(Competing at Soldier Hollows & Meeker, and Judging the USA finals)

I was supposed to write this on the flight home, but as usual that did not work out. So here we are almost three weeks back at home after our month long trip to the U.S.A. and thinking back on the trip, one thought goes through my mind ''a great experience''.

When we say goodbye to our friends in America there is always one question that comes up '' will we see you back next year?’’ and my answer is always the same, ''I can’t plan that far ahead”. In 2008 Herbert Holmes asked me if I would be interested in judging their Nationals, and my first reaction was a definite no. However, after some thought and persuasion from my wife, who always looks further ahead than me, I decided to give it a go. So, my name was put to the vote in a meeting and myself, Bruce Fogt (USA), Kevin Evans from Wales and Lyle Lad (USA) were selected to judge the 2009 USA National finals.

I decided to take Jill and Don on this trip as Jan is getting old and I know the flying upsets her. Fortunately Don's leg had got much better owing to a different diet and some supplements. (They replaced a tendon in his back leg in 2008). I prepared the dogs differently this year, knowing how tough the sheep at Soldier Hollow and Meeker can be. I did a lot of long outruns and let them fetch the sheep straight to me, and then switched gears on the fetch. First by slowing them down and then speeding them up and by changing the pace of the sheep. I also tried to make sure I could bend the dogs out on the outruns.

Flying with dogs is always a nightmare and this trip was no different. We chose to fly with Lufthansa, but had to fly up to Johannesburg with SAA to make our connection to Frankfurt. After a very, very, very late arrival at the check in, thanks to SAA, they first told us the flight was full, then charged us a totally outrageous price for the dogs. In the end we were on the plane with the dogs - stressed out. It is amazing what a sleeping tablet and some cognac can do for your nerves. Arriving in Denver we had to wait a day for our luggage to arrive, luckily we had two days before our first appointment.

Our first trial was the Soldier Hollow Classic near Salt Lake City in Utah. Traveling on the almost familiar road from Denver to Park City it was hard to believe we had the opportunity to be in the USA again.
We had decided to rent a cargo van and sleep in it at SH. They have nice showers at the venue so it was convenient. Adding the cost of a rental vehicle as well as accommodation, the van idea turned out to be a good decision.

It was nice to meet up with Alberto Stern from Switzerland and his wife Ellina as well as Jaran Knive and Karin from Norway. Both of them had run in SH in 2007.

Soldier Hollows is an invitational trial and only 70 entries are allowed.

The first day at SH is always very interesting, the sheep are fresh and things can go wild. They use about 300 rambouillet sheep and after each day mix them in with the few that did not work, so on the 2nd and 3rd day the sheep change, but not always for the best. You run both your dogs twice over 3 days and the top 5 of each day go through to the final. I like to work on the first day, as I know my dogs have a good chance of handling the difficult sheep. The scores are seldom very high on the first day. Jill worked on the first day at about lunchtime. The time of the day can play a big role in your run as heat is a big factor and with the high elevation things can get difficult in the middle of the day. Jill had to work hard on the lift to keep them together, but once she had them the rest of the run went well. We ended the day with a second place, tying on 83 with the last run of the day. Don was up on Saturday he had a really good run and ended in the top 5 for the day. Both dogs ran well on Sunday and both landed in the top 5 again.

The final on Monday always draws a massive crowd. I think over the 4 days about 25 000 spectators watch the dogs compete. My draws were not very good for the final running as both dogs were just after lunch with only one dog in between. Jill had a really nice run, little bit of trouble on her first fetch at the top, she had a good turn back and good second gather. The drive went well up to first drive panels, where we got stuck just through the panels, here a bad wind and the heat where starting to play a role. I was worried about getting stuck somewhere, as I didn’t want to be called off for a grip in the final. Unfortunately Jill lost control a little bit and the sheep started running back through the gates and halfway down the field. We regained control, put them back on the line and finished the drive without further problems. That gate cost us about 20 points. The shed went fairly easily and we had a fairly good pen. If it were not for that gate it could have been a really competitive winning score. Don had trouble on his first outrun and I gave him about 4 commands, a good turn back, but again I had to give him a few commands. We had a decent drive and a good shed, unfortunately I was too confident in Don's holding ability and we lost one sheep back to the unmarked ones. We got it back and finished well. Don was very tired and I think he lacked a little bit of experience. Tom Wilson had the best run of the day with Sly. The placings were: 1st - Sly 145, 2nd - Jill 120 and 3rd - Don 116. It was a good trial and my dogs worked very consistently.

