First trial of the year

We had our first trial of the year. I entered Lucy in Pro Novice for, I thought just this trial, as the other trials I entered, I entered N/N. Well, I learned I can't do that, so now I am stuck in Pro Novice for all trials. This realization caused me a moment of apoplexy. Lord. Well, as my grandparents used to say "You am not going to learn any younger".

For our first run, the sheep took off early, and Lucy seemed to be drifting in on her outrun, so I gave her a get out command, and then we commenced the fetch, and terrible turn at the post (we had to attempt more than once). Lucy got them started toward the panels and then, I had her basically fetch them back to the pen (I think one went through the panels). We got them in the pen by me laying her down on the pressure side. It wasn't pretty, but we finished. She was high, and that's never good.

On Sunday Lucy had a better outrun, and I think she took a stop on her fetch- honestly, I can't remember, because our fetches are usually really bad, and I tend to block them out...seriously. So, they got to the post, and they tried to beat it for the exhaust, and one did. Lucy let her go (she was at a dead run), and the ewe made it into the exhaust pen. This left me with two sheep. We did get them around the post and drove them a bit (Lucy was looking very good with this), and then we were thanked by the judge- you can't go on with just two sheep, but I had to go as far as I could because Lucy was looking good- what can I say!

So, that was our debut in pro-novice- could have been worse, could have been a lot better, but we did it.


There is more to the weekend, but it will take me a while to have time to put it all down.