Thursday, August 17, 2006

In which we bury "in which"

 

Yes, even *I'm* finally sick of the "in which" conceit, so I'm officially given it up on general principles of ennui. Just a quick post to report on Grass Creek Park, and a quick post is all it'll take: we retired the first day and DQ'd the second. I was the last dog of the day on day 1, which was a pleasant enough time to run. However, I didn't run Phyl very well: I let her push the sheep too hard and too fast on the fetch, and by the time we started to set up our driveaway two of the four had split and started to face off with her, and I never managed to get things back together. (It was a shame, too, because we had a pretty decent start in context: 18 point outrun, 9 point lift, and 17 point fetch.) The second day started out somewhat less well, with a better outrun (19) but a terrible, sideways lift (6), and a fetch in which I had to wrestle with Phyl the whole way down to keep her covering the pressure on her right (13). We had a decent driveaway but managed to blip three of the four sheep around the panels at the last minute, and a pretty good crossdrive in which we made all of our panels. I let the return leg of the drive go to hell out of sheer stupidity--I forgot that the line was from the panels to the pen and not the panels to the shedding ring because the sheep had to enter the shedding ring before the handler was permitted to proceed to the pen. Dumb, dumb, DUMB! We ended up with a 17 on the drive, and I have a feeling my absentmindedness cost me at least three points. At the pen, I was so cautious about not pressing the sheep too hard that I didn't put enough pressure on them at all, and eventually even Phyl (who normally has a saintlike patience) grew frustrated enough to grip, an action which spelled the end of our run and our very first DQ for gripping. So that was that.

Despite my grand total of 0 points for each run, I really had a great time at this trial: the setting was lovely, and the handlers dinners (usually not my favorite part of a trial weekend) were phenomenal. The weather was also magnificent, in the mid-seventies every day with low humidity and a nice breeze--a great change from the 105 heat wave we'd suffered through the week before. And it was nice to see dogs and people I like do well. (Shout-outs to Nancy Obernier, one of the few faithful readers of the PhylBlog: not only did she get third with her Nick the first day of the trial, but she also finished tenth overall with him the double-lift. Go, Nancy!) So I remain cheerful, but this not-placing thing is starting to get old--I can't be expected to root for other people like a humble good sport *all* the time! We leave for Leatherstocking tomorrow, and I dearly hope that I'll have at least one good thing to report when I return.

posted by Heather

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Monday, July 31, 2006

In which I'm finally shamed into returning

 

*Sigh*. What can I say? I'm a low-life, a failure, an underachiever who can't even follow through on something as simple (and as pleasant) as writing about my dogs on a regular basis. Several people have actually written to find out what's become of me--the final straw was yesterday, when somebody gently (really!) informed me that if I waited much longer to post, the "chilly scenes of winter" title that headed my last entry will be apt once more. (It's hard to imagine that it's been that long, and right now--as we get up past 100 degrees--chilly scenes of winter sound pretty damn good. But that's neither here nor there.)

So here's an update on what I've been doing, and I *promise* (but why should you believe me, after I've let you down so abysmally?) that I'll blog more regularly. But for now, here it is:

