Ellen Skillings - Heppner Oregon 1986

The trial at that time, unlike now, is held in the rodeo arena in town. The high solid sides surrounded by bleachers certainly prevent the yearling range ewes from escaping back to the range, but the close and unfamiliar quarters readily elicit the ‘Fight or Flight’ response when faced with unfamiliar dogs. Caleb was not a ‘kind’ dog. He had a rough, big boned, Scottish ‘Herdsman’s Tommy’ build, with intense wolfish yellow eyes. He used them to great effect.

The Novice Class is an “outrun”, “fetch” and “pen”. Three sheep are let out of the chute gate at the far end of the arena where they stand pressed tightly together against the arena wall well under 100 yards away. Well under the distance at which Caleb’s predatory glare provokes a ‘fight or flight’ response from these Western White face yearlings the size of small ponies.

The handler’s post is set just in front of a horse trailer where the judge sits protected, a little, from the steady rain. The rain provides a gray wash reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands to all memories of that weekend.

I step to the post. I unclip the lead. I say, “Come Bye”. The words start the clock. Everything but the clock and the rain remain frozen. Sheep, dog, the expectant bedraggled crowd in the bandstand are still and quiet. We have three minutes to get the sheep to the post, around behind it, and into the pen.  Caleb is to go out and get them and bring them to my feet. We will negotiate the pen together.

I shush, I plead, I bark, ‘Come bye’ a little more firmly, words that should send my dog in a nice arc, clockwise, to the far side of the sheep. Caleb apparently forgets, or else considers optional, the expected response to the command.  He has the sheep under perfect control from his position at my feet. The sheep seem to know a move in any direction can have no good end; ‘Uhn uh’, ‘no siree’, not a muscle twitch among the three of them.

When I insist again he rises to his feet and begins marching straight up the center of the arena. Again this is not the expected response. He is marching straight into the statue-esque sheep faces. It’s a mutual eye thing. The sheep, trapped by the high wall, would flee to the hills if it were an option.  I continue my pleading for Caleb to cast.

Caleb seems to consider their position and demeanor perfectly satisfactory. My pleading is to no effect.

For the sheep the moment of decision arrives when Caleb is about fifteen feet in front of their noses. ‘Fight?’ or ‘Flight ?’ Flight wins. Some slight shift of a sheepy ear shoots a command straight to that Border collie brain ’ The instant the sheep twitch everything explodes- zero to sixty in under a second. Caleb loops around them in a flash, and now they waste no time on the clock, barreling down the arena’s length, wrapping themselves in the tongue of the horse trailer and unwrapping again before the judge can get his head out in the rain to see what’s going on. Then, as quickly as the storm erupted it stops.  All this occurs in the amount of time it takes me to yell, “Lie Down, Lie  Down, LIE DOWN, I SAID LIE DOWN.!”

Now the sheep and the dog are doing the mutual eye thing again and the sheep are at a dead standstill, refrozen and mesmerized at a good spot in front of the pen.
 
I step away from the post and pick up the pen rope, opening the gate carefully. My job; open the pen gate. Caleb’s job; put the sheep in the pen. Sheep’s job-figure out a way, at all costs, to avoid getting trapped in a little pen with a wolf outside salivating.

Pen, sheep, Caleb. Me off to the side holding the end of a six foot rope tied to the end of a six foot gate leading to a 6’x9’pen, trying to stay out of the way.
 
Usually getting sheep in the pen is a matter of gentling them a little, but in this case it is matter of convincing them that moving in any direction other than straight backwards is a bad idea.

I was chanting, a fairly constant mantra, “Lie down, LIE down, I said lie down, do you hear me? Lie Down…….”

A sheep-feeling trapped in this way- will sometimes tip her ears back, and, head still high, slowly turn her eyes from the dog’s gaze as if saying, ‘I think I’ll just tip-toe out to the ladies room for a moment.‘  Usually it’s just one in the group. Sometimes a sheep will raise one foot and slowly stamp as if to tell the dog, ‘I could tromp you into the ground if I wanted, but if you will just stay there I will slip away and you will hardly notice.’

Caleb isn’t buying any of it.  When a sheep head shifts so does Caleb’s. When one stomps his body still pressed to the ground seems to roll forward slightly into the pressure as if saying, ‘try me’.

I ask him up to shift the sheep.  He raises slowly, the sheep tense and all shift back a step. Every time they shift I tell Caleb to ‘lie down’ again. Afraid that if they move anywhere fast he will use every available tactic to stop them. Gripping is not allowed in Sheep Dog Trials. More than once, at home, I have stitched a sheep cheek or lip. When she has answered his ‘try me’ with ‘I wlll then’. Did I mention, Caleb is not a kind dog?

We continue on like this. If a sheep twitches an ear to check an escape route, Caleb twitches one or shifts his nose in reply. Get up. Lie down. Twitch, shift, and slowly as a unit the sheep back up, step-by-step, oblivious to the pen walls slowly encircling them.  As soon as they realize their predicament they spin as one to run, the only direction they think might be clear, straight into the pen. I rush to shut the gate.
 
It is five years before I step onto the trial field again. This time with a different dog.

The odd thing about a spectacularly bad run, at least if no one has to stitch up a wound or pull a sheep out of a pond, is that no one remembers any of it except the handler who ran it, and perhaps the dog. Perhaps the dog dreams about how great it was.

