Sunday was the second day of the herding trial in Sanford. The weather was great – cold but sunny – but the ground conditions were awful. There was a lot less standing water than on Saturday, but the boot-sucking mud was deeper. Poor Duncan ended up looking like he had a rat tail, because his was completely slicked down with mud. And I’m very confident that Auto Bell is not going to be happy when I ask them to clean the truck.
Weather and ground conditions aside, Duncan and I managed to qualify again, although I was very surprised we did. Our run was not pretty. Duncan was insistent about getting between the sheep and the fence, and I was just as insistent that he not. It ended up with me using the stock stick more than I probably needed and Duncan trying to circle us and getting very agitated. As usual, when Duncan gets agitated, he gets mouthy. He tried several times to taste the sheep, and I saw him spit out wool more than once. Thankfully, the judge didn’t fuss about the grabbing. He did comment on the stock stick, though – I accidentally popped Duncan in the head once. I didn’t mean to; I was trying to hit the ground right in front of him, but as I was swinging, he shoved his head right up against the sheep’s butt. Oh, well. We also had an incident where a sheep took off, but Duncan did bring it back in an appropriate (non-mouth involved) manner. To top things off, though, I couldn’t get the gate to open the first time, and everyone involved got upset. Sigh. So frustrating. Especially since I’d been told that a lot of folks had been talking Saturday about the big, calm, sweet, easy working German shepherd. Sigh, again. On the up side, the judge didn’t say “thank you”!
Here's us going into the ring, all optimistic.
A couple shots of Duncan working nicely.
Duncan is a very handsome boy, even covered in mud.
And here he's grinning about earning his insurance PT leg.
This was our last herding trial of the year. I've heard that there'll be one in Sanford in April, but the schedule won't start coming out until January. April would work, though - that gives us 4 months to get ready for A Course.
2 comments:
I've seen your truck. Its got more topsoil on it than I have in my pasture.
Now you can all rest and Duncan can get the taste of sheep out of his mouth. Glad ya'll qualified again and Duncan does look handsome even covered in mud...you look rather cute, too, covered with mud!!!!!:)Love, Mom
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