Such Grace

Duncan and I participated in an AKC herding fun match in Rougemont this past Sunday. We were originally scheduled to have a herding lesson, but when we found out about the match we decided to do that, instead. The match was held at the same location where we’ll be this coming weekend, so I figured it would be excellent practice for us. Nothing better than getting to check out the location and sheep ahead of time. We were able to get two runs on the Pre-Trial Test course, which is exactly what we’ll be doing this weekend.

Duncan did a lovely job. Our trainer said that if we could do that again this weekend, Duncan would earn his PT title with no trouble. She also added that I need to remember that, even though I know Duncan will bring the sheep back to me, the judge won’t know it, so I have to help reassure the judge that Duncan really isn’t going to try and eat the sheep if he has to run after one of them. Duncan did actually put his mouth on a sheep a couple of times, but he never grabbed them – it was almost like he was just reaching out to get a little taste. One cute thing that was pointed out to me was that Duncan’s tail almost never stopped moving. He so obviously loves herding sheep.

The first run went pretty well, once Duncan got the sheep back to me. The pick up went better on the second run, but we did have one little snag. Keep an eye out for something that happened around the 1:50 mark. I wish I could blame the sheep, but I’m pretty sure I did it to myself. Both runs, we had some trouble with penning the sheep at the end. Duncan and I have a lesson scheduled for Wednesday (one good thing about no job is that our training schedule is a lot more flexible), and I told Claire that we absolutely have to work on penning the sheep with a gate that latches on the right. Her main gate latches on the left with the hinges on the right, and both Duncan and I are so used to that setup that we have trouble with gates that latch on the other side. Apparently, we both pattern train fairly easily.





Keep your paws crossed that we have good runs Saturday and Sunday. If we do, Duncan will earn his PT title and I can spend time obsessing over whether or not we should move up to Course A Started for the December trial in Sanford.