Last Friday I went to the Ettrick Trial located at Jack and Kathy Knox place. This is one of the best trials to go to in the fall. The field is a great hill course and one where you can really spot the holes in your dog, if you have any.

It was a cold, windy day on the trial field. The handlers sent their dog out on the top of a hill with the sheep located on another hill. This is where most dogs have had problem. It's easy for them to lose the sheep and if you don't have a bend out whistle trained (like I didn't) it becomes easy for your dog to come in to early and lift the sheep almost sideways. Most runs where like this. The dogs would get sucked in by the valley, come in flat on the top and not cover that well.

A few handlers did fairly well of course. My friend Wyatt, was running his young dog Victor and this dog runs wide. He brought them steady down the fetch, through the ditch and around the post with little problems. His drive went pretty good making both drive panels, but a little high on his cross drive. With these Cheviot hoggs, the hardest part is penning. That's where he times out on. Aled Owen (who judged the previous trial) basically said that once our points were lost on the pen he would just call us off.

I ran at mid day and it had warmed up slightly, but still windy. I sent Trey to the left and he was running out good and just has he started to go up the second hill he started to turn in. I whistled a flank and he kicked out a little, but I could see the sheep shifting to the right of me and had to whistle him around to cover. As soon as he went around and I got him right he brought the sheep back straight down the fetch line and to the post. As we started out drive, it was actually going very well all the way to the first drive panel. Then I lost it on the cross drive. I over flanked and brought the sheep back towards me and had a hard time getting them back on line. My cross drive ended up being very zig zaggy and I ended up missing the second drive panel. Then just as I was making my way to the pen, Trey got the sheep there to me, but I spent so much time on the cross drive I ran out of time.

I stuck around for a while until my wife called and said I could either stay out there in the cold or come home to a very warm bed 8|.

So I have no idea how I ended up other than I was 7th or 8th when I left.