10/28/2024
Dally and I traveled to Indian Valley, Idaho for the Broken Circle Spooky Sheepdog Trials.
Friday was our very first time in the USBCHA ProNovice class and we were able to finish the course and take a 4th place. This was a fairly large class with some excellent, seasoned handlers and dogs. We also took a 4th place in a super competitive MSSA novice class with over 20 entries!
Saturday we did not do as well. I had to retire our ProNov run but it was not Dally’s fault as we had a group of sheep that didn’t want to hold on the set out, and our inexperience could not overcome the difficulty.
In MSSA novice, we had one sheep skim the fetch obstacle which knocked us down to sixth place. I made the decision to stay at the post for the outrun, lift and fetch, which adds more difficulty in the novice class. Had I left the post and moved closer to the fetch panels (which is allowed in this novice class,) we would have not missed that obstacle. At this point in our training, I’m more concerned with teaching Dally to work farther away from me, so it wasn’t about winning in this circumstance, and I was very pleased with how well she did without my close assistance, in a very large class of 24 dogs. We still managed to earn qualifying points for MSSA finals both days.
Huge thanks to Robin and Rocky Brown for hosting, the judges, and all the volunteers who helped to put on this awesome 2 day event! It was an amazing weekend of beautiful weather, exciting competition, and great friends!!
