Got up bright and early Saturday morning at 3:30 a.m. to get ready for the dog trial. My wife decided to join me this time and she was regretting having to get up so early. Left our house at 4:30 to go and pick up the dogs and Louie who was coming with us. We got everything loaded and were on our way for the 2.5 hour drive into the Kansas Flint Hills. When we got there the ground was soaked from the morning dew and it was ~40°F that morning.
We got there early enough to get our names on the running order for that day. To my surprise our judge for the day was none other that Aled Owen (http://www.aled-owen-sheepdogs.co.uk/index.asp). A International and World Sheepdog trial winner numerous times.
The morning started out with Jack Knox running his dog Jim.
He had the best run all day dropping 18 points. The sheep were running very heavy and with 25 open runs only 3 managed to get scores. The sheep either wanted to bolt back to the set out or head to the woods that lined the field. With a 425 yd outrun, the dogs would lose site of the sheep as they were on top of a little hill. Most proved difficult to lift as the dogs had a hard time getting adequate distance behind the sheep generally bumping them at the top of the outrun. The fetch, if you dog was able to get behind them good enough had it's own set of obstacles. Half way down the fetch the sheep did not want to go through a high area of grass and most had to be worked around this which was big enough to take the sheep way off line, so points where lost.
After the open runs, it was time for the Pro-Novice runs. Which after the open runs, everyone was not looking forward to it. Luckily though, Aled got out of the truck and we re-set the course to make it more enjoyable for the set out crew, dogs and handlers. However, it was still a challenge as the sheep were behaving quite badly. Only 2 handlers had scores out of the 15 that ran. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them.
Here's Trey and I at the post.
He left quite early when I was telling him to look and halfway down the field he crossed over and never truly got a good handle on his sheep and the bolted back to the exhaust and my run was over.
At least Louie had a score in his run and he ended up winning his class with his bitch Tess.
brokendownangel
Pro 
Dont suppose the missus will be making that mistake again? Buggered if I would get up that early for anything less than a shoe sale!! At least the dog got a run out and it was a good day even if you didn't do as well as you had hoped x