Time to celebrate!

Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2011 6:17 PM
Subject: Kilt


Dear Diana,
We won our FIRST open class today with a marked shed, pen, single!  Score 81,,,,,, not our best score, but I was so pleased with her,  plus, day 10 in heat.  Good girl Kilt. Thank-you.....
You know how much I LOVE this dog.  She has taught me so much and continues to teach
me.  Small field, good competition, tough sheep.  YEA!


Dear Suzanne,
YEAH! Way to go Kilt and you too, Suzanne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You've worked hard which makes it that much sweeter.
May this be the first of many more for you and Kilt.
Got to love that girl. :-)
Diana


POP THE CHAMPAGNE!
Yes, the classes were small.  The field was only 5 acres.  But, the competition was good and the sheep were challenging to say the least.

Diana is Diana Gauthier from Keen-Eye Stockdogs.  She has been so helpful in answering my calls and emails about Kilt....a work in progress.  I just finished chatting with her 2 weeks ago about trying to get Kilt to walk her fetch instead of pushing them like a locomotive.  "Start small and work up to larger," she said.  So this was a good start in a 5 acre field!

The sheep were Mike Cannady's crossbred flock.  They haven't been to the Oxford field.  The were challenging on just about every part of the course.  They would split with too much pressure, stop and turn with too little, rarely hold a straight line, jump fences, and they made every one work for a pen. 

I was pleased with Kilt.  But, she and Ican do better.  Day one she was one of the few to get a marked shed, pen, single.  Score 81 which was the only score in the 80's and good enough to win it.  Our first open win.  Day two, they made it a tad easier with an unmarked shed, pen, marked single.  We had nice course work (nicer than the day before) but Kilt turned on the wrong sheep on the first unmarked shed.  Probably my fault.  And we had a bastard group to pen.  They really tested Kilt's skills.  We timed out at the pen. So we lost those 20 points for the pen and single, but still came in with a respectable 70 and fifth place.

Now.....drum roll please.  Let's all have a toast for YOKO.  I got over my depression and ego, and little dog Yo tied for 2nd on day one, winning third.  Day two, she took 4th with even nicer work than the day before.  The pro-novice class had twenty some plus in it.  And, the sheep were winning!  Yoko handled it very nicely.  Day two she got a warning for taking care of business on her crossdrive.  One stupid sheep was putting pressure on her.  She gave it an attitude adjustment.  That ate up a few of our drive points.  I didn't see the problem from the post, but several other handlers told me that sheep deserved what it got.  I gave up quite a few drive points each day from the crossdrive panel to the pen.  I think my brain must have frizzled out at that point.  Yoko was one of the few dogs to get both of her pens with little difficulty.  She has come a long way from that 2 year old nursery dog in that respect.

Sometimes,one needs a few good scores to make all the work seem like it has some kind of meaning to it. :0)  My husband says I'm tenacious.  I think I'm just a Capricorn and all good things come to me, but not without a struggle. 

Where are the pictures you ask?  Well, with a nasty painful cervical strain (pinched nerve) from work and then deciding to haul my trailer to the trial, I brought my camera without any batteries.  The batteries were home in the charger. :0(
 But, I did have a friend there that filmed Kilt's winning run. I haven't seen the video yet.