© Ellen Skillings (all rights reserved)

Maria Amodei - First Lambing

My sheep are kept in a field a short distance from my house.  I had read and re-read the sheep books describing how to care for ewes during lambing.  I decided to bring the flock (6 ewes) to my backyard for lambing so I could keep a closer eye on them.  I set up a maternity pen off the shed in the backyard.  Since I don't have much room in the shed the lawn tractor had to move out onto the back porch. This redneck tradition of piling implements on the porch each March continued for years. I did not have a trailer to bring the sheep so I decided to bring them with my dog. The problem is I live on a very busy road and my dog and I were novices. The sheep field is around the corner, with a short leg on my busy road, then an equal leg on a less busy road. There is a pond belonging to the town inside this corner. If I look across the pond I can almost see the sheep from my window. My brilliant idea was to bring the sheep across the frozen pond, thereby avoiding the busy road entirely. I just needed some snow for traction. The lambing dates drew near and we had no snow. Finally we got a storm. This was my chance. I grabbed my dog and went up to get the sheep. We only needed to take them on the road for about 50 feet before turning in the entry to the pond. There was a short steep bank down to the ice. The sheep thought little of this option but the dog was persistent. We got on the ice and I realized it was still quite slippery despite 4 inches of snow. One of the girls kept slipping and falling, no doubt exacerbated by the dog working too close and fast. She finally lay down in the middle of the pond and quit. I tried lifting her. No luck. So here I was in a snowstorm standing in the middle of the town pond with 5 standing sheep, one sheep laying on the ice, a dog, and no clue. I gave up and took all the other sheep back to the field. I went back to get my reclining diva and she had managed to return to the shore so we collected her back to the field. Now for another try, this time I decided to cross further down where there was some rough area on the ice. This required another 200 feet on the road. We got almost to our planned crossing route and an impatient driver came upon us and tailgated about 10 feet behind the dog. I lost my cool, the dog lost his cool, and one sheep escaped and ran back to the field. We turned around and went back again. Third time was a charm, no impatient drivers and the footing on the ice was better at the lower crossing. I brought the sheep across the pond and into my back gate. Whew. I still periodically hear rumors in town about people swearing they saw a sheep laying on the ice in the middle of Woodward's Pond as they drove by. I just smile and say "Really!"

Now you may be wondering what I did when the sheep and their new lambs needed to get back to the field. The ice had melted. No problem, each ewe and her young lambs were stuffed in a very large dog crate on a big crate dolly. With one person pulling and another pushing the cargo was rolled down Route 113 and up Pond Street to the field again. I feel it is my civic duty to entertain the town. Fortunately I only had a few sheep back then.

Robin French - "HELP"

In the beginning...well, I was about as ignorant of dogs and sheep as you can possibly be. In 1992, my old BC mix had passed away, and I wanted "another of those smart dogs", so picked up the newspaper and started looking in the classifieds. There was an ad for border collies, with red merles and blue merles. I made the fateful phone call and had to ask "what is a merlie?" (yes, I pronounced it merl-ie). Yes, that uninitiated to the breed. I drove right out to this backyard breeder's place, where there were half a dozen different breeds of dogs for breeding. And of course I brought one home. But the biggest twist of fate that day, was the "breeder" handing me a copy of the first chapter of the book "The Versatile Border Collie", because right there in it, it said I had to give this dog a job or I was in big trouble! Bailey was the smartest thing I'd ever met, picking up every trick I could teach her in minutes. So, I found her a "job" and we started dabbling in obedience training. One day I noticed a post-it on the bulletin board in the training building where we took lessons -- "herding training, saturday mornings, $10, call xxx-xxxx". Next thing you know, my little dog and I were off to meet the very first sheep I'd ever seen in person. I was soooooo bad at working my dog, good grief! But I stuck in there because Bailey loved it so. I decided I'd do sheep for her if she'd do obedience for me (because I didn't stink quite as badly at that!). Pretty quickly, the obedience stuff faded away, as I met more great people in sheepdogs and started training with different and better trainers. I was still pretty horrible and I don't know where some of my early mentors found the patience for me (come bye? away? I couldn't even manage left and right!), but we stuck in there. I was exceptionally lucky to meet some wonderful people who were getting into sheepdogs at the same time as I was, and we all helped each other along. And of course I was perched at the top of the sheepdog slippery slope, as more dogs, a move to the country, a farm, a flock of sheep, etc, etc, etc were in my near future.

In the beginning of trialing....well, I pretty much stunk at that too. My first trial was at Roy Johnson's. I sent Bailey out on her outrun, she went about 20 feet and came right back to me. The sheep ran off to the barn and that was that, the shortest trial debut ever. I have to say one of my more embarrassing novice trial experiences was at the Bluegrass classic. The Bluegrass had just started back up in its modern version, and all the classes ran on the same big field. I was running two dogs in novice-novice and Bailey and I were up right after the lunch break. After our less-than-stellar run, there was no one at the exhaust pen to clear the field because of the lunch break, so I walked the sheep over and put them through the gate. Unfortunately, the exhaust gate and the gate for handlers exiting the field were right next to each other and covered with black fabric. I put the sheep through the wrong gate, right through the fancy tent with drinks and snacks and sliced fruit for handlers coming off the field! Off those darned sheep ran, right into the antique tractor show that was going on. Fortunately, I had learned enough by this point to NOT send my little not-ready-for-prime-time dog out into the crowd. I had been taking lessons with Vergil Holland at the time, and I have a very clear memory of standing there yelling "Vergil, HELP!".

