Pipedream Farm SDT

The innagural Pipdream Farm SDT hosted by Mark and Renee was a huge success and went off without a hitch!  I arrived Friday for some last-minute help (aka socializing), then the Ranch class kicked off the weekend about midday Saturday.  I had considered running Gabe, but decided not to risk any backsliding of our current progress on a potentially tricky field.  Turned out the sheep behaved themselves beautifully all weekend, and became pleasantly difficult to pen by the time Open ran Sunday.

Saturday brought lovely weather (probably since we'd all planned for rain) and was a very fun day of hanging out with my northern friends and scribing a little for Robin.  That evening, two local handlers hosted a phenomenal dinner at their house.  Seriously good food and a good time!

We ran shortly after lunch Sunday.  It had gotten pretty hot and humid by then, and Rae had plenty of time all weekend getting herself worked up.  She knows the last mile of the trip to Renee's and always squeals with excitement once we turn off the highway!  She just couldn't imagine that we had come to the farm Friday and she hadn't gotten to work yet.

Of course she knows the field and the sheep, but something wasn't quite right for her. My group was difficult to set and, though they were fine when I sent her, as she approached the top end the setout had to work hard to hold them. Rae is really sensitive about that and *hates* being in that situation. She slowed up, looked back at me, and finally went around to pick them up, but there was never a smooth transition between setout dog working and Rae working. With the short course (outrun only 150ish?) we never really had the opportunity to get control of them. They ended up trying to turn the post the wrong way, so we had to work at unwinding and getting things going again, and then were still zig-zaggy on the first leg. Made the panels, fair line across the field but missed the cross-drive panel due to my miscalculations. Still kind of wobbly on the last leg and they managed to go around the pen twice. A lot of runs much better than mine ended with sheep refusing to be penned, but finally we got them in and went to shed with 30 seconds left. Rae was out of gas but I managed a good hole for her to come through. After the run she was absolutely exhausted. I can tell that the top end really bothered her mentally because the course was a very short 8 minutes that she should not have had such trouble with physically. So while not a stellar run, we did the best we could.  A long trip for us, but a very fun weekend!

Sylvia at the post with Dexter

Lined-up for the cross-drive panels

Mark taking sheep upfield

Hanging out by the old dairy barns