Brigand's HideOut - Experience Herding!

Neither rain nor hail nor snow nor . . .

I am so happy I was there for the ’08 Sheep Camp as for years to come we will hear, “You shoulda been here in ’08!”

I can never tell how much we’ve learned and absorbed from camp until I see what we accomplish in trials in the year that follows. Always it’s shown that we learned and absorbed a lot. This time I didn’t have to wait quite that long . . . after working for 4 days with Roy and a day with Lynn (and in years passed lots of time with Dave) we came home ready to prepare for the Northern California Bearded Collie Regional Specialty Herding Trial.

There is a Trial (ducks then sheep) in the morning and then another of the same in the afternoon. We came home with two very important pieces of information from Lynn on ducks — one that I was moving in the wrong direction which caused a problem with the fetch and that my idea on how to do the hold pen was a good one and I should “teach my dog to do it”. I had to laugh as I was still looking for some other miracle cure.

With Lynn’s directions in mind – when the ducks started to move off the fetch line I moved as she had suggested and they beautifully straightened out and flowed around the cone and the rest of the run went as well as we not only qualified but went HIT for our Advanced Duck Title.

Then on to sheep . . . a nice outrun-lift-fetch and around the cone into the Y, Z and into the hold pen. Then following Roy’s suggestion for this facility Allie went behind and then came up along the panel to cover the sheep as they zipped back toward the gate. She took my Stop command and waited as the sheep settled just below the 4 and when all was settled & quiet I asked for an Away and got the head turn and release (thank you Dave) that zipped the sheep from the 4 to 5 and she came around the far panel to cover them from returning to me . . . just lovely.  That gave us our 2nd Advanced Leg and another HIT!

That afternoon our run was much the same but an extra step or two before stopping pushed the sheep too close to the 4 and lost us some points but we still qualified nicely for our Advanced Sheep Title and a RHIT.

Then at the end of the day we were awarded the High Combined Trophy!

Thanks to Nancy and all the Instructors who were committed to our learning no matter what the weather and thanks to all of my camp mates who had me laughing through it all.

BARBARA and ALLIE

(Cynamen Artisan Rising Star, RN, NAJ, CGC, HTAD-1, JHD-ge, HRD-1, and now, TADA — HXAs,d.)