The 1999 Finals at Belle Grove was one of the most fun weeks I've ever had. I wasn't even running in Open yet, but I spent the week there with friends and had a ball watching the dogs and generally cutting up and laughing like mad with some of the wonderful people I'd met in sheepdogs. In the 2010 Finals at Belle Grove, my dogs exceeded my expectations so far that a friend called it my "fantasy week at the Finals", with my Open dogs finishing 2nd and 4th in the first round, and my Nursery dog getting through to the Open Finals and finishing 8th. What a long way from the early days with my "merlie". It's been a long, wonderful trip, filled with the most amazing people and dogs and places, and I'm looking forward to going back to Belle Grove again this year.

Lori Cunnigham - The Injection

Not long after I started keeping my own sheep, I had reason to need to give a sheep an injection.   I went out with a syringe of medication, proud of myself for getting on with the job.    My dog put all the sheep in a pen, which I now know, was way too big.   I was a very inexperienced sheep flipper and it was a very.hot.day.  I chased the ewe around the pen for quite a while  before I finally caught her.   I lifted.  I pulled.  I twisted.   I could not get that sheep to go over.    While I was bent over tugging on every sheep body part I could reach, the ewe reared back and head butted me squarely in the face,  whacking my nose and splitting my lip.    Looking back, I believe that the combination of the heat, exertion and pain in my face  caused me to go temporarily insane.   What had started out as a simple farm chore now became an epic battle of wills and looked something like a grotesque inter-species Greco Roman wrestling match… the ewe bucking around the pen with me attached to her neck,  threats, curses and profanities flowing as freely as the blood dripping from my face.     Suddenly, in the midst of the battle, I saw the ewe’s eyes roll back in her head and she slumped to the ground.    There was little doubt in my mind that I had killed her.     Regardless.    Still cursing triumphantly, I dragged her limp carcass over to the side of the pen, re-gathered my syringe and gave her the injection.    I pumped my arms in the air.    Victory! 

Then I noticed there was a UPS guy standing in my driveway staring at me, his clipboard dangling from his hand.    He didn’t say a word.   He just backed up slowly and got in his truck and drove away.

Shortly thereafter, the sheep came to.    She was fine.   Way better than me.

Patrick Shannahan - The Reluctant Trialer

As a young boy, I was crazy about animals.  All types of animals, but mostly I was crazy about sheep.  My home was a suburban acreage, and although my parents were supportive in some ways, they never could understand my fascination with sheep. None of my relatives were interested in agriculture.  But they liked living in the country and raising their kids in that environment.

So, as a young boy, I purchased sheep to start a registered herd.   I managed that flock without much supervision.  It is not that I didn't have support, but my sheep flock was my project and I was the only individual who really cared about my herd.  My flock continued to grow into my 20’s and 30’s, and developed into a quality-registered flock of Hampshire’s that I started to show on a National level.

Then, on a farm visit to a famous Hampshire flock near Albany, Oregon, in the mid-80's, I saw my first working dog.  Ronald Hogg sent his Border Collie off to gather his yearling ewes.  Ronald was in his 80’s now, and I was shocked at ability of the dog and how it was able to help Ronald. I wasn't quite ready then, but I knew someday I would have a dog that could work like that.

So when I went to look for a pup to start, I used my knowledge about genetics on sheep and asked questions about the parents.   I found a dog that was 1400 miles away, but it had the solid genetics and cost the same price as the local pups.    That pup happened to be Hannah, my first National Champion.

A small group of friends formed when we discovered we were all interested in working dogs.  None of us knew anything about training dogs, and we relied on pooling our resources of limited knowledge to start our pups.

When I had purchased Hannah as a pup, I bought also a trained dog named Toss six months later to help me work.  Toss and I became a good team while I was learning to train Hannah.   My friends all wanted me to go to trials, but I was happy staying home and working on my registered flock of sheep.

Michelle was one of my good friends at the time, and insisted I come to the next trial.   She recently went to her first trial, and had such a great time. Reluctantly I went.  I thought I knew what it would be.  It was nothing like I though it might be.  It wasn't long before I figured out how much I would enjoy seeing the other dogs, people and sheep.  I got entered in PN and Toss won the class.

Needless to say, that was the end of my career with registered sheep.  I was hooked on trials.  Toss, Hannah and I would jump in the pickup and head to any trial I could find.  Didn't matter if I heard the trial was poor, or the sheep were bad, I just couldn't get enough of sheepdog trialing.  We traveled all over the Western US experiencing all that we could in the world of sheep dogs.

I still remember many of those trips with the dogs.   Both Toss and Hannah were such great influences on my career.   They would lay a solid foundation for a successful career. I am fortunate that my friend, Michelle, dragged the reluctant trialer along with her for that first trial. 

This year I am very excited about attending the Nationals.  I have only missed two Nationals since I started, and the Finals in Virginia in 2010 were one of my favorites.   Since it is yet early, I am not sure which dogs I am bringing back, but you can bet there will be no reluctance in attending the premier event of the year.

