Canadian Championships - Double Lift

Today was like all the past few days. Cold enough to wear long johns in the morning but getting hot around 10AM. They started with the opening ceremonies with all of the handlers parading out on the field.

Handler parade - Scott is in the light blue shirt 4th from the left

A young boy sang the Canadian National Anthem and the set out riders came down the field with the Canadian and Western Canadian flags.

Head set out rider, Chris Schmaltz leads the Canadian flag parade

I snapped a picture of the Reserve Nursery traveling trophy because I won it two years ago and never got it. It was broken and once it was fixed it was never mailed to me. I don't win alot and it was a special award that I would have liked to have for the year and had my name engraved on it. I appreciate that someone did get my name on the trophy but I was disappointed that it didn't say, "Jennifer Glen" or even "Jenny Glen " but it said, "Jen Glen".

My name and Laddie's name on the Canadian Reserve Nursery trophy

Oh, well. As someone pointed out, at least I did well enough to get it there.
I wish I had got a picture of Don and his Champion Nursery Trophy but we didn't expect to leave before it was over. Hopefully someone will bring it to us or be kind enough to put his name on it.

Drift's run wasn't bad. He went out to the right on his first outrun and had no trouble finding his sheep. He did over run again and had to be directed over. Scott fought him a little on the dog leg fetch but made the panels and set up to do the turn back. He had to ask him a couple of times, but he didn't cross over and got back to his second set on the left. Once again they fought on the diagonal fetch but made the panels and joined the two sets of sheep.

Drift with the second set of sheep

The drive was once again beautiful and controlled but the sheep were heavy. They made all their panels and then started on the shed. Scott had a nice first cut but had difficulty getting a flow going. They got down to one sheep and just couldn't get it cut out even though Scott leaves his sloughed sheep pretty close to make a nice draw.

Scott and Drift working on the shed

It was disappointing to not finish but it was a good practice for Drift to try his turn back on a new field. I didn't see any more runs after that since we had to get home but I did get the final scores...

Canadian/Western Canadian Championships
1. Dennis Gellings and Jan 126
2. Peter Gonnet and Jill 108
3. Amanda Milliken and Clive 105 (Canadian Only)
4. Bev Lambert and Mirk 103
5. Bev Lambert and Hemp 99
6. George Stambulic and Kate 92
7. Ian Zoerb and Gyp 92
8. Scott Glen and Drift 87
9. Nancy Stephens and Ike 76
10. Norm Sommer and Jock 74 (Western Canadian only)
11.Vickie Close and Gale 57 (Canadian only)
Vicki Kidd and Merle DQ (Canadian only)
Grant Musgrove and Sam RT
Judy Finseth and Maude DQ (Western Canadian only)

Canadian/ Western Canadian Champion
Dennis Gellings and Jan
Canadian/ Western Canadian Reserve Champion
Peter Gonnet and Jill

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

Canadian Open Second Round- First Update

Scott and Maid ran their second course around 6PM last night. It was starting to be cool and the sheep were getting better but Maid didn't luck out with her set. She got a high headed running Suffolk that just wouldn't slow down. The run got crazy and she missed all of her panels with the exception of two ewes who went through the drive panels. She actually did get the pen (which is now a different pen - it's more solid to make the sheep more comfortable, but smaller which won't, so time will tell if it is an improvement - so far it's not) but on her shed she gripped off.
Hemp and I ran our second round at about 8PM. It was nice and cool and the shadows were gone so I could see real well. They set our sheep high on the hill. Higher than they have been setting them and they did lose them twice on his outrun but he took his redirect and had a nice lift. He was pretty straight down the fetch line with a little bobble at the panels. Our drive was nice and we made all our panels. Hemp is really trying to work with me and although his stop was off, he was still controllable and even made the crossdrive panels by using a little "intelligent disobedience" taking a different flank than I asked. Turned out he was right. The same thing happened at the pen. We lost the sheep around and around and I asked him to go one way which wasn't working and he took it upon himself to go the other way and he got them stopped in the mouth. I had to get down low to keep those sheep from busting through the rope - many a handler is sporting a rope burn because the sheep ran through the rope. (can I say how proud I am of him getting the idea how to pen when 2 weeks ago we had never penned in our entire trialing career?!) We got them in and then ran to the shedding ring with about a minute left. I couldn't take as fast a shed as last time and probably lost a point or two setting it up but Hemp came in beautifully and had an eye to eye stop on one ewe before the judge called it. I was thrilled with that because he's never had one look at him like that before and I know that this past winter, he would have let that girl go. Wish I had a picture! Anyway, his score was a 74 which is much improved from his last one but it won't be enough to get us in the double lift on Sunday. Hopefully, we'll have Scott and Drift to root on. They run late today along with Lad and I.
THIS JUST IN...
Grant Musgrove (Hemp and Maid's breeder) just laid down a 90 this morning with his 11 year old Sam!

