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Stirling Acres SDT


airbear
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Kane on his fetch:

kane-1.jpg

 

Joe completing his drive:

joe.jpg

 

Patch completing his drive:

patch2.jpg

 

Patch splits his group successfully (and these guys did NOT want to split):

patch-3.jpg

 

Robbie at the pen:

robbie-2.jpg

 

Jen takes off on her outrun:

jen2.jpg

 

One of May's sheep seems to be complaining:

may.jpg

 

Lou critiquing the runs:

lou-1.jpg

 

And a gratuitous picture of a puppy:

puppy.jpg

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Nice shots, more working photos please.

It was quite hard to get any shots at this trial. The post was about 75 yards away from the spectator's area, and very few dogs felt the need to bring their sheep that far off course. Also, it was incredibly nice and sunny, which made it difficult to stand up and take photos. Having a very comfortable La Fuma chair does not help either. :rolleyes:

 

Will try at the next trial, as sight lines are better and the sheep are a little more unpredictable.

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A few from this trial and a few from another is what I'm after. If you do this, and I do this, and ____ does it too; soon we'll have working shots every few weeks.

Got it. Well, we've got Paxton Valley in a couple of weeks - I will take my less comfortable chair, AND will try to resist the urge of taking pictures of Wick chasing bugs.

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Guest CleverDog

I would love to see photos of Wick chasing bugs : )

 

At the risk of sounding silly, could someone explain the photo "one of May's sheep...". I'm sure a bit of it is perspective that is confusing me, but what is going on in the photo exactly? Maybe if everyone keeps posting I'll get better at be able to tell what is going on!

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At the risk of sounding silly, could someone explain the photo "one of May's sheep...". I'm sure a bit of it is perspective that is confusing me, but what is going on in the photo exactly?

Sorry, that was just me trying to find cute quotes for the picture. The little white dog's name is May, and if you look at the largish apricot ewe in the front, her mouth is open, as if she's complaining. Otherwise, it's a pretty normal turn around the post. What IS somewhat interesting is that little black lamb at the end, who dawdled alot and made the drive quite tricky. You can see her lagging in that picture, and so she continued through the rest of the run.

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Guest CleverDog

Thanks, I understood the caption! : ). I should of phrased my question a little better: they are turning around the post with one sheep lagging? I was just curious, it looks like a sheep is behind the dog, so I wasn't sure how the dog was able to turn them around them post, and thought maybe I had the wrong situation in mind. But you said it was tricky, so I guess that's what confused me, I had it mostly right in my head. Wish I could have seen it.

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The problem with the sheep that they ran in PN on Saturday, and Open on Sunday, is that they were a mix of barb crosses and wool sheep. The barbs were, of course, very light (though not crazy) and sometimes the woolies just didn't see the point in staying with them, so they'd lag behind. That black lamb is a woolie, though freshly shorn, and didn't really want to stay with the tour.

 

While this caused some problems on the fetch and drive, it made them real easy to shed! The other sheep (the ones that Patch is driving and splitting) are more uniform and were pretty easy to drive. However, when it came time to shed, they formed a giant Q-Tip against your legs and no amount of stomping and swatting could convince them to split. If you did manage to make a little gap, by the time you called your dog through (and Lou comes through pretty fast) they had rejoined behind you. We got to the shedding ring with 5 minutes left on Saturday, and we couldn't get the shed. On Sunday, we got to the shedding ring with about the same amount of time, and shed in about a minute (though it took another minute or two to regather the unshed sheep who were trying to belnd in with the fence in front of exhaust).

 

Anyway, I liked the sheep. They were challenging without being ridiculously so, and most dogs did just fine handling them.

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Guest CleverDog

Hey, thanks, I really appreciated that extra explanation! So, from your explanation, most wool sheep tend to stay together more?

 

I didn't realize, but are you allowed two runs, one on each day? (like having two trials in one weekend, you get another chance?) I would really like to get into this. It all sounds like a big puzzle. I don't know if you play soccer, and I hate to compare it to this, but the only couple of times we've had lessons, I felt like it was soccer (which I love playing), with the movement and positioning.

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I didn't realize, but are you allowed two runs, one on each day? (like having two trials in one weekend, you get another chance?)

Most of the trials around here seem to be two, one-day trials - that is, the Saturday run is one trial, and the Sunday run is another. They might give an Overall prize, but each has day money, and each counts for points (in our case, BCSDA and USBCHA). If you cross-enter (say, PN and Open) you can run twice each day, for four runs in a weekend.

 

In this one, in addition to the Saturday and Sunday trials, they had the top 5 dogs (Open) run back in the double-lift, which didn't count for points, but apparently was really fun. I wish I could have stayed to watch, but we had to hit the road as it's a five-hour drive back home.

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OK, Mark, for you I had another look through my pictures. My focus leaves a lot to be desired, but here are some more of Norm Close's dogs.

 

Cub at the pen:

cub.jpg

 

Joe, who is almost 10 years old, and is a most striking dog:

joe4.jpg

 

Joe and Norm setting up for the shed:

joe5.jpg

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I have an 80-200 mm 2.8 Nikkor lens (it's a fast lens but man is it heavy!). The camera is a Nikon D70. I covet those great big grey lenses that Canon folks use, but truth be told, I would be too lazy to hold something like that for very long, and I haven't seen my tripod in years. I just go on vloume, memory cards bein so cheap these days. I figure if I fire enough, something will be sort of in focus.

 

When are you going to a trial? You take such lovely candids of your dogs, I'm sure your action shots will blow these ones out of the water. :rolleyes:

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