Dry Lake 2015, Day One

Dry Lake was moved to Little Horse Mountain this year due to the tall mustard growing as tall as a border collie at the Dry Lake Ranch. As it was, the cover at the Little Horse Mountain field was already getting pretty tall. I drove up to Tulelake on Friday hoping to get there in time for Spot's nursery run. My drive up was uneventful, thank goodness, and thanks to Sirius Radio who were running a BB King Memorial Day music special. After the Grass Lake rest stop it started to rain pretty hard; I was enjoying the rain but when I got to the trial that meant I had to get all suited up in rain gear before I could go and see where the open trial was in terms of finishing up. I was lucky enough to see 10 or 15 runs left of the open. Their course was a huge ~500 yard outrun, right hand drive, shed, and pen, with 12 minutes to run it in.  The sheep were beautiful Rambouillets from a ranch around Alturas, I heard. The flock will be used for the National Finals. It should be good! They were good sheep to work.

After the Open class was completed for Friday, it was Nursery's turn. They shortened the course some but I was told it was still 300-350 yards. Oh my! Then I learned that Spot had to go first. Oh my again! I thought we were second in the order, which was bad enough, but the person listed first was also listed twice and they opted to take their second number instead of running first. Oh my! So I went to the car and got Spot and we gave it our best, at least that which is our best at this time at his stage of training. I think the lesson the week prior with spotting sheep at a distance, made all the difference.

I sent him come bye and he went off like a rocket in a lovely outrun. I had to go to verbals rather than whistle on the fetch but he took my commands. I can't even describe what it feels like to send your young dog that far and to have him listen and bring the sheep nicely. Woo hoo!

We started the post turn and drive away but Spot then got tense and did one of his bust through the sheep moves. I said thank you at the same time that the judge was saying the same.  I was not unhappy. It was a beautiful gather. I was totally stoked. Spot has never done a gather like that before, especially with non-broke sheep. He went well past any expectations I might've had for this nursery run. :)

Dinner was at Captain Jack's with friends, then off to my cozy room with the dogs. It was cold and rainy outside but nice inside our room. The handler's meeting the next day would be at 6:30 a.m.