Canadians Round Two - Update

I know you are asking where the updates went! Unfortunately, we had a farm emergency so things have gone haywire. We got a call yesterday that our sheep were out. Scott left the trial immediately and drove the 3 1/2 hours home to find our sheep 8 miles away, across a highway and brought them home where he was confronted by the 3 stray dogs who had attacked them in our barnyard. After dealing with the situation, he came back to the trial this morning (Sunday) ran his dog and we left early to try and find the 7 sheep that are still missing. Needless to say, I don't have placings yet but I can rough some stuff out for you.
Let's start with Drift. He had a great run yesterday (round 2) . He over ran dramatically at the top but after that he got it together and smoothly took the sheep around the course. Once again the sheep were difficult to pen and his time ran out. However, with the good run he had the day before, he still got in to the double lift.
Lad ran at the end of the day in the cool.

Lad and I walking to the post- photo by Sara Novak

I decided to send him to the left which was a very difficult outrun but he was still trying to find the imaginary sheep off to my right that made him go wide on his previous outrun. He cast out well and up the hill but perhaps a little wide. He disappeared from my sight and finally, after a few nail biting moments, he reappeared at the top a little short and looking lost. I flanked him over and he was gone again. I just guessed at when he was in the right place and hit him with a steady which brought him over the hill in almost the right place. He had a nice lift and a great fetch and was racing to turn the post when he tripped over some irregularity in the field and took a hard tumble. He hit so hard, I wasn't sure if he would be sound when he stood up again but he jumped right up. I told him "GOOD BOY!" and got him back on track. Most of the time, when a dog takes a hard tumble like that, they don't come back to finish their run well but not Lad. He worked his heart out on his drive and made all his panels.

Lad giving it everything he had- photo by Sara Novak

As he brought them to the pen, I was determined that the sheep would not get the better of me again. We got them in the mouth and I crouched down to keep them from running through me. It was a tense couple of minutes but we got them in. A perfect, full point pen.

Lad and I at the pen - photo by Sara Novak

We had just about a minute left and rushed into the shedding ring. I saw one risky chance at a shed and I took it. Lad is a bad shedder and usually I need a hole the size of a bus before I call him in but this time he came in and held his sheep and the crowd cheered. The score was lower than I expected (74) and didn't reflect the heart he put into his run. Both he and Hemp missed the double lift cut off by one point.

Canadian/Western Canadian Championships Double Lift Running Order
1. Bev Lambert and Hemp
2. Vickie Kidd and Merle (Canadians only)
3. Nancy Stephens and Ike
4. Scott and Drift
5. Norm Sommer and Jock (Western Canadian only)
6. Vickie Close and Gale (Canadians only)
7. Amanda Milliken and Clive (Canadians only)
8. Ian Zoerb and Gyp
9. George Stambulic and Kate
10. Grant Musgrove and Sam
11. Judy Finseth and Maude (Western Canadian only)
12. Bev Lambert and Mirk
13. Dennis Gellings and Jan
14. Peter Gonnet and Jill