• Phyl and I have been in several trials since I last posted. We haven't placed--that is, we haven't gotten any more USBCHA points--but we're definitely in the almost-but-not-quite category much more often. The next USBCHA year starts in two days, and Phyl and I will be going to the huge (and hugely wonderful) Grass Creek Park trial in Kingston, Ontario, Canada next week to kick it off. My (way too lofty) goal is to get Phyl qualified for the 2007 Gettysburg Finals. We've never gotten enough points to qualify for *any* Finals, and this one will undoubtedly require a lot more than any of the others have in the last four years. So we have our work cut out for us. Basically, we need to get better at shedding. We're at the point right now that if sheds are easy, we can mostly get them, but they're rarely easy. The trouble is, I'm not very experienced at shedding, and Phyl isn't very keen to come in. If I were better, we could get them; if she were better, we could get them. But as a team, it's a problem. At least one of us will have to do some serious improving if we're going to start placing on a more regular basis.
• Joss has been worked for about four months, since she was nine months old. I started her, and I took her to a wonderful (and very productive) Derrick Scrimgeour clinic in Wisconsin. Derrick liked her, and she seems to me to have a great temperament for training: she's responsive but she's not so sensitive that correction crushes her. About a month ago I started to get frustrated with my sheep and general conditions, and I began worrying that I was really holding Joss back. So, rather than wait to see if I wrecked her, I sent her off to Carol Campion for a couple of months of training, and that's where she is now. Carol reports that Joss is a handful (which surprises me), and that she's a natural driving dog (which doesn't, because Phyl would rather drive than do anything). She's much more natural in giving ground to her right than to her left (which was also obvious to me), but Carol seems to be working it out with her. Needless to say, I'm dying to see her. One of Carol's students took a video of Carol working Joss, and she has promised to send it to me by snail mail. If it really arrives, and if I can rip it, I'll put it up on YouTube and let you all see what you think of her.
• My good buddy Sally has abandoned me for two weeks to take a wonderful trip with her husband and kids to London, the Scottish Nationals, and Ireland. That means that I have sole responsibility for an entire menagerie of our combined animals. Not that there's anything wrong with that! :-)
  
• I've finally realized my lifelong dream of purchasing a new 42-inch plasma television set. I'm contemplating giving up trialing and never leaving my house. So if you can't find me, it's very likely that I'm sitting on my couch in dazed stupor, slack-jawed and drooling. And with that pleasant image, I'll take my leave (hopefully not for another five months!)

posted by Heather

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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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Sherry Smith's Summer at six months
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Amanda Milliken's Fever at 6 months
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My Joss at six months
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

In which we make some New Year's resolutions

 

After a long, long hiatus, I'm b-a-a-ck! I have every intention of keeping up this blog regularly from now on. Why, you ask? Well, two main reasons: first, my dog life is about to get extremely terrifying, which means sleepless nights for me but good fodder for writing: Joss is six months old now, and I'm slowly realizing that I'm actually going to have to TRAIN her somehow, starting in the next couple of months. And second, after a crazily busy period, life at work is slowing down enough for me to steal a moment here or there on company time to do some blogging. (Luckily, I think the intersection between ETS corporate suits and sheepdog trial enthusiasts is the ever-reliable empty set!) So here I am, for better or for worse.

I'll start by bringing everyone up to date on the four pups, who all turned six months old on January 4:

• Salt: Salt ("Sparky" as a puppy) was the only male in the litter, and he went to Eileen Stein in Shady Side, Maryland. Salt has turned into a handsome (well, *I* think he's handsome, anyway!) white dog with prick ears and a very intelligent, thoughtful expression. He turned on to sheep quite early, and right now he's very, very keen to work but not serious enough to start. I've always had a lot of confidence in Salt, and I'm going to be very interested in watching him develop.
• Nickie: Nickie ("Summer") , the puppy who looks most like Phyl, is owned by Sherry Smith of Church Hill, Maryland. I haven't seen Nickie for quite awhile (I'll be seeing her this weekend at Sherry's winter trial), but I understand from Sherry that she's very big and very mature already. Nickie, like Salt, turned on to sheep very early and was very keen to work. Sherry took her to a Patrick Shannahan clinic about a month ago, and apparently everyone was quite impressed with her there: Patrick had her going around the sheep to both sides, looking bold and keen. Sherry's plan is to start Nickie formally this month, with some help from her friend Linda Tesdahl.
• Fever: Fever ("Liberty") went to Amanda Millken, mostly because I thought she looked very much like Amanda's side of the family. So far, Fever is looking extremely promising (or at least she was when I last saw her at the end of October). Amanda is snowed under right now, but when her sheep were workable she had little Fever going around her sheep nicely, balancing, and looking much more purposeful than I might expect of a four-month-old puppy. Amanda seems quite pleased with her, and I really expect great things from the two of them.
• Joss: Finally, my Joss ("Belle" in the early days). I can barely keep myself from talking about Joss all day long, to anybody foolish enough to express even a passing interest in her. (My colleagues at work have all learned never, never, NEVER to ask the innocent, polite question of "How's your puppy doing?" if they expect get their various projects out on time.) Joss is beautiful. And sweet. And altogether wonderful. I'm fairly daffy about the dog. She was the slowest of the pups to show an interest in sheep, which worried me even though countless numbers of people who ought to know told me that early interest really didn't mean much. But by now she *is* interested and seems to have a nice attitude: she's keen and happy when I take her out to see the sheep, but she's never frantic. I haven't done any real training with her yet, but I've taken her out with a biggish group of sheep and had Phyl hold them to me, just to see what she'd do. From what I can tell so far, she's not really ready to work yet (her tail is down, but she's not really working the sheep as much as getting among them), but I see glimmers of her using her eye and wanting to drive (she might be a natural driving dog like her mother), and I also see tiny little indications (unless I'm kidding myself) of some of the smoothness that characterizes both her mother and her father. I plan to start her for real in March or so, when she's eight months old.

