Tam

Scott's third nursery dog for this year is Tam.

Diane Pagel's Tam

Tam is owned by Diane Pagel of Delta Bluez Stockdogs and is a grandson of Johnny Wilson's well known bitch, Maid. He also goes back to Bobby Henderson's Sweep.
Diane started gathers with Tam over the summer and Scott picked up his training in the Fall.

Tam working at Alta-Pete Farm

Tam had no trouble adjusting to the Canadian winters and took right to working with Scott. His first trial will be at the LC Farm's trial in Missouri May 6,7, & 8.

Tam

PR Bracken

Scott's second nursery dog for this year is PR Bracken.

Louanne Twa's PR Bracken

Bracken is owned by Louanne Twa of Phantom Ridge Border Collies in High River Alberta and is out of her blue merle bitch, Corriedhu Isla. Isla is a import from Scotland and is a daughter of Bobby Dalziel's Spot.

Bracken's Dam, Louanne Twa's Corriedhu Isla

Bracken's sire is Alba Hope owned by Lisa Wright of Athabasca, Alberta. Hope was bred by Alasdair MacRae and is a grandson of his USBCHA National Champion, and International Champion, Nan and USBCHA National Champion, Ben.

Lisa Wright's Hope- father of Bracken

Training Bracken has been kind of a family affair for Scott who is also training her litter brother, Craig for Louanne. I am also training another littermate, Syn for nursery (who will be profiled later). Craig will be returning to Louanne in March and she will be getting him ready to run in the spring nursery trials.

Bracken moving heavy sheep in a snow storm in Alberta

Scott will be running Bracken until around July, and then the plan is for her to return to Louanne (hopefully qualified for the Nationals) for her to team up with and be ready for the Finals in Colorado.

PR Bracken

Louanne with Craig, Scott with Bracken, and I with Syn will be meeting up at the Bluegrass and plan on having a throw down on the nursery field. May the best dog win!

Reba

The first of Scott's nursery dogs for the 2011 trial year is Reba.

Cy Peterson's Reba

Reba is a 2 year old red tri bitch owned by Cy Peterson of Georgia. She comes from a proven line of trial dogs. Her mother is the two time USBCHA National Champion (and reserve Champion), Star, owned by Eileen Steinman and handled by Alasdair MacRae.

Eileen Steinman's Star handled by Alasdair MacRae at the 2010 Plumb Lucky Trial.

Star was bred to Eileen's popular stud, Don, who was an Irish import brought over and handled by Alasdair. The breeding has been done 4 times and Reba is out of the third cross. The first cross had a couple of standouts in Alasdair's Rex and Ron Burkey's Sky and the second cross had Scott's Don who has been well chronicled in this blog.

Reba in training at Alta-Pete Farm over this winter

We are hoping that Reba will be the standout in the third litter. Scott is enjoying training her but credits Cy for putting a good start on her. She is definitely a strong candidate to being one of the two nursery dogs that Scott will pick to run at the National finals but that is still a long way away.

Reba fetching sheep at Alta-Pete Farm

Reba's first trial will be in Missourri at Larry Moore's Lc Farm's Stockdog Challenge May 6-8, 2011.

Soldier Hollow

Tomorrow I am putting our 2011 entries in the mail. Yes, thank goodness, we were both invited again. Scott's invite is not a surprise but I am very glad they decided I could run a dog too. I have bombed out every year I have run there so I'm never sure if I'll be allowed back again. There are a few discretionary invites every year and they usually are extended to spouses. Last year, one of those courtesy invites, Jean Gellings, won the whole kit and kaboodle. I need to do that! It's a really fun trial to compete in, and go to. I would go to watch even if I didn't get invited (SHHH! but don't tell them that or maybe it will happen!). Truly, this is a sheep dog trial like you've never seen. It's so much more than a trial, it's an event and I encourage everyone to go and experience it.
Scott will, of course, be running Maid and Don and I think I'll be running Hemp again. It's a toss up for me, but Hemp, at least, has never lost the sheep at the top of the trial's hill. (knock on some serious wood)
This year they are giving back to the border collie community by offering a few "extras". Their new WEBSITE is going to offer a "Border Collie Resource" tab that will include subcategories to promote, blogs, websites and Twitter address and sheepdog related enterprises.
They are also adding a "Sheepdog TRIAL Resource" tab where a trial organizer can get information about how Soldier Hollow became so successful (over 25,000 visitors came last year) and use the tips to improve their own trials. In addition, they are giving complementary passes to any trial organizer and a guest to come to the Classic, if you contact them ahead of time.
Last year, they introduced the handler VIP room with water, sodas and snacks for the handlers. It also had a handy outside deck with shaded tables and chairs that became a popular gathering place for the competitors. This year they will be making computers available there for the handlers, to email, blog or Tweet from.
Speaking of Tweeting, taking a page from the super successful Tweets from the National Finals, Soldier Hollow has added a Tweet button on their home page and they will be posting live updates after each run.
So if you are making the big trip to Meeker or the Finals, come a little early and visit the Soldier Hollow Classic. It's an amazing show.

And It Begins Again...

