April 18, 2009: Easter Trials and Mole Catching
Another busy week here in Wales. Easter saw us off to Nigel Watkins trials in Llanddeusant, about 30 minutes away from home. The first day we went over there early to get entered but then came home to walk the dogs and pick Mike up to take him back to the trial. We had fantastic weather the entire weekend so it was a good start to the Open trialling season.

The course was great with a nice outrun. The sheep were to be fetched through some fetch gates and then turned around a panel about 30 yards ahead of the handler. Once around the panel, the sheep were driven directly back through the fetch gates and then turned left to the cross drive gates. Once through the gates, the sheep were to come back to the panel, around the panel and then onto the chute. The handler could leave the post as soon as the sheep were around the panel, and make their way to the pen to open the gate. Once through the chute, the sheep sprinted off to the exhaust pen. The trial sheep were difficult! We found them hard to read as they seemed to go in random directions at times. Some pulled heavily to a row of trees on one side of the course, while others desperately wanted to get to the exhaust without going around the course. At the chute they could be difficult as some packets simply would not even look at the mouth of the chute. It took some deft handling and/or dumb luck to successfully navigate the course. Some sheep beat the dogs!

Angie ran Meg in these trials while Kelvin ran Tina. Meg ran well while Tina did not have such a good start to the year. The first trial saw Meg finish in 7th place despite Angie making a big mistake at the panel the second time. They managed to get the sheep through the chute after some good work by Meg. We nearly put the sheep the wrong way through the chute but managed a last minute rescue. Meg inched the sheep backwards - step-by-step - from behind the chute, around the side of the chute and then through the chute to complete her first run. It was some nice controlled work but we should not have had the sheep at the back of the chute in the first place. In the afternoon trial Meg and Angie timed out at the chute because of a big mistake at the cross-drive gate.

The Sunday trials saw Angie and Meg take 4th place in the morning trial with a better run on the course and a much improved chute. This was Angie's first placing in an Open trial in Wales with Meg. Yahoo! Lucky! In the afternoon, Meg had a terrific start to her run picking up the sheep nicely, bringing them through the fetch gates nicely, and managing a good turn at the post and a nice drive back to the fetch gates. Once through the gates, one sheep sprinted for the woods with Meg in hot pursuit. Angie decided to call Meg off the chase because it didn't seem like there was going to be a happy ending. Meg and the sheep were just out of sight behind the panels when this happened so we are not quite sure what went wrong. But, while the run was not completed, it was good to see Meg working well and showing a good level of consistency. Hopefully that will continue! Kelvin judged the afternoon trial. He quite likes judging and seems to be good at it. The person who many thought had had the best run did win the trial! Bailey enjoyed Kelvin judging too. She got to sleep in his lap all afternoon. What more can a dog want. Sunshine, a comfortable lap to sleep on, and a captive audience.

The trials were well-run, well-attended and very enjoyable. It was a nice relaxing weekend spent in good company. The competition was strong too with many a good handler choosing to start their 2009 campaigns at these trials. With the Welsh National in the south this year, the handlers from North Wales are going to have their hands full with the southerners!

Kelvin has been out catching moles and his record is now 11 in one day! He has quite the little mole catching troupe with Cian, Steffi, Tim, Mike, Jenna, Blade and Bailey 'helping' Kelvin out on his daily tour of the traps. One day they all disappeared for 3 hours! The pups like to have a play around to start the day but quickly settle in to just lying around while Kelvin resets the traps. Mike and Nora's grandchildren have also helped out during the easter break and there was much excitement when Kelvin caught two moles at once in the same trap - two days in a row. The count is fast reaching 100 moles on three different farms and not all traps are out yet. The number of moles is scary!

On Tuesday we went over to Kevin Evans' place to video tape him training a dog that is bound for the US in a week's time. We also got to watch him and some visitors from Belgium run a few dogs, and we ran a couple of our own dogs on his nice sheep. It is always fun seeing different dogs working and we managed to get a few photos as well. Saw another nice dog called Grim working. Grim is a littermate to Kevin's Roy and Nigel's Jody that we mentioned in an earlier blog. Grim is super - very natural - and wholly undeserving of a name like Grim. He is not 'grim' in any sense of the word.

NOTE: I must correct something...Grim is actually Grimm - after the brothers Grimm. He is so named because he is SO nice that his owner said having him is like a fairytale.

The next day Angie went up to Aled Owen's place. While there she worked with Aled on shedding. This is something Angie can't do (yet!). Aled is a master shedder! He is also a master at explaining how to approach a shed. It was a fantastic learning experience and made that much more pleasurable by Aled's down-to-earth approach and manner. We have heard it said of Aled that he "hacks" in the shedding ring. To the person or persons who say this, come watch Angie shed...then you'll really know what 'hack' means.

Well to end this quick update, it looks like it is all good news on the farm front. We will be able to say more toward the middle of next week but it is looking like smooth sailing from here to finally get the deal sewn up on the farm we would like to purchase. Cross-fingers for us (and toes).

Next Saturday is the Llangadog trial. This was the first trial we ran when we arrived in Wales one year ago. Yes, we have been here a year. We came for a few months to help out at the World Trial and we simply have not left and are not planning on leaving anytime soon. The Llangadog trial blew us away last year. We knew almost no-one and it was a who's who of Welsh trialling. We were completely over-awed by the experience and seeing people we had only read about or seen their results in the newspaper. It was nerve-racking being a beginner in the midst of some of the most accomplished handlers of our day. As we step to the post next week (if we're up early enough to get any entry!), we are bound to feel the same way as we did 12 months ago. The only difference is many of these people have welcomed us with open arms, have helped us find our way to trials, have given us tips and advice on running and training our dogs, have let us train on their sheep, and have become our friends. Wales is not only a great place to come and trial your dogs, it is a great place to live - and it is the people who make it so.