Joyce Geier - Troy

In the beginning, there were Shelties, good friends, and a herding clinic that needed "just one more participant".

That led to a herding club, an Aussie, and the day almost 25 years ago that my Aussie and I lost the club's entire flock of sheep into the coyote-populated New Mexico desert.  While I was examining my checkbook to see if I could pay for 40-some-odd sheep (nope), another club member sent her young Border Collie, Ross, after the sheep.

When Ross went blithely up the cliff-edged mesa and disappeared from view, I panicked.  I knew that I didn't have enough money anywhere,  or even enough equity in my house, to cover both Ross and the sheep.  I was  doomed.

Except that, five minutes later, Ross reappeared, all 40 sheep in one nice tight group, and brought them casually down the cliff and back to our club's demo area.   That day, I swore that - if I ever got a Border Collie - it would be a Ross pup. 

A bizarre series of events resulted in just that, and a few years later a black and white fur-ball  tumbled out of an airline crate and into my arms.    Troy started licking me the moment he came out of that crate, and fifteen years later, he was still licking me when he transitioned into the next world.

But oh, the places we went and the things that we did and the people that we met in between!

He was just nine months old when I bought a dozen rambunctious Cheviot yearlings and started herding; it took me all of three weeks (maybe)  to teach him everything I had learned about it.  It took him the rest of his life to teach me a fraction of what he knew from the moment he was born.

In the beginning we had only a small ring to train in, and so we walked our wild woollies  almost daily to larger, neighboring fields.  And we lost sheep - everywhere.  Sheep in the swamp, sheep in the garage, sheep on the neighbors second-story deck; sheep in ditches, sheep in the woods, sheep in a pond.  No sheep was ever injured or ever really misplaced - in fact, they often looked quite puzzled at the unexpected turn of events, and participated in these adventures with impressively good grace and a surprising sense of humor.

Troy always tried to prevent these mishaps, but he was dealing with a hopeless dunce. It took me a long time to learn to leave him alone and just trust him when we were in a jam. In the meantime, his solution was to simply listen (perhaps a bit too well) and do what I asked him to do.  He let me make the mistakes, and then he let me figure out how to salvage the job.

And yet he always had my back during these recovery missions.   I (we) waded in the swamp to carry the sheep out, I (we) got cut up by the sawgrass heaving sheep out of ditches, and I (we) walked sheep two miles home the day we (I) couldn't get sheep on the trailer.  But his teaching method was effective; I rarely made the same mistake twice.

Troy taught me to trial, too.  From Novice-novice to the USBCHA Nursery Finals to Open and even the USBCHA semi-finals, we won and lost our share.  He had this knack of looking at me when we were at the post in the big trials, and then heaving a deep sigh as if to say, "She's a basket case again.  I guess I'll just have to take care of it."  And then off he would go, and do, and my confidence grew and I learned to have fun and I dared to dream.

Troy isn't here anymore, and I still miss him. But every dog I work with and every trial I enter just builds on the foundation he laid.   I'd like to think that, now, maybe I can actually share the things he taught me whenever I'm training young pups or running green dogs, and that maybe now I'm a better student as they, in turn, teach me.

If only every handler were so lucky.

Dave Young - The Great Rabbit Muster of '68

Dogs, more accurately a Border Collie, helped open up the world of agriculture to me. My first one, Lassie, hum...wonder where that name came from, was a natural. Although not directly from Alex McKinven, I believe she was more than likely from his very early lines. I should have asked him.  As 14 year old part time urban rabbit farmers, a friend of mine and I were deep in the production heavy carcass rabbits, yeah...right. A dream of financial freedom and an excuse to skip school, one in a very long list, was driving force behind this endeavor.  Soon though, subsidies from not so understanding family members began to dry up. An action plan was needed. What to do... oh what to do? Gardens could free us! Not our gardens though, the neighbors’ gardens. The Mizner's garden was right next door. Well weeded and packed with all kinds of rabbit fodder plus, we schemed,( heh, heh, heh) that the natural occurring rabbit tracks could be a possible alibi, not that 14 year olds ever needed one. A short muster from their warrens, the garden was surrounded by trees and hedges providing the much needed cover and nutrition for both the rabbits and their wary keepers. How do we get them there?  Lassie could help do this. We should have thought of this sooner! The initial drive worked well. Unlike sheep, hungry rabbits seem to drive easier. We got them to the garden unnoticed. After a short while of foraging, both species were full. The return drive is where things really fell apart.  Rabbits everywhere. Kids, rabbits and one really happy Border Collie all stomping through the Mizner’s garden. Much to the satisfaction of Lassie, the gather took a couple of days. In the end poor hutch construction was the excuse... coccidiosis, our eventual downfall. 

Haley Howard Hunewill - “Please Mom, give me a Border Collie command”

My Mother and Father had a ranch with sheep, cattle, horses and Border Collies since long before I was born.  From when I was very small, I would go with my mom to move sheep and cattle and train the dogs, it was my favorite thing to do.  In fact, while growing up I thought that every six year old’s favorite thing to do was work the sheep and have my mother say “Away to Me” or “Come Bye” as I enthusiastically ran around the sheep mimicking the moves of Border Collies. 