Canadian Open First Round Results

Full results can be found here
Open Round One (71 dogs):
1.Bev Lambert and Hemp
2. Scott Glen and Drift
3. Amanda Milliken and Clive
4. Ian Zoerb and Gyp
5. Bev Lambert and Mirk
6. Nancy Stephens and Ike
7. Peter Gonnet and Jill
8. Gayle Cochlan and Meg
9. Norm Sommer and Jock
10. Stormy Winters and Roy

Canadian Open First Round - Update 2

Scott and Drift were out in the coolness this morning when the light was beautiful and the sheep were still happy.

Drift on the fetch

He had a great outrun but had some difficulty on his lift. The sheep had decided they were going to walk back up the hill and they didn't care if there was a dog or not. I'm not sure if Drift made contact with them but he had to jump at them for a grip to get them moving. After that the ewe was broke and walked around the course docile as a, well, as a lamb.

Drift and Scott turning the post

They made all their panels and got the pen and a nice shed. His final score was an 83 and at this point he is in the lead with Amanda Milliken and Clive in second place with an 80.

Drift is in the lead!

Laddie didn't have a good run. It started with his outrun. He must have spotted something off to my right and got wider and wider until he decided he was lost. It took multiple redirects and lots of time to get him to the sheep. He had a good lift and was good around the course but we didn't get the pen. Wouldn't you know it, we ran out of time just as they were going in.
We will start the second round in a couple of hours. Maid will run for sure and Hemp will be on the bubble. Either way, he'll get to run in the cool again. I will get the top 10 first round posted later tonight.

Canadian Open Day one - update

Maid's score was a 61. Bev Lambert and Ian Zoerb are leading it with 77s. Hemp was a 59 but it was a horrible run. With the shadows and light at that time of night, I couldn't see where the dog was alot of the time. It was twilight and still had plenty of light but the shadows were mixing me up. We missed the fetch panels but made both drive panels with bad lines. Hemp and I are running in a different style and he didn't quite do it at the trial - he was trying but isn't quite there yet. We got the difficult pen but not full points, however Hemp really did a good job with it. Then we ran to the shedding ring and very quickly got the shed. Louanne Twa is going to try to get all the scores up later tonight on her blog http://phantomridgebordercollies.blogspot.com/

Canadian Open Day one

They plan to run 19 dogs in the Open class tonight. However, at 5:30PM they were still only on the third dog. Maid ran second. It wasn't the greatest run. She had a good outrun but was a little fast on the fetch and in this heat, you can't do that.

Maid on the fetch

I did see dogs treat sheep worse in the nursery and it didn't matter but it came back to haunt Maid. On the turn around the post she had a sheep start facing her.

A ewe facing Maid at the post

Scott kept her calm and she walked forward carefully without losing her temper but it slowed things down alot. They made the drive panels but missed the crossdrive panels. Unfortunately, we have a pen and then a shed and with only 8 pens out of 54 runs in the nursery, there may not be many pens. Scott and Maid ran out of time (10 minutes) at the pen.

Maid keeping her cool at the pen with sheep facing her

Hemp is supposed to run 18th. I'm not sure how dark it will be then. They have claimed they will run to 8:30PM. The good news is, it will be cool so I can really push on him. I may not be able to see what he is doing but he'll do it in the cool of the evening.