Then it was off to Meeker for our next trial. At least we could trade the van's blow up mattress for a bed. As we drove up to the Neilsons house in Meeker it was unbelievable to think how quickly a year had gone by. It felt like yesterday that we had stayed with them for a few weeks last year. Maybe it is like someone said, ''the toilet roll syndrome'' - the closer it gets to the end the faster it goes. Meeker is a small town in Colorado, where 21 years ago they
started this trial and it is still going. They have over 200 hundred volunteers who help out at this trial. The cut off number for dogs entered is 124 with sometimes 250 applications. The one thing about the Meeker trial is that the sheep are unpredictable. The term, you have been ''Meekered'', is commonly used if the sheep turn bad on you. I have been '' Meekered” twice before.

They use fresh sheep everyday; these sheep are not dogged at all. The first round is really just based on luck. In the semi-finals and the finals the sheep change quite a lot and become workable. Jill had a lot of trouble holding her sheep together coming down the field, I think about 4 to 5 runs before us all crashed and burned, so I was relieved when we made it through the bring gates. In the shedding ring one sheep decided to leave, it went over to the judge’s stand and try to jump the fence into the crowd.

Jill managed to bring it back, but once we got the shed the same thing happened and the same sheep just went for the fence. For fear of losing it over the fence I waited my time out at the pen. I think our score was 54 and we just made it in to the top 30 for the semi finals. Don had a tough run too, the sheep tried to break off at the lift, but he tucked them into a tight bunch and never let go of them again. This caused a lot of problems as the sheep felt threatened the whole time; it was a big fight all the way around the course, we just got our shed before it was time out. In the finals Jill had a good first outrun lift and fetch, coming down to the bring
gates I was surprised as the sheep just missed the gates. Jill had a good turn back and good second fetch. The drive went well, but again I made a mistake and just missed the second drive gates. We had a
good shed. Unfortunately one marked sheep broke hard at the pen to rejoin its’ mates down the field, Jill had no fire left to turn it back. All in all a good run, just some pilot errors at the gates and we ended 5th.

All the results for the trials can be found at www.soldierhollowclassic.com and www.meekersheepdog.com. One thing about both the trials that is obvious to me is that the dogs that could keep things together on the lift had good runs. You want a dog that can sort things out on his own up there and not wait for commands.

We had a week before the Nationals in Oregon. We visited with Marianne Sasak in Steam Boat and gave a couple of lessons there. Then we moved on to Parker near Denver were we stayed until the weekend giving
lessons and visiting friends. We flew out of Denver to Portland, Oregon. We had two days to get to Klamath Falls and took it very easy doing some sightseeing on the way. We visited Crater Lake and it was
spectacular. It is an old volcanic crater full of water; it is America's deepest lake.

Oregon is real pretty with very large trees and forests. Arriving at the finals I realized things would be different at this trial for me, being a judge. I would not be able to visit with our friends and joke around, as is usually the case. We slept on a farm about 30min drive from the field. It was a big fully furnished farmhouse.
We met up with Bruce Fogt and had a lot of catching up to do. A lot of people will remember Bruce from his visits to South Africa. He was keen to find out how everyone was doing back home.
That night Kevin Evans and his father and Nigel Watkins, all from Wales, arrived to join us. Lyle Lad the fourth judge arrived only the next day. Bruce and I were to judge the first round of the open. The cut off for the National entries (open class) is 150 dogs.
We judged four days in a row, about 40 dogs a day. Kevin and Lyle judged the Nurseries for three days, running simultaneously with the first open round.

Bruce and I had the Saturday off while they judged the semi finals, then we all judged the finals on the Sunday.

