Northwest Championship SDT

I went to my first USBCHA herding trial over the weekend down in Scio. I had been to watch a few ASCA arena trials many years ago, but that has been the extent of my actual trial experience. This really made me feel better about me and my dogs, maybe we’re not as bad at this as I thought.

Herding is a game with a huge amount of variables and it can go wrong really quickly. And often does. And dogs often don’t listen, and after a while your response is to holler at them, ‘What are you DOING?” This is an actual phrase I heard bellowed across the field by several handlers, it rather cracked me up. And these are much more experienced handlers and talented dogs – it’s just shit happens. Border collies get mesmerized, handlers misjudge where the panels are, dogs get over excited, sheep split into three groups randomly – you just never know. And certainly some teams were obviously more smooth and connected, but even then, sometimes your sheep are just going to do whatever they want to do and you end up totally screwed.

So it was fun to watch, I must admit, I adore border collies, they are just the quirkiest dogs. I love how you can just have a bunch of border collies and they’re so easy – with each other, with the environment, with their handlers. Border collies really are easy to live with. Sometimes not so easy to actually get to listen in the field, but they’re really HAPPY about it. Which I think was one of the main differences between the ASCA trial and the USBCHA trial – there were definitely dogs at the ASCA trial that did not have passion about the work, they were going through the motions – not so with the border collies. At least with this level of herding, these dogs were all ecstatic to be there, and that’s fun to watch.

I’m not sure how long this outrun was, but it wasn’t as far as I thought it might be – I’m assuming others are longer? For the most part people used their whistles at a distance, but there was a far amount of shouting from the post when the dogs didn’t listen. Very few people actually got any of the gates when I was watching, for the fetch, the drive or the cross drive. Which, of course, made me feel better. The sheep were rented from a commercial flock, apparently. There were some troublemakers and they did not always seem to be friends, hard to herd sheep that don’t want to stay together.

I have not seen a lot of shedding, and I really never want to again – this was SO FRUSTRATING. For the handler, for the dog and for me watching. This trial involved a shed with was to take three collared sheep from the group of six, separate them and pen them. While I was there two people actually managed the shed, no one penned. Most just futily futzed around for like 5 minutes until time was called. Now, don’t get me wrong, obviously shedding is an actual very useful sheep herding skill. I don’t think this is the best way to go about it, and I have ZERO interest in doing it, I would probably murder someone.

As for driving, seemed like almost everyone’s lines were just as wobbly as mine, they almost always missed the panels and it’s really annoying when you have it just right and the dog does something to mess it up spontaneously. Herding … you need to have a lot of patience.

So herding trials, they are few and far between. If you’re really interested in competing you will be traveling hundreds of miles to obscure places where once you get there you get ONE run a day. During that run a million and one things can go wrong, including getting sheep that just don’t cooperate whatsoever – and then you’re just done. Obviously there are people that are very passionate about competing in herding, but after one trial I am not one of them.

Still, this actually made me feel more motivated to train in herding – because now that I see that shit just happens all the time, well, maybe I’m not as bad at this as I thought. The dogs love it, and it’s kind of magical to see them moving sheep around. But, yeah, I’m even less motivated to trial than I was before. Haku still deserve to have a little career, and we will enter SOMETHING, and he will enjoy himself. But, let me assure you, there will be no shedding. Good lord.