By FAR..one of the best we have seen...

Camping at Dry Lake

 A 1750 mile round trip journey to the Dry Lake Trial (run by Geri Byrne) was by far one of the greatest trial fields we have seen. The field is several THOUSAND acres surrounded by trees and scrub brush. The camping was absolutely great!! The setting of the trial goes without saying "BREATHTAKING"!

Sly first up in Open

I drew up first in the running order with Sly...let me tell you I was a nervous wreck. The sheep were set at 650 yards and was a basic run of the mill(YEAH RIGHT) outrun. The sheep were insight to the handler but to the dog...not so much. Sly reached wide off the left side on the outrun, flew passed the set out and stopped to have a look around (in her mind I was hearing...I know they are out here somewhere) she took a quick glance and off she went. Sly came up about 11 o'clock..and yep she was right as the sheep broke right to her and sideways down the field. She gave the wrong ground on the sheep, thinking bigger was better instead of hugging the pressure and coming forward...the sheep felt the great escape...she had left a big hole enough for them to take up the slack...and that they did. We got that squared away forward the sheep came...although the fetch was lost Sly did a great job around the course, with good finish work. Score was a 65...but after watching the rest of the Open and seeing the dogs struggle on the outrun (good dogs were crossing) I was really happy with Sly. Needless to say in Open 1 Soot was one of the dogs that fell into the outrun trouble. She went out great was staying out great, but about 620 yards she thought she was just about there...making a right turn crossed her 30 yards in front of the sheep she was as shocked as I was and was unable to get her head back until the drive.I must say old faithful became unfaithful for a moment in time! She is allowed a mistake or two!!

Soot Pen Day #2 Open

 Day 2 yielded a much better return for us. Soot was up 5th in the run order. I sent off the same way, gave a quick stop/re-direct (in other words bought insurance). I would risk the slight deduction to get a clean start! Soot went correct, the sheep were determined to go back..but Soot (my top end girl) got them with no problem and brought them on a straight as a dime silent gather. Score was 85 to win the day!! Sly had another solid go, only for me to let her down in the shedding ring a 77 would put her right out of the points. During the course of the trial we endured a variety of weather conditions.

Snow starting to fall

 There was drizzle, rain, snow, sleet, wind lots of wind..so to say we weren't scared for our nursery dogs is an understatement to say the least. My nursery dogs are not competitive yet, although this trial proved to be both good and bad for them. Lace was my star in round 1, although she started out a bit crazily I got her under wraps and we posted a decent score of 71. Suede...let's just say the wheels fell off right from the start and ended him in a DQ. Round 2 nursery Suede actually looked trained, and Lace's wheels fell off right out of the gate! Her outrun was not great landing her in a bad spot on the top, which then gave the sheep the idea they should run to the let out as fast as possible (which they did) I took the walk of shame to get the scattered group and scatter brained dog for that matter!! (By the way the wind was blowing 50 mph in our faces).

Ron had a couple tough goes in the Pro-Novice. He is running veteran dogs, but is still trying to pair up with Sweep. His outwork on both goes was great, Ron missed a flank at the post with Sweep and the sheep ran up against the fence. Sweep refused to get them off the fence and so Ron retired. Ron set Jesse off and she too had great outwork, around the post and off on the drive. The dogs claimed to have been hard of hearing (I am not so sure they could or couldn't hear but the majority of the class had trouble on the drive away) Ron had a lot of difficulty stopping Jesse and she circled the sheep Ron decided to retire when he couldn't get Jesse on her drive line. Still Ron got good experience running his good dogs and had a great time!

We had a great trip all in all, it was good to get out and about to a trial that we had not been to. The people are so friendly in the "State of Jefferson". This trial is on the "do again" list for sure. Thanks Geri and crew for such a wonderful event!!! (p.s. Now I know why Geri laughed at me when I asked her if we could get our 40 foot trailer in to camp)!!!!