When I was two years old my mom gave me a Sheltie puppy; Lilac was my best friend and constant companion.  I would “work” Lilac on the sheep, and she would bark and balance the sheep to me.  I could walk around the arena and Lilac would bring the sheep, if I walked through little obstacles...so would the sheep.  There was a small local trial at the fairgrounds and I was all excited to go and show Lilac.  I was seven years old at the time and I knew Lilac and I could win that trial; after all, Lilac was an expert at walking the sheep through obstacles at home!  The day of the show arrived and we were ready, we’d been practicing a lot and I was carrying my mother’s shepherd’s crook which was a couple feet taller than me.  We walked to the chalk ring and I pointed to the sheep fifty feet away and said “Lilac, get the sheep”; instead of running towards the sheep and barking like usual, Lilac stood there...casually looking around, looking at me, and doing NOTHING!  I tried the command again and Lilac wandered away and started sniffing.  My face was beginning to burn.  I hurried towards the sheep saying “get the sheep, get the sheep!”, but nothing worked, Lilac acted like she’d never seen a sheep in her life.  I managed to make it out of the arena and under the grandstands before bursting into tears. 

After the incident with Lilac, my mom let me start working one of her trained older Border Collie bitches named Rudy.  Rudy and I would do small chores around the ranch which I thought was the best thing ever, almost as fun as having my mom give me commands where I could pretend to be the dog.  I had been working Rudy for nearly a year and we were getting pretty handy.  My father was going to run in a local cattledog trial and encouraged me to enter, too.  After much practicing, the big day arrived.  I was not so sure this time after my last “trial” experience, but things had been going very well at home.  I sent Rudy on the twenty five yard outrun and she took off immediately.  So far so good.  Rudy made the outrun in no time; however, she came to the fence, made an abrupt turn to balance the cattle to the fence and laid down.  And would not move not matter what I said.  I walked my horse down to the cattle and all Rudy would do was balance the cattle to the fence.  “TIME”

When I was ten my father gave me my first Border Collie of my own, a red puppy named Scarlet.  Scarlet turned out to be the toughest, most hot headed, weak and hard biting dog I’ve ever had.  Even though I couldn’t teach Scarlet very well, she taught me many things...how to suture up a sheep she’d ripped open, how to make a muzzle out of a plastic cup, how to wait patiently while my Father could work her perfectly and she’d be a Holy terror with me, how to help fix a friend’s fence that Scarlet chased a heifer through...and most of all she taught me how to handle a tough dog and carefully read “dog body language” that would signal an explosion.  I obviously hadn’t had enough humiliation because I even tried to trial Scarlet a couple of times in Novice.  The first one wasn’t terrible, but each time got worse until I decided enough was enough when Scarlet chased one sheep through a fence and nearly over the Border Collies In Action booth...that was too much Border Collie action for me. 

After having toiled with Scarlet for four years, I got my next puppy, Diona, when I was fourteen.  Diona was the most amazing dog I’d ever had, not only did she obey me, she WANTED to obey me.  She wasn’t the most natural youngster, but she was so willing that she would try to learn anything I showed her.  Being young and home schooled with lots of time on my hands, I was happy to spend hours training Diona on and off the sheep.  Even now looking back, after training dozens of dogs, Diona truly was unique in how willing and obedient she was.  Surprisingly after having had many bad experiences trying to “trial” Lilac, Rudy and Scarlet, when Diona became trained enough, I was very excited to give it another try.  Some trialing friends told me I should run Diona in “Nursery”, that she was the right age and she could do well.  I wasn’t sure what class that was, but took their word and started off in Nursery.  Even though for the first several trials Diona seemed to think that the sheep were at the fetch gates, we got around the course and I was always on cloud nine afterwards with how well Diona listened and tried for me.  After a few trials, we qualified for the National Nursery Finals and I was undecided about entering.  It was 2001 and I was only seventeen at the time and quite intimidated, I would be competing against the best handlers and dogs from across the country.  My friend, Ray Coapman, gave me a book on competition training for athletes (a lot of mental training) and wrote a little note that said “even though all the best handlers will be at the Nursery Finals, they will all have young dogs, too, and it will be a level playing field”.  I studied that book endlessly and practiced and practiced with Diona to get ready.  I was terribly nervous to compete in the National Finals, I could barely utter “Away” to send Diona on the outrun.  Luckily Diona being calm and steady as she was, was not upset by my extreme nervousness.  We had a little trouble here and there and I didn’t think we’d place very high, I was surprised to finish fifth in the first go round.  Anyone who was at the 2001 National Finals in Klamath Falls Oregon would remember the wind and dust of that terrible drought year, it was quite tremendous.  When my second run rolled around the wind was whipping in my face, as we walked to the post, and the dust was moving rapidly across the field.  I sent Diona...it seemed to take ages for her to get behind the sheep, I could have counted my heartbeats.  I took a deep breath and blew the loudest stop whistle I could manage into the wind. She stopped right way.  All the way around the course, even though I could hardly see sometimes due to the dust in my eyes, Diona never missed a beat.  We ended up winning the second go round.  When everyone had run and the trial was done, I ventured over to the score board, I hadn’t looked all day.  I kept adding and re-adding...it looked like I was ahead by one point.  When it was announced that Diona and I had won the Nursery Finals, I was in shock - for days. 