In the first round they had about a 450-yard outrun with 4 sheep, full drive and a split before the pen. Bruce and I flipped a coin to decide who would call the shed and the job was mine. Judging with Bruce definitely
helped to calm my nerves a bit, but I decided I would judge it just the way I would like to run it. The sheep where Cheviot / Lincoln crosses and they were great, especially from a judging viewpoint. They tested the dogs
and if the dogs abused them they paid for it. They seem to move off easily, but were tough to keep on line. A lot of dogs had big trouble on the lift and first part of the fetch. The drive line was difficult to get especially
at the second drive gate. The shed was a big problem, I think people were not used to splitting 2 and 2. They ran into all sorts of trouble bunching the sheep up tight, or finding themselves on the edge of the ring all the
time.

The way I called it, I wanted the dog to hold the sheep and take control. A lot of dogs came in, but didn’t take control of the sheep, resulting in losing them again. It is always easier to judge from the side, but it seemed people where really nervous about shedding even though they had lots of time. Bruce's and my scores where never to far apart, and although we took points for different things, the result was the same. To my surprise I really enjoyed judging and the days where never to long for me. When it came to gripping we had the same idea, we tried to establish if it was controlled and necessary. So some grips were called off and others we allowed, but hit them with points.

In the evenings it was time to recap, sitting around having some beers and discussing the runs of the day. It was interesting to listen to the Welsh guys and all they had to say. Sometimes it was a good thing that we were
alone with no handlers around especially after a couple of beers. I felt sorry for Elmarie, we seldom talked about anything else but dogs.
On the day of the semi finals we hung around the trials field chatting to friends since this was our last chance to visit before we left the next day. The course was a reversed drive, a marked shed with a single. The shedding went a lot better and there were some really nice runs. Eighteen dogs went through to the finals. The first outrun was to the left about 500 yards, the second one although not at a difficult angle, was about 700 yards to the right. Bill Berhow was first up and had a really good run with a good shed. Then after leaving the ring for the pen, his sheep got stuck in the ring and he had to return to the ring to help his dog. We had some discussion about this and decided not to disqualify him, but to take all his pen points and some of his shedding. It was a pity as it was a really good run up to that point. Alistair Macrae had a good run with Nap. As professional as could be with some really good work in the ring; by far the best run of the day. Tom Wilson had a good run with Sly, but could not finish. A dog that stood out for me was Allen Mills dog, Sis. Still a Nursery dog, she showed a good natural feeling for the sheep and came third. Alistair had a good run with Star and came in second with her. From a judging point of view it was really interesting to judge the final. The scores seldom differed dramatically between the four of us, although we took points for different things. I think the only placing we differed on was between second and third.

The organizing of the trial was top class and we were well looked after. All in all it was a really good trial - nice sheep, a great venue and good organizing. Thinking back to the judging, I was not looked forward to doing it all, but was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. After the Nationals they had a little driving championship, but unfortunately it was time for us to begin our long journey back home and we left that afternoon for Seattle, Washington. A good friend of mine Dave Imas lives there and we decided to travel together and sleep over at his place. We drove for about 8-9 hours, arriving at his place at two o' clock in the morning and had only 4 hours of sleep. Dave was really nice to help us get the dogs to the pet shipper and showed us the best way to the airport the next day. The dogs flew home with BA via London to Cape Town. Our flight was from Seattle to Frankfurt to Johannesburg and then to Cape Town. We had a whole day in Frankfurt and spent some time in the city, but fatigue was catching up on us and we were glad to get back to the airport. Arriving in Cape Town things worked out well. Pippa and Andrew had to take Merion Jones and his wife, Llinos, to the airport on the same day. So they picked up the dogs in the morning, dropped off the Jones’ and picked us up, not bad for a days work.

Needless to say it was great to be back. One problem for me personally after a trip like this it is hard to get back into normal life. The dogs and everything around them play such a big role while one is over there and then when you come back, suddenly the dogs are just dogs. But I am inspired to train my dogs to a higher standard and will try to do so, and who knows, someday we might get a chance at that world trial.