was the good dog(Dually).  We started to panic but there was a person walking 2 dogs out front and one of them was Peaches.They said they had been walking back and forth for a while trying to figure out where she belonged. I asked them if they had seen Dare ;and they said no.  So we got in the car and went to where he usually goes,but he wasn't there so I went in the other direction and a car pulled in behind me and said there was another black dog 2.5 miles in the other direction going towards Brookfield.  Dare has never been that far, so I immediately thought.uh oh maybe he got hit and was running.  We drove down to the end of the street and I blew my whistle the whole way, but we didnt 'see him. I turned around rather than keep going and about  3/4 mile back he was in the street. I stopped the car and asked Meg to call him and he came right to her. Not sure he would come to me and I didn't want to take the chance. He appeared fine and jumped right in the car which is very abonormal for him.  He was fine when we got home and seems none the worse for wear.  Me not so much.

cows again

Dually worked the cows in their pasture very nicely , quietly and sensibly today.  Maybe he's sick.   Only one dive in and I was able to lay him down in the pressure before he busted out.  We went along the fenceline and he pushed each of them along without me helping him. I was actually in front of them which you would  think would have stopped the cows but they just ambled along with me.  Nice job Dually!

Working cows with Dually

   All I can say is the cows better know the score at the trial this weekend.  Dually can get a little wild around cows and the babies run in 3 different directions.  It was hard because they  want the nice green grass and to try and get them moving at the same time in the same direction really takes a better trained dog but he tried.  We did get them up to the cone and sorta around it and almost had all 3 in the Y chute and they ran back to the grain pan. At least one ran back but when he covered that one, the other 2 left for parts unknown.   Fun fun fun. It is fun when they are this small and really can't hurt the dog no matter how stupid he acts.

Today Nat came to pick up some sheep so I brought Dually out to sort them. He does ok until they try to push thru the gate and then he just lays there and watches while I scream bloody murder at him to get up and help me.  Apparently all lights on but nobody home. Then we took them to the trailer and he was less than helpful there too. I think Dare would have loaded them in a heartbeat, but you gotta give the new dogs a try.

Rain today so the excavator operator only worked for 2 hrs or so because they have to truck the stumps to the back pasture and they were digging up the field so they quit until it drys out a bit. That means that I probably wont' be here when they get to the finish work so I explained to Ed what I wanted and hopefully they can all get together and do it the way I want it.

Another great Score!

Today at Big Bunny market, I found the unbelievable 1lb Sugar Daddy!!  And I bought it.