I spent a fabulous weekend at Joyce Geier's Sand Creek trial. Joyce is a superb hostess, very organized and gracious. The sheep were tremendous. It was a group of undogged commercial market lambs. I'm assuming they had been moved in large groups with a dog as they had a sense of what a dog was. Separated into small groups on an unfamiliar field they were very challenging and great experience. A lot of dogs were flustered by them. They required the dogs come forward and really be determined to step in and take control. If a dog was hesitant or unwilling to move further into the pressure they capitalized on that. They would stall, or lean hard to either side, or bolt forward. It certainly made the dog think and manage the stock.
Song did well on the sheep this weekend. Her "ready or not here I come" attitude was quite persuasive with this flock. She was 6th on Saturday. She laid down a good run on Sunday, finishing split and pen with a couple minutes to spare when many folks were timing out because their sheep stalled so often. Levi got his 4th nursery leg. Fina lost her sheep at the top Saturday. Sunday she had great outwork, and good driving except that she gets worried on longer drive lines and will stop. I retired her on the drive on Sunday. She had no trouble pushing the stock.
In this early trial season I'm having a lot of folks who have not seen me since fall giving their condolences for Cato, who I still miss very much (and probably always will). This weekend he was simply described as "outrageous". What a great word for Cato! He'd sit in his chair in the handlers area watching the trial all day. He was flamboyantly social, standing on his back feet and throwing himself backwards into the arms of people. This was his solution to folks not wanting dog feet on them. Every time at the post he heard my soft command and left as if shot out of a cannon. He was an extreme dog in many ways. Outrageous.
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