Handhills Border Collie News

Catching up in a matter of moments!!!

New Puppies

Meg and Craig recently married and were blessed with 9 beautiful pups!

The Finals
The Finals were good, lots of fun. The art was well received, one of the hits was a new "Beware of Dog" sign. It seems we have some sarcastic border collie friends. 

Norm's nursery dog got around. He was pushy and had to fix his little mess at the top. It's one of those good news, bad news things. The bad news is, no nursery win. The good news is, it looks like that little hot rod will be around a while, Norm loves him. My Scarlett went to the post, ran out ,and shouted back at me: "throw the Frisbee." She had not a clue she was supposed to "do her thing." Take your nursery dog to more than 2 trials, and pray she isn't in heat, or bring a Frisbee to the post and prepare for humiliation. That is my wisdom. And yes, she never does that at home!!
Gale ran really great. I thought we had enough points to make the semi finals, and while we were close, no cigar.  The sheep broke out of the mouth of the pen and ran out and around it. I had 23 seconds on my watch, and she managed to stuff them in the pen. It was a thrill. As a handler, I need to be a bit more tidy. Working on it! 

Congratulations to Patricia MacRae, the winner of the finals.

Meeker 
Sold 5 original paintings at Meeker! Thank you all so much. It was fantastic.

Blaze had a little weird start to his out run and then laid an awesome run down. He missed the semis by one point.  Jess ran great. When I got in the shedding ring, I had two minuets left. She gave me a nice shed and penned the range sheep with 2 seconds left on the big clock. It was so thrilling. That clean pen would get my young dog in the semis, unfortunately, the official clock had expired....... no pen points. no semis. Gale had three really nice sheep, and one crazy one!  She handled them well, I shed, held my shed, held my shed, never heard him call it, the crazy one finally blew her gasket and ran for it. Serves me right for shedding her to that side.  Faansie Bassone, was the big Meeker winner. Congratulations to him and his lovely wife.  

Soldier Hollow 
Congratulations Jack Knox, it was great to see him win Soldier Hollow!  

Another successful art show, selling 4 original paintings. Jess ran really nice, I am thrilled with her, range sheep are a test and she passed. Blaze had a decent run, then crossed on his second run. Norm lost that loving feeling. Which is why Blaze is now on my page... Gale was absolutely awesome, she had the best run of her and my trialing career, with 85 points without the pen. Unfortunately, a ewe lowered her head at her at the pen, she lunged at the sheep with the intent to bite her nose and we were DQ at the pen, with 2 seconds left on the clock. It was so disappointing, but my dog was terrific and she knew it!! It gets weirder. Norm was running Brian Ricard's Cody and having a decent run, when a large shot was fired. Of course the sheep jumped, the dog jumped, and Norman jumped, they went off line, got back on track and made the panel and finished. He lost a load of points. It turns out a boy was pumping up his wagon tire and the side wall blew out.....how does that happen???  I got a ride with the culprit in his infamous Wagon.
I don't believe in luck, but if I did, I would have said that as far as trialing, we didn't having any. However, the extra time that we had from not making the finals was spent in our art booth and it was a huge success, thanks to all of you! How do you argue with that? Still feeling blessed!

We want to thank all the trial producers, these three trials are so well organized, the hospitality is outstanding, the sheep are healthy, challenging, and for the most part, completely even. The set out for all our runs was perfect. It is a privilege to be able to run at such high quality events and we really appreciate the standard that these organizers have set and achieved. 
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