PhylBlog

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

In which we return to the chilly scenes of winter

Well, we're back. For those of you who didn't even know that we were gone (and, indeed, why *should* you know that?), I should hasten to report that Phyl and I (and Joss, Leap, and Ollie the basset hound) drove eighteen hours each way to participate in the three Florida trials last week. Driving that far has little to recommend it, and I wouldn't be a hurry to move to Florida (too many people and traffic and Waffle Houses), but these trials really were a terrific way to get tuned up for the upcoming trial season. (It *was* hot, though--Florida was experiencing a heat wave, and it was in the eighties for nearly our entire visit.) All told, we were entered in six trials: two at the Okeechobee Sheepdog Trial in Okeechobee; three at the C-54 Stock Dog Trial in Fellsmere; and one at the Linden Hollow Sheepdog Trial in in St. Cloud. All the trials were professionally run, with good, even, responsive hair sheep. C-54 was especially enjoyable, because the third trial was run on a different field from the first two, and the outruns and drives were long and challenging. Here's a rundown of how we did:

Okeechobee #1: squirrely sheep (last set before the sheep change) taxed my handling abilities. Phyl had a good outrun and lift; a decent fetch; and a raggedy drive (I believe we missed one panel). We had to split the sheep, then pen them, and then single one off. It took me quite a long time to settle the sheep enough to get the split, which I eventually did. But unfortunately, we ran out of time just as we were going to the pen.

Okeechobee #2: This one was really the highlight for us. Phyl did a gorgeous outrun, lift, and fetch, and the first two-thirds of her drive was perfect. (I was actually told that we lost no points up until the mouth of the crossdrive panel.) But . . . unfortunately there *is* a "but." I was having difficulty seeing the panel, and I couldn't really tell whether the sheep were through the panel, or whether I was turning in front, or whether we still had time to make them. So the worst of all possible things happened: we missed the panel and pulled them through, losing a quick twelve points on the drive all in a few critical seconds. This time we had to pen and then single off one sheep for the shed. We got our pen easily, but when I called Phyl in for the shed she didn't seem to want to cover immediately--eventually she *did* cover, and the shed was called seconds before time ran out. Somehow we got a 10 on the shed anyway, which netted us an 88 for the run and 12th place (giving us one USBCHA point). I'm trying to focus on that as a *good* thing, rather than on the fact that if I could have seen the panel we could have won the whole trial.

C-54 #1: Phyl stopped on her outrun and needed to be whistled on again, but ended up with a good lift. Her fetch was offline, and I couldn't get it corrected until after we missed the panels. I believe the drive lines were decent, but we missed one panel. We got our split (not a particularly easy thing, and nothing that I take for granted!), and our pen. It wasn't any sort of competitive run, but at least it wasn't embarrassing.

C-54 #2: Phyl's outrun was a tiny bit better (she slowed rather than stopped, but she needed two redirect whistles rather than one), but it wasn't perfect by any means. Her fetch was quite a bit better than it had been the day before--it was a little offline on top, but we got it together well before the panels and had a perfect line to my feet after that. I had *great* difficulty seeing the panels on the drive--they were the kind that disappear in the sun, and I have poor visual acuity under the best of circumstances. At any rate, I had a great drive line to the drive panels, and I thought that I pushed the sheep through--people afterwards told me that I turned quite a bit in front of them. Conversely, I was sure that I missed my crossdrive panels, and helpful spectators told me that I made them. Since we got a 20 on the drive, I hypothesize that I *did* make one set and miss another, but I still can't be sure which was which. We finished well, with a really nice single (a hole opened up magically, but Phyl came right in to take advantage of it when I asked her), and a perfect pen. We ended up with an 84--not enough to place when scores were as high as they were, but enough to make me feel better.

C-54 #3: This third (somewhat smaller) trial was on a new field, one that was very flat with a 460 yard outrun. I usually don't have problems with Phyl on flat fields (hills are her bugaboo), but this time she never saw her sheep: I sent her left, she acted as if she were going to sweep the field, and then (I think) she caught sight of the sheep all the way to her right in the set out pen. She crossed over in front and ran toward those sheep, never seeing the sheep she was supposed to pick up. I didn't try very hard to redirect her, since by that point everything seemed hopeless. It was disappointing not to be able to try the drive, which was quite long and challenging.

Linden Hollow #1: (We didn't stay for #2, since it was on Sunday and this one was on Friday): The Linden Hollow sheep were well cared for, but they're sheep that are used a lot for lessons and are consequently very hard to shed. And since (you guessed it!) the evil course director called for both a split and a single, we were (not to put too fine a point on it) screwed. Phyl did a very nice outrun (the sheep were 400 yards back, so it was a decent size), which pleased me after our previous disaster. Her lift was good, and her fetch was decent. We made our drive panel and missed our crossdrive panel (one of our specialties), but we never got our split. (Even more embarrassingly, I was concentrating so hard on *getting* the split that I didn't realize that we were out of the shedding ring until we were halfway to the fetch panels. Talk about humiliating!) It wasn't the most dramatic way to end the circuit of trials, but I thought Phyl worked well and I know that getting sheds on sheep that are really hard to shed are beyond my ability level right now. I'm just happy that we're sort of at the point where we can get sheds on sheep that are reasonable about splitting and staying apart.

So that's that. I should mention that I had a great time traveling with Joan Worthington, who was trialing her dog Sam. Joan got a placement on Sam at the Linden Hollow trial on the last day--he worked beautifully and looked terrific, but she ran out of time just before entering the shedding ring for her split. A few more seconds, and Sam in all likelihood would have placed second; as it was, his 95 was still good enough for eighth.

Our next trial will be at Sherry Smith's place at the end of March. I hope Phyl stays sharp until then--we'll be lambing in between, and I'm not at all sure how much I'll be able to work her. We bred 17 ewes this year (we've never bred more than six before), so March is going to be an exciting month for us!

posted by Heather

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Monday, February 13, 2006

Eileen Stein's Salt at six months (looking much more angelic than he is in real life!)
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posted by Heather