After winning the Nursery Finals, Diona and I went on to compete in Open, eventually winning some (shedding proved to be very challenging for me) to get enough points to run in the Regional and National Finals a few times.  We won the Regional Finals once and were Reserve twice and ran in the Final day of the National Finals a couple of times.  We also qualified to compete in the 2005 World Sheepdog Trial, however Diona became quite sick at the last minute and I couldn’t take her overseas.  By then I had some other dogs, too, that I was training and trialing; I especially enjoy training dogs and learning to work with all types.  I won the 2003 National Cattledog Finals with my dog, Cap, and in 2006 I won the National Nursery Finals with, Ross, after having won both go rounds.  I learned to judge some years ago and enjoy traveling to judge trials and feel it is a small way to give back to the sport I love so much.  I am very fortunate to have been able to follow my love of training and working with dogs my whole life.  Every day I look forward to working with my dogs, client’s dogs and helping people get started with their own dogs.  What is it they say...”If you love your work, you never work a day in your life”.

Werner Reitboeck - Kip

One day I arrived home with 22 ewe lambs. As I lowered the ramp of the trailer they jumped out with great joy and raced into the pasture, where, after a few minutes of exploration, they settled down. They ate lustily of the delicate spring growth of grasses and legumes.

A few days later I was horrified to see one of the little lambs limping. I walked up to it carefully, talking soothingly. Any time I came within a certain distance the lamb just walked quietly away. I decided to try a new method: I would approach the lamb at a crooked angle, like a plane flying in crosswinds, never looking directly at the lamb, gently humming some idiotic tune. Then, at the last minute, I tried to grab it unawares, jumping for it like some soccer super-goalie. Alas the lamb and its friends still managed to evade me easily. This however enabled me to check out their droppings from extremely close range.

I thought I would be able to corner the limping lamb in the barn. So I decided to bring all the lambs into the barn. There I would be able to separate the lame animal and check its feet. I was convinced that it suffered from footrot. Any book I had read seemed to attribute any lameness to that problem. I was further convinced that within a day or two,  if not treated properly, my whole flock would be suffering from this infection. So out came a bucket of feed and I enticed them by shaking the bucket ... they gave me a look or two but that was about it.  Then I tried to talk to them by calling baaaaa, baaaa or maaaa, maaaaa changing my pitch from an enticing, deep sexy ram call to an “'I’m in trouble" high lamb-call with everything in between. That resulted in a few more looks or rather stares, some of which seemed to be full of concern and worry but no mad rush to the barn. (However since that day it seems that my neighbors look at me quite oddly at times and they go out of their way to explain the simplest things in kind of baby language). If anything the lambs seemed to be etching gently away from me. Then I remembered that in some authoritative book I read it said that sheep have Latin education and would come rushing if called with the magical word "ovine." "Ovine, ... oviiiiiiine, oviiiiiine." My throat started hurting and I was near despair. All the lambs were happily munching on grass and trefoil. It seemed to me that by now they had decided to ignore that maniac by the barn gate. Back I went to the house for reinforcements. Kate, my wife, quite willingly put on her rubber boots, our two months old son Anthony went into a sling around her front and out we went. Once more we tried to entice our lambs into the barn. As this did not succeed we then tried to herd them in. We kept racing after them, dashing in here or there; we tried to sneak up on them to herd them quietly and kind of push them towards the barn alas in the last moment they always, with a few hops, got out of reach. Eventually Anthony woke up and let us know of his displeasure ... that at least seemed to get the lambs' attentions. I suggested to Kate she might want to drive the sheep now with the help of Anthony. The look I received for that idea told me I should plan a different offensive. Eventually, with the help of neighbors, we did get the lambs into the barn. It only took six of us to herd 22 lambs.

 I caught the lame lamb but I could find nothing that in any way looked like the descriptions of footrot in my book on sheep health. As I sat in the house afterwards, still huffing and puffing I realized that there must be a simpler way to handle sheep.  I had read about herding dogs and decided to look into the matter more closely. I remembered that in one sheep magazine I had seen an advertisement for a book to train herding dogs. I rummaged through stacks of papers in my"office" until at last I found that publication. There were four books advertised: the cheapest probably would be not very good, on the other hand the dearest was close to$ 50.00 ... so I ordered one in the middle. Next day, as luck would have it, I came across a notice advertising border collies for sale. After discussing it with Kate I phoned the number advertised and arranged to look at the pups that very afternoon.

I was shown into a barn and there in a horsestall were seven black and white bundles of energy.

There are many ways to choose a pup. In the end it comes down to personal preference. After a cursory glance at me the pups went back to their preoccupation in trying to catch some of the hens that were also housed in the barn, the only one that I could catch was a little tri-coloured male. He had decided that grabbing my shoelaces was as much fun as trying to catch one of these elusive hens.

Over the next few months Kip followed me around wherever I went, he quickly and without effort seemed to learn his "down," and "come." When he was about seven months old I bought a few more ewes. To prevent any spread of possible disease I kept them apart from the rest of the flock, for a month or so they were in a separate pasture.

After they had settled in for a few days I brought them a little grain that I placed into a tub in the middle of the pasture. Then I fetched Kip. I laid him down about thirty yards from the ewes who did not even notice us thanks to the grain in front of them. I started the first training session with Kip. Day after day we went back with those ewes and worked them. I diligently read up on how to train but basically Kip's instinct needed just a touch of correction here and there. He had to learn what I wanted of him, he had to learn my commands. He quickly mastered the fetch which meant that from then on he would help me with the main flock. I now could bring the flock into the barn within minutes. I stood by the barn door and Kip fetched the sheep and their lambs to me. I had to stand aside to let then pass by me into the barn.

