A couple of weeks ago, Cody and I were able to participate in the culminating sheep trial of the 2020 trial season. The season was abbreviated due to COVID, but the finals were able to be held as scheduled in Bowie, Texas, on November 12-15. We traveled to Bowie on the 11th in the fifth wheel, and had a great time watching the dogs and their handlers compete. We almost didn’t make it, though. Our floor-refinishing project at the farm took a week-and-a-half instead of the expected 3-4 days, leaving us just one day to pack and load the RV. Then, when we got back to Volente from the farm, we found that our water well wasn’t working. As it turned out, some wiring problem had caused a short and tripped the breaker. John got that fixed, and we were ready to load and pull out.
Not so fast! On Wednesday morning with a 5+ hour drive ahead of us, we backed the truck under the fiver and prepared to hook up. Not! The right front leveler on the trailer refused to budge, leaving us no way to raise the trailer to engage the hitch. John put in a panicked call to our wonderful truck and trailer mechanic, Steve Richter. Steve is one of the most knowledgeable, as well as the nicest people we know. He has many times moved heaven and earth, both in person and by phone, to get us on or off the road. We can’t thank him enough! Steve rushed over to help. It took several hours of trying everything before finally the leveler moved and we could hook up and be on our way. Over five hours and only one stop later, at full dark, we pulled into camp and were grateful to have made it. Our Volvo headlights are old and dim, and we never willingly drive after sundown. (New ones are on the way!) Thankfully, the rest of the trip was trouble-free and we returned to Volente at mid-afternoon on Monday, with plenty of light to park.
As you can see from some of the photos that follow, the weather during the trial was “typical Texas,” with everything from blazing sunshine and short sleeves to howling winds and the requisite cold snap that had us all in hats, coats and gloves.
The sheep, which had hardly seen a dog before the trial, were a challenge. Some ran as soon as the dog appeared,
Cody’s sheep were mainly the stand and challenge kind. He competed for the first time in the “open ranch” category, which is next to the most experienced level. In his first run, he completed a decent outrun, lift and fetch, but after turning the post we were unable to get the sheep through the first set of panels before time ran out.
In our second attempt, we managed to get the sheep around the course. It wasn’t pretty, but we did get them to the pen only again to need more than the allotted 8 minutes. I was so proud of him, though! My goal for the trial was for us to get numbers instead of letters for our attempts, and we succeeded. That is, we received a numerical score for each run instead of the dreaded DQ when the judge says, “Thank you,” before the end of the run, or the RT signifying that we had given up and retired. Our scores were nothing to write home about, but Cody finished 10th overall out of some 47 dogs entered and I’m so happy with our effort.
Here are some more photos I took at the trial. As you can see, there was plenty of visiting and everyone had a good time no matter how their dogs finished.
Most of my time was spent on the lower course where Cody and I competed. We did, however, watch a number of runs on the "open" course where the most advanced dogs worked. Here are a few shots from the "double-lift" finals where the top 15 teams from the first two open runs matched up to see which would take top honors. The double-lift really challenges both dog and handler because the dog has to fetch a group of 10 or more sheep from about 350-400 years away halfway back to the handler, then on command leave those sheep and go back for another similar group. After putting all the sheep together, the dog must take them through the course, all while the handler remains at the post. Then, the dog and handler must "shed" all the unmarked sheep and drive them away, leaving only 5 marked sheep which are then penned. It's quite a challenge for both dog and handler, and not all teams were able to finish all elements of the course.
Mattie, shown in the above sequence, was competing in the double-lift finals for the first time. She ran at least half the course limping badly, with a sticker embedded in her foot. She never quit, though, and will no doubt be back for another try next year. And Cody and I hope to be back next year as well...not in the double-lift finals, but maybe soon. Stay tuned.
