By Celeste Lacroix
All photos credit to Lisanne Major and Felicia Pynes
We were happy to start off the OBCC 2024 training year with a Trial and Train on April 21st at Kitley Corners Farm in Jasper, Ontario. The format was intended to be fun and supportive for Novice and Pro Novice handlers.
The plan:
- A Novice Novice and Pro Novice Trial course was set up on the trial field.
- 2 Open handlers (Mary Ann Duffy and Stacey Rember) provided Judging and Coaching alternating in groups of 2 attendees. Brian Epp provided setout for the day.
- Attendees got to run a trial course which was judged/coached in the morning.
- Their judge/coach provided feedback and general guidance.
- Attendee had access to sheep in either a large round pen or a large training field with the guidance of their coach to work on any items they needed.
- Pot luck lunch to discuss and learn.
- Attendee had a chance to either run the trial course again in the afternoon or continue working on training aspects with their coach.
A similar training format was successfully offered last year at the “Learn to Trial Better' days for novice handlers.
So … what could go wrong? I would like to share a bit of the perspective of what happened behind the scenes when hosting this event.
- Buying a flock of sheep in the spring and expecting lambing dates in mid-May but finding a new lamb on the ground end of March makes you wonder! Will all my ewes be lambing at that time or before the planned event? Will we still have enough sheep?
- While training a very young dog, I got hit in the knee by an escaping ewe. Here I am 2 days before the event, unable to walk, on my back icing a knee and popping Ibuprofen like it’s candy.
- Great weather in March brought optimism that early dog training was going to be the flavour of the month for April. Not so much! Rain, snow, and winds brought doubts whether the fields could support an event? Campers? Sheep hooves? The field and setout pens had to be set up just in time before the event or everything would blow away. We wouldn’t have to worry about dog water, there was lots of that around.
- If you host it, will they come? What happens if handlers don’t sign up? You have commitments to pay the work team no matter how many come.
Let me say that everyone that attended was grateful, gracious and appreciative of the event. That makes all the difference in the world! We will definitely host it again.
We started that day off with a “Scrum”, a format of project management we used in our professional IT days. Pinning down the details of how the day would flow. We had 8 attendees and 2 official Judge/Coaches. We decided that Judge/Coach #1 would judge handlers / dog teams 1 & 2 then move on with that team to the training areas. Judge/Coach #2 would judge handlers / dog teams 3 & 4 then move on to the training area with them. That was repeated with the next 4 handlers / dog team. The format was good. Handlers really appreciated the time spent with their coaches. There were sheep on the trial field, sheep in a round pen as well as sheep in a training field with panels setup for obstacles. The coach and handler decided together where they wanted to work next.
The handlers who attended were a mix of Novice Novice and Pro Novice. They all benefited from the training time and of course appreciated being able to try running a trial course. The sheep had never been on the trial field before and had only been worked by our dogs so we were a bit anxious to see how they would hold up. The setout / sorting pen needed some mid event modifications to keep outside sheep out but all in all Brian Epp had fun with his dogs testing skills they don’t get to test everyday. He got his 10,000 steps in that day.
We stopped for lunch where there was lots of discussion, questions and good conversations. Pot luck was as always delicious with a great contribution from so many folks. We were all eager to get back out to put some new skills to the test. Some handlers decided more training time would be better than trialing time so the group split out between the trial field and the training areas. I really appreciated that handlers took control of their training / trialing needs by self directing where they would get the best benefits.
A day like this takes some coordination. We are so grateful to Mary Ann Duffy and Stacey Rember for taking the time to share their knowledge with our learning herding community. In our own ways we are all students and teachers of our herding craft. We go to clinics, we observe handlers at trials, we listen to handlers’ comments under the handlers’ tent, we attend webinars, we purchase books, we subscribe to videos, we enlist in training programs, we ask questions, we debate answers, we are all seeking more knowledge.
I have had the opportunity to work with some phenomenal handlers in my lifetime yet am still in awe at how much I still have to learn from others. There are many opportunities out there, take advantage of them! Broaden your horizon, expand your knowledge, continue to test your boundaries. Stockdog herding is a difficult sport but there is always something you can learn from everyone that you encounter in our herding community.
Happy Herding Everyone!