Trial Report

On Easter Sunday Soda and I ran in an AHBA HRD trial. These are "ranch-style" courses and are desgined to "mimic" real tasks and are supposed to be fun. They usually are. We ran in level two which had a driving leg in it.

Soda did really well. :) I was very proud of her. She was keen and excited and drove well. She listened and all-in-all it was a good run. We tied for 2nd place and I'm not sure who will get 2nd and who will get third. They weren't sure what the tie breaker was and had to consult the rule book AND we were only one point behind 1st.

Her outrun was tight at the top, which it usually is in an arena. I thought about stopping her and kicking her out but she doesn't always take that very well and I didn't want to shut her down in a trial. I KNOW I KNOW, that creates bad habits and all but it's in an arena that we have a problem with it. In the field she'll come in tight but accepts being kicked out with grace.

The fetch was offline (big surprise) but pretty controlled. And the drive leg went BEAUTIFULLY. I almost wet myself. We got nice, light sheep that were happy to move off my dog. It also helped that the sheep had been shorn the day before and were in no mood!

In the narrow chute (pushes the sheep single file) Soda tried--and succeeded--to head the sheep and cut off two so it wasn't smooth. She is a heading fool and hates it when they try to break off, unless it means she has to cover in which case she won't. Whatever, lol. We lost a couple of points for that.

The rest went really well and smoothly and I couldn't be happier! :D We got the comment "nice quiet work" which I was happy to hear. I really hate it when people start hootin' and hollerin' at their dogs all the time. If all you do is yell, then how do you make a point?

Anyway, I was proud and it was lots of fun!