First stockdog trial

Riva and I qualified in our very first Started sheep trial! The judge was Becky Beckman (she breeds working aussies and border collies under the kennel name Rising Sun) and our score was 74, not a very high score, but I was told that she was a very strict judge. There were only a few qualified runs during the whole weekend and on Sunday none of the Advanced or Open dogs Q'd. And since Riva and I won the Started sheep class Sunday, he was also Most Promising Started Aussie and High In Trial :-) We went home with some of the fanciest rosettes I have ever won and the first Q leg towards our STDs.

Here's the blow-by-blow:
The sheep were _a lot_ lighter than the ones that we have practiced on and there was a strong draw towards the take and re-pens, a lot of handlers and dogs lost the sheep either between the first and the second obstacle or right after the second when the sheep wanted to run to their buddies at the other end of the arena. We had a bit of a blunder at the take pen, Riva brought the sheep out in a rush, I downed him while I closed the gate and during that time the sheep had drifted almost to the first obstacle. When we went to take them back into control they split, they were quite skittish after being rushed out of the pen, and I could see Riva thinking Yehaa!. I managed to down him and let the sheep get back together and we started again. Now we got to a better start and made our way to the first obstacle with the sheep huddled (tightly) at my feet, Riva was pushing them a bit too much. We made it through the first obstacle and Riva was very worried about not loosing the sheep and started to circle a lot. I considered downing him to calm things a bit but came to the conclusion that I'm not a good enough handler to do that without loosing the sheep and decided to let him handle the situation his way (funny how many thoughts can flash through your mind in just a few seconds...). We made it through the second obstacle and started towards the re-pen, I still let Riva deal with keeping the sheep with me his way even though it wasn't very stylish, still a lot of circling. We got to re-pen, I downed him, opened the gate, the sheep went in, closed the gate and we were finished. Judges comments after the trial: he was the only dog that was able to control the sheep from the second obstacle all the way to the re-pen. She also complimented on his focus and intensity, no sniffing or eating sheep poop, and his obedience, when I told him to down he did it immediately.

You just got to love that dog :-).