So that's the pups. Right now my plan is to read and reread everything I can get my hands on regarding starting pups, planning for the big, inevitable day when I take Joss onto the field and try to get her to go around her sheep and find balance. For now, I'm contenting myself with working Phyl more regularly than I usually do, in preparation for some winter trials we have coming up (oh, yeah--other big news is that Phyl and I are going to the Florida trials next month, which will provide even more fodder for posts before my angst-filled training Joss series begins). So stay tuned, and again I apologize for the long delay in writing!

posted by Heather

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Thursday, October 06, 2005

In which we post quickly

 

Little Joss is slowly growing--she's the smallest of the litter and probably is going to be on the small side when she's finished. I'm very pleased with how she's looking: she has a moderate coat, prick ears, and a very sensitive, feminine face. I'm also pleased with how she's acting: she's a confident, playful, affectionate pup. So far her only vices are a tendency to throw temper tantrums when she's in her crate and doesn't want to be, and a tendency to steal my TiVo remote and erase shows before I've watched them. She's three months old, and so far she's not showing awareness of the sheep as anything more than blobs moving in the distance--they arouse her curiosity, but nothing more. I can't wait until she's officially turned on! I've been quite remiss about picture-taking, but I hope to get some good ones of her this weekend, and I'll post the best one to the blog.

In other news, I'm about to leave for Edgeworth, one of my very favorite trials. The kicker is that this year Edgeworth is a double lift trial on the first day. Yikes! Phyl has a very basic look back, meaning that she understands the command if she knows exactly where the sheep *are* that she's looking back to find. But I've never tried anything blind and formal like this, and the Edgeworth field is huge. I was feeling pretty good last year when Phyl managed to do the 600-yard outrun (and actually got a 20-10 on the second day!). But it's important to stay squelched and humble, and I'm sure I'm going to be humble as a pancake when I post next to this blog. Think good thoughts, however fruitless those thoughts will ultimately prove.

posted by Heather

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Monday, September 19, 2005

In which we gloat a little about our fine choice of sire

 

Bart wins!

The father of my puppies, the significant other of Phyl, just won the 2005 USBCHA National Finals. Zowie! I bred to Bart because I was always impressed with his natural talent on sheep, his biddability, and his temperament. But naturally, I'm delighted with any external proof in the dog that happens along, and this is about as big as it gets. As usual, the sheep in Sturgis this year were as tough as sheep can be, and by all accounts Bart handled them masterfully. (It should be recalled that Bart is only four--he's young, and he has a great career ahead of him.) Go, Bart!

Sorry I haven't been updating, but I've been run ragged by my wild little puppy Joss and the fact that Sally and I just got a second field (right next to our first field) that needs fence work before we can declare it sheep-worthy. Because of the new field, we'll be able to breed both our hair sheep and our wool sheep this year (we usually alternate), which means we'll have two rams coming in at different times. Life is frenetic, but I promise to post a picture of Joss (who remains adorable) very soon.

posted by Heather

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