It's a new year, and even though the winter still has a few more months, we are looking forward to the warmer weather and the trial season it brings with it. Scott will start the season this March when he again attends the St. Patrick's day trial at Heppner, Oregon.
On our spring trip, we have lost alot of our regular trials so we are changing our routine just a little bit. Plumb Lucky, Shaker Village and the Hanley's trials have all fallen by the wayside (and we will miss them terribly) so we are going to try Larry Moore's trial in Missouri and make sure we get down to North Carolina to attend Dr. Ben Ousley's trial. We have been absent from that trial for too many years and we are really glad we were able to fit it back into our spring trip. Of course, we will again be attending the Kentucky Bluegrass and when we get home in July we will be rushing back to try out a new trial in Alberta that Don Grant is putting on. We hear he has a great and challenging field.
I am really glad that Ian and Joanne Zoerb have decided to move their trial up to the last weekend in July (making it a qualifier for this year's finals) and along with a new name, Bow River Sheepdog Classic, the former EID trial has also relocated to a new field.
August should also keep us busy with Shaunavon taking the old EID weekend and the Canadian Championships following a week later. We are still waiting to hear if we are invited again to Soldier Hollow and we haven't yet decided if we are going to go to Meeker. Then of course, it is the National Finals, this year in Colorado, that is the final show for the year.
Scott's primary dog again this year will be Don who will be entering his sophomore year in Open. His first year made us very proud with several wins and a reserve champion placement at the Kentucky Bluegrass.

Don moves sheep in the double lift at the 2010 Kentucky Bluegrass Classic.

Don continued to please at the national finals, placing high in both the preliminary round and the semi finals. We had some criticism of him in the double lift but he actually performed quite well, we were just being picky. Scott blames himself for the uncompleted International shed and eventual grip off. This winter has been time for Donnie to continue to grow and gain experience to be ready for the next year of trials.
Towards the end of the last trial year, Scott's second open dog, Maid, really started to come into her own. Scott had changed some of his training with her and it seemed to have gotten through. She was finally calming down and taking responsibility for herself. In the past, she had a short temper and was quick to grip. By the end of the year, she had gained confidence in herself and was much more trustworthy. In the finals, she had a little bad luck but even with that, she managed to place 5th in the double lift and kept her cool despite a few challenges.

Maid choosing not to grip a testy ewe at the 2010 National Finals

This winter, we were hoping to breed Maid to Don again (her last litter is a year old now and we are happy with the way they are coming along) but she didn't oblige us with coming into heat early enough. We can't have the pups too young when we hit the road so instead, she and Scott are trying to build on the work they had started last year.
My plans this year are to improve my attitude. I had a very bad year with some mistakes and bad luck and I let my dogs down by letting it affect every trial. Both dogs actually did well at the Bluegrass placing in the top 40's or higher (out of 143 dogs) each time they went to the post, and Hemp placed 26th overall, just a few placings out of the double lift. I am hoping to not let the pressure of trying to get enough points to go to the finals affect me and see if that helps improve my nerves and attitude towards my runs. Despite my troubles, Hemp did manage to get into one double lift last year at the Gelling's trial but once we were there, his bad at-hand work made it difficult to do well in the International shed.

Hemp stopping a collared ewe in the International shed at the Gellings trial in 2010 (photo by Lisa Wright)

I really started to feel like I could "see" how to do it and we have made big improvements in his close up work this winter. Scott has also helped us alot and has made some changes in our style, namely removing the stop as an option on our drive and fetch. This is forcing Hemp and I to find much needed pace. It's a different experience running a dog without a stop!
Laddie is Laddie. He has his short comings but he wants nothing more than to have you tell him what you want on the trial field so he can do it. Lad's biggest drawback last year was his shed. It cost him a placement in the first round of the Bluegrass and gave me such a complex that it was a downward spiral from there. By the end of the summer he had no shed at all. We built it back up by the time we went to the finals but some bad handling on my part eliminated the need to have a shed. SO, this winter, we have continued to work on his shed and we are keeping it light and trying to instill enough confidence in him to hold some of the harder ewes.

Lad in training over the winter (photo by Sarah Novak)

In addition, he has improved his other big weakness, his outrun, without any help from me. I never thought I'd see the day that Lad would finish an outrun when he had a strong draw but he has taken it on himself to fix his problem.
We are excited about the new faces in the dog kennel. Scott will be running Don's first born this year, June, who is owned by us, is by Don and out of Meg, a littermate to my Hemp. Scott will also be running Reba, a little red tri bitch owned by Cy Peterson of Georgia. Reba is bred the same way as Don but out of a different litter and will be making her debut in Nursery at the Misourri trial. Another bitch he will be running is owned by Louanne Twa from Alberta. Her Bracken is a littermate to my nursery dog, Syn. Louanne herself will be running another littermate, Craig, and we are looking forward to competing with all three of of them in the Bluegrass this year. The litter is out of Louanne's bitch, Isla and Lisa Wright's Hope. The final nursery dog that Scott will be running this year is a young male named Tam, owned by Diane Pagel.
In the next few weeks I will start to profile the youngsters and tell you a little bit about their breeding. For now, it's back out to the training field!

Shaunavon Sheepdog Classic 2011

Here's an alternative trial for all of you who aren't going to Lacamas this year:
Shaunavon is the little trial that could. It's been building every year and is turning into a nice quality trial.

Scott and Donnie won it last year and came home with lots and lots of goodies (dog food, all kinds of dog treats and products) and a beautiful belt buckle and Peter Gonnett and Taff won it in the inaugural year, 2009.
This year the trial is going to be one week before the Canadian Championships which are being held in BC. Both trials are sharing a judge and they are bringing over the many times South African Champion, Faansie Basson.
Good fun!

VIDEO

Shaunavon (Shaunavon, SK) : August 19-22, 2011
Canadian Championships (Cranbrook, BC) : August 25-28

Eye On The Prize

It's hard to think about the 2011 National Finals while we are hunkered down at home, in the snow, but winter is when we should be thinking about it the most. Alta-Pete Stockdogs doesn't trial at all in the winter. Instead, we spend the time training the dogs, fixing the problems we saw in the open dogs (many, many in mine!) and preparing the up and coming nursery pups for their debut in the Spring.
The 2011 USBCHA National Finals is going to be held in Carbondale, Colorado this year. It's going to be absolutely beautiful scenery.
VIDEO