Pretty soon Kip helped me at all phases of my work with the sheep. He had an uncanny sense that made him realize what I wanted of him. All he really knew was to fetch the sheep but that was enough to make it possible for me to look after my livestock efficiently. Whenever I was working outside he would be loose to follow me around, give me advice on any number of things from carpentry to baling hay. That August somebody told me that not too far from our farm there was a sheepdog trial. So our whole family. Kip included, jammed into the car and went to have a look. There were a few dogs in the Novice class and looking at it I thought that Kip could do this too. So we asked if we could enter the following day and so that Sunday morning I proudly went to the post with Kip. But just before the trial a red van drove up and a murmur went through the crowd: Amanda had arrived.

As I stood by the post and released  Kip he rushed up towards the sheep but, ignoring them, he first went up to the dog that was lying not too far from them. That dog ignored him so Kip first tried to find out if that dog had any homosexual tendencies, when he still was ignored – he lifted his leg. This at least got a reaction, not so much from the dog but from his handler who started rushing at Kip, brandishing her crook, blond hair flying – an angry Viking warrior princess if I ever saw one. To this day I am easily intimidated by Amanda.

 Kip on the other hand decided that Bart, which was the setout dog, was not worth his attention and started to work the sheep. We did finish the course, I think there were only 6 or 7 dogs in that class and we even got a yellow ribbon. Both of us were now efficiently hooked!

Fiona Robertson – Bringing in the Cow

My very first sheepdog puppy, Jess, was gifted to me by the late Alex McKinven, of North Hatley, QC, Canada (formerly of Fifeshire, Scotland) for looking after his dogs on weekends he was away showing cattle or competing in sheepdog trials.  She was well-bred and VERY keen to work, but the problem was that she was well bred and VERY keen to work – if you get my meaning!  In other words, for a beginner with no background in farming or livestock or dogs, she was a whole lot more dog than I could train or handle!  But we struggled through and at the age of two she competed, with me as co-pilot in her first Novice trial.

It didn’t go well. 

However, because I was now a “seasoned” dog trainer and handler (we all are, while we’re in Novice, right?) when our neighbor asked for help with his cows, we accepted readily.  They had never used dogs before – didn’t know anything about working stock dogs – and were a little apprehensive, but I assured them of Jess’ prowess and skill and my complete control over her.  They agreed.

The farmer’s wife – charged with evening milking – was about 8 months pregnant at the time and was having difficulty bringing in the cows from the lush June pastures. Actually it was only one cow, determined to burst her udder rather than leave the clover buffet.  On account of her non-mobile state, the farmer’s wife couldn’t walk all the way out to shoo her towards the barn, so I, being an expert stockdog person, offered to “fetch her with my highly trained dog”.

Because cows are no different than sheep, right?

And even though my dog has never worked cows, she’ll be a superstar and save the day, right?

And even though I hadn’t actually completed a novice course (due to my dog only being half trained, at best) she’d instinctively know what to do, right?

The situation could have been a horror story, with a ripped udder, broken legs or a kicked dog, but you’ll be relieved to hear it was very much a comedy.

I sent my dog on a right hand outrun (because that is the only way she’d go) and she went out gangbusters (anyone who knew Jess will remember she did EVERYTHING gangbusters – with an emphasis on the “busting”).  She got behind the rogue cow, walked (ran) in to lift…

And then I see her little black and white face around the side of the cow.  It seemed so small in the distance, yet so clear was her expression: “What the heck is this?”

Er…. “Walk up?” 

Having found no sheep at the top of the field and likely being very peeved at me for tricking her into thinking there were, Jess left the cow and ran back down the hill.

And the cow followed. 

Actually, the cow gained speed until she was in full mad-cow chase mode; head down, bag swaying as she galloped after my tiny, helpless little dog.

As Jess, looking with sheer panic over her shoulder with tail tucked between her legs, leapt through the space in the gate, the cow skidded to a halt and the Farmer’s wife caught her.

“Wow, thank you!” she said to me, looking at my (shaking) dog in awe.  “That was really something!  Those dogs sure are incredible.”

Amelia Smith - Lost in the Translation

Back then, 600 miles round-trip was a long way to travel for a dog trial. And, when you’re only running 1 dog in novice? Well, you gotta crack out somewhere. I cracked out in a desolate area of central California on a barren field alongside a feedlot with a mystery-breed, black and white ranch dog named Chica.

The novice always ran last and we hardy souls, there were about 4 of us, running in it sat around all day (think 7 hours) watching the open handlers on parade with *real* Border Collies, intimidated by their perceived skill, and waiting our turn to shine, or in my case, for a turn.

It came, and I was confident. Chica, a ranch remnant, completed the outrun, all 75 yards of it, and that’s where the trouble began. I couldn’t blow a whistle yet, but had managed to get voice flanks on my rough-edged, little dog. Try as I might, however, and as luck would have it, she wouldn’t take them…none of them…not one.

When the sheep zigged, I flanked Chica to cover, but she either ignored me outright, or went the wrong way. My collar tightened, so I did what came naturally, and raised my voice…same result. I raised it louder to my very best “outside” voice…no change, but in spite of me, Chica got sheep to my feet, and we were now to the pen!

