July 28, 2007: Whales and Wales.
Scotland is well-known for its rainy weather, however the "raining cats and dogs" honours must go to the south of England this week. It has been weather for the whales. Major flooding has caused much misery for our southern neighbours and our thoughts are with them as flood waters are still rising in many areas, lives have been lost and many people have lost their homes and belongings. We feel fortunate to have had as little rain as we have.

Last Saturday Kelvin sped off to Wales with the threat of 3 inches of rainfall about to descend upon the Cymdeithas Bugeiliaiyd Y Berwyn trial held at Alan Jones' farm. This was an experience and a half. Getting into the trial field was an effort in itself as it rained heavily for most of the previous day and by the time Kelvin got to the field it was access by four wheel drive vehicles only.

The trial had 130 or so entrants with half the handlers running on one field and the other half on another field. The top eight competitors from each field moved on to the double lift trial on the Sunday. Kelvin settled in to watch the runs to get an idea of the expectations - the outrun was long...very long. Instantly he was worried that Blade wouldn't even get out to the sheep. On top of that he had heard Welsh Mountain Sheep can be extremely challenging. As the the handlers ran, it became patently obvious that there are good handlers in Wales...exceptional handlers! Run after good run went by. Handlers were completing outrun, fetch, drive, shed, pen and single with aplomb. At about run 3, Kelvin was thinking he was way out of his depth! By run 23 he was ready to go home. He was running at 46 so it was a long wait. Finally, it was his turn.

The cool part of this trial was it had a special podium/platform with steps from which to run your dog (so Kelvin now had to worry about slipping on the stairs and making a fool of himself). He took a depth breath and sent Blade off "come bye." Amazingly Blade got out to the sheep and around the course they went...successfully through the fetch gates, round the post (phew!), out to the drive gates, crossdrive, all successful so far. Shed - yes, got that! Pen - they penned for the first time ever in a trial. Yahoo! But, they timed out just when Blade and Kelvin were attempting to talk one of the collared sheep into being singled off. They finished with 74 points out of 100. But points aside, they were just happy to have been brave enough to go to the post, let alone complete all but the single. They did not disgrace themselves.

Some things Kelvin learned about Wales. The Welsh are passionate about their dogs and the depth and breadth of talent among handlers and dogs is superb. However, while the passion for dogs is deep, their passion for rugby is deeper. The most frequently asked question of the day was who won the Bledisloe cup (an international rugby match between New Zealand and Australia). New Zealand won - of course!

Archives:
July 21, 2007 Blood sampling ewes.
July 16, 2007 A week of gathering sheep