The most amazing working dogs

I was lucky enough to spend from September 22nd to September 27th in Klamath Falls Oregon at the USBCHA Sheepdog Finals! I was packed up and on the road Tuesday morning with Kant and Echo; we got there in the afternoon after stopping at Rocking Dog Ranch to do the days chores. It was an easy and uneventful drive but Kant never relaxed, she knew we were on another adventure. We set up our tent right next to Lora’s RV and then put x-pens around both so the dogs had a great place to run and explore. The Finals were great! The location was amazing, it was a HUGE green alfalfa field surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. 151 teams competed Tuesday – Friday for the top 40 spots to run on Saturday and the final goal was to be one of the top 17 to run in the Double Lift on Sunday. The Semi-Finals for the Nursery dogs (dogs under 3 years old) where Wednesday and Thursday with their final run on Friday. The Nursery field was down by the entry gate and I only made it down there a couple of times to watch the young dogs. I did not have a specific job that I was assigned so I just bounced around wherever I was needed…at the gate, eye clinic, info booth, etc… Friday evening after the Open dogs finished running I put on an agility demo. Monique was there with Zora her Papillion, Shawna was there with her Chihuahua/Corgi that was too cute and her border collie, Sandra with Lark her Border Collie, Dana and Tess a Barbie (Border) Collie, and me with Echo and Kant. I was a great group and we put on a nice little demo. Thanks to Lora for hauling down all her jumps and a couple tunnels and I brought in my car a set of six weave poles, a tunnel, a jump, and 2 hoops and Dana and Adele brought tunnels bags for all the tunnels.

I watched most of the runs on Saturday and felt that the best of the best made it in to Sunday. The double lift is my favorite to watch, the first outrun was 580 yards from the handlers post and of course the dog is running wide to not influence the sheep which means way more then 580 yards, bring that first set through the fetch panels which are 240 yards from the handlers post, stop, look back and get the second set that are 550 yards from the handlers post. Those dogs run their hearts out. After putting the two sets of 10 sheep together and bring them around the handlers post then they start the over 500 yard drive work. Bringing them in the shedding ring for an International shed and the final element is to get the 5 sheep that were shed off in the pen. Several teams ran out of time in the shed ring, they had 30 minutes to complete the course. I was completely in awe of the work I saw from both the dog and the handler! The 2011 Sheepdog Finals will be in Colorado where I expect to see Lora running a couple of dogs and where Nell’s pups could be running Nursery!! I had a great time and it was as close to a vacation as I could get; I was not competing and just got to hang out with friends and my dogs. Yes there was a little bit of dust but the weather was perfect and they did a great job of watering down the road to try and keep the dust down. A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL THE PEOPLE THAT WORKED SO HARD TO MAKE THIS EVENT THE AMAZING EVENT IT WAS – LORA, GERI, MELINDA, SHAWNA, AND AMY WORKED THE WHOLE TIME.

I was inspired to work my dogs to the best of our ability!!