Round and round for what felt like eternity, the sheep circled, the dog flying counter to every flank I delivered before time was mercifully called on our run. Mortified, I began to walk, alternately glaring at my dog, and staring at my boots. The imagined sound of derisive whispers rang in my ears, and that’s when I heard my name.

Our judge, George Grist, had beckoned to me. Oh Gawd! It was worse than I thought. I was so bad that I required attention!!! Did he speak to everyone after their run? Who knew?

For those of you who don’t know him, George Grist has helped many handlers get their start. He’s bred lots of good dogs, helped put working Border Collies on the map, but George is not the man you’d expect to see pictured beside the word “diplomatic” in the dictionary. Webster’s notwithstanding, in his most compassionate voice, George made me laugh when he gently asked; “Is your dog on backwards flanks?”

Jennifer Glen - Lesson Learned

My first border collie, Bob, is now almost 14 years old. He came in and out of my life starting when he was 7 weeks old until I finally bought him at 6 months. This was a few years before I met my husband, and I was working at a sheep ranch in California.   I didn’t think I needed a border collie because I thought I had it covered with my border collie mix.  However, the ranch I lived at had tried to sell young Bob a few times and he kept coming back so I bought him for the worst reason: I felt sorry for him.   It turned out to be the best decision of my life.

Bob was a great starter dog.  Maybe, no I’m certain, that definitely, for my ego, he was too good of a starter dog. Actually he was a mediocre dog and I am a mediocre handler but together we got it done well.   We learned together but he always seemed to know more than I did, so I let him show me the way.  You can’t do this with all dogs, but he would never grip unless attacked, or run sheep into a fence or lose them off a field and he always stopped (a little too well sometimes) when he was told. We only walked to the post twice in novice, when he was  14 months old, and took a second place and three firsts. 

There is a phenomenon with novices, when we get a few wins, that we figure we know exactly how to do it now.  I mean, how hard can it be to do open when we clearly aced the novice classes?  We quit taking lessons from our teachers (because we know more than they do), do most of our training by ourselves and sit in the back of open trials sometimes quietly, and sometimes a little too loudly, pointing out what the open handlers are doing wrong.  I hear this also happens in the agility world and I saw it play out again this past summer at a sheepdog trial.  I heard a novice complaining to another novice that if we open handlers would just stop our dogs, we would be doing better.  When it came time for said novice to run her dog, IF she could have stopped it, she would have noticed the sheep kept on running, and you were better off with good flanks on a listening dog.  But there is so much in the details that we don’t know at the beginning and we are so full of our own success that we don’t think we have anything else to learn.

This is how it started to play out with me and Bob.  After my blazing (so I thought) success in the novice trials, I took on the nurseries.  In two trials I had my finals qualification and a few months before our first Nursery National Finals, Bob and I entered our first open trial…

 AND WON IT.

So!  Clearly, I did know what I was doing.  I wasn’t like other novices.  I was as good as I knew I was and watch out National Finals!  That year, 2001, they were in Klamath Falls, Oregon and I was going.  There were a lot of nursery dogs that year but how many of them had already won an open trial, huh?  It was really just a formality, this running of the course.  They should have just put my name on the trophy ahead of time and save themselves the effort of running the trial because I obviously was going to win it.

In my defence, I was nervous.  Like, going to vomit my breakfast if I could have eaten it, nervous, so I must have had some inkling in my swelled head that something might not go well.  Maybe it was because I knew that all but one of my wins had come on my home field, or maybe I remembered that my open win was actually a tie and instead of a run off, they gave it to me based on my outrun, lift, and fetch scores. Or maybe, just maybe, I might have been a little nervous because I realized my dog had never been any further than 200 yards in his life.  Nah!  These things couldn’t have been bothering me because at that time, I didn’t know enough, to know what I didn’t know.

This was the year of the infamous nursery outrun.  I swear it was 500 yards, but Geri Byrne would probably tell you it was closer to 400.  It didn’t matter.  It was far.  Farther than Bob or I had ever been.  It was cold, rainy and windy as I walked, hunched with fear and chills, to the post and sent my dog.  Bob ran out like he knew where he was going and I started to relax.  Until, he got to about 150yrds and started to turn in.  LIE DOWN! (this was going to make getting that trophy a little harder)  Of course, Bob did, but when I flanked him again, he continued on his merry way, crossing over his course.  LIE DOWN!  Now Bob was beginning to realize there was a problem and so was I.  I tried every trick I had, which were very limited back then, but Bob was not going to go back any further than his 150 yards.  Dejectedly, I called him off and left the field.

Oh, did reality hurt!  I had been walking 10 ft off the ground but now I slammed into it full force and it hurt.  My pride was severely wounded and to make matters worse, all the nursery dogs got to run a second run so I got to repeat the good times all over again, but this time, when Bob didn’t find them and I called him off, he ran under the judges table and hid.  Even he was embarrassed.

Haley Howard went on to show me that year how easy she could make it look, taking home my trophy, and I swore Bob would never run too short at a trial again.  And he never did.  In fact, my novice mistakes unknowingly continued when I taught him to run too big.  However, he was a good boy and by the time I retired him he had won 4 open trials and that made the losses a little easier.  But I never look back on that year in 2001 at Klamath Falls, without cringing.