Back to trialing

This past weekend we finally got to go back to a herding trial, one of the first since COVID shut everything down last spring. What an exciting time for all our friends, two and four legged! Of course, social distancing was still a thing, so everyone brought individual canopies to stay out of the heat, but no one was complaining about a return to some semblance of normal life. My gang of friends - Kelly, Alicia, and Tori - were there with their dogs, enabling us to make this super cool portrait of Nora and her puppies while we were together.

The trial was at Shady Acres in Duck River, Tennessee. I took Webb, Cyn, and Asha (Nora’s puppy). We had a blast. That doesn’t necessarily mean our performance was good. Everyone was rusty, because practice at home isn’t trialing, no matter how much of it you do. Still, it was fun to be out there competing again, fun to be with friends, fun to be talking about dogs.

All my dogs moved up to new levels. Webb went in Open, Cyn went in Ranch, and Asha went in Pro Novice. The results were mixed, definitely leading to homework plans for the coming weeks before our next trial in October. Asha was, surprisingly, the best performer in the family, coming in 6th out of 25 dogs. Not bad for my baby girl! We weren’t the only team that came away with lots of things to practice. Many of our friends who train at our farm had the same less than stellar performances. We’ll all be working together to prepare for the next one and begin grateful that there is a next one planned.

Coming soon, more blogs on training and puppy stuff!