I had a total blast at my 2nd cattle trial. They offered both a field course and an arena course. We ran the field course first. They set 5 point markers on the field for the outrun. Go inside the marker and it's 5 points off, lose 1 point for each redirect- up to 5 points. I redirected Cruz once and he did that nicely, however he was about 20' inside the 5 points off pole. I could see he was going to be inside of it, but didn't think it was best to stop him a second time. He lifted great and we ran the course the best he could have possible run it, given the ideas the steers had. We had one steer that insisted on being back to the barn, and Cruz handled it like a seasoned pro. Of course we ate up a lot of time, and as they were finally heading to the pen we ran out of time. Gwen skated just to the inside of the pole also. She was great. She hasn't been on cows but a few times, and hasn't worked them for close to a year. She is a different dog on cattle. After the class Tom Forrester asked me who Cruz was, he quite impressed with him. Of course he expected me to rattle off some names he knew... LOL! He said he came on the cows really, really nice. (he was setting out) Later he asked me about Gwen and why a couple times I told her to not get in the cows face. Carol had told him while I was running that it was because I wanted her to be right. He told me I should have let her, and that if the cow is being "wrong", the dog can't be "right"... grin- you gotta love good 'ol boy theory! I let her get on the cows probably a bit too much during the arena course, but at least Tom couldn't get after me for cranking her down. LOL! The arena seems so cut and dry, but boy let me tell ya, cows change all that, and quick like!! Cruz ran a very nice course, but it got hairy at the end and I ended up missing my re-pen points by about 30 seconds. After the trial was over Roy Johnson told me I have very nice dogs and asked me about Gwen. He guessed she was from Steve McCall's lines. I think I'm going to start going up to Roy's a time or two a month. Me and my dogs simply need time on the field and Roy has both the field space and the stock numbers. Carol has plenty of sheep, but only 3 steers. Also, I think it would help my dogs to get on more than just Carol's fields! I need to start hitting the road and getting my dogs out more. In the end Cruz ended up 7th on the field and 5th in the arena- not bad considering the amount we've worked cattle. I think Gwen was close to Cruz in both classes, maybe 9th and 8th or something like that. I love cattle and cattle trials. There's murmurs that the finals will be out this way in the near future. From what I gather, people are getting tired of having to go out west year after year- and some of the best running dogs and handlers are from here on the east. I heard every day there are more and more handlers pulling from the finals. (cattle) I would love it if they did. I would have to really commit to some trialing in order to qualify.
Dylan has another ball game this afternoon. Two games in a week, and 2 days of practice... Although I think when they have both a Friday and Sunday game, they don't do Saturday morning practice. They didn't practice yesterday.
My house is a mess and I wish I could work dogs, but it's off the ball the field. That's what having kids is about- putting their needs before yours. Dylan really enjoys baseball, so I'm certainly not going to fuss about hauling him around to the games. They only play until about June. Someday I'll be able to do what I want, when I want... I just hope I'm not too old to enjoy it when I finally can! ;-p
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