May 28, 2008: To Scotland and Back
We're just back from almost two weeks in Scotland. It was SO good to be back in Scotland. There is something about the ruggedness of the countryside that gets into your soul. The 7 hour trip to get there was all but exciting. The dogs were glad to get out and stretch their legs when we finally made it to our campsite. Camping with 9 dogs in a busy campground can be quite a daunting prospect but, for the most part, they all behaved themselves...except one night when one dog spooked at someone snoring in the next tent, and all the dogs decided it was time to join the protest with a chorus of howling. After listening to the snoring hour after hour, we almost joined in the protest too. There were many nice trials close by and the dogs settled into a nightly pre-bedtime 11km run/walk. A recipe for a good, quiet night's sleep from all 9.

We were in Scotland to do two weekends of trials at Bobby Dalziel's place. Bobby's trials are superbly organized, the sheep are good and Bobby spends many, many hours expertly setting out sheep perfectly for every person who goes to the post. The competition is keen with Bobby running his 3 dogs, and with the likes of Julie Hill, Bobby Henderson, Norman MacDonald and Lisa Hansson (Swedish team member) making appearances. And then, there were the dark horses like two-time Scottish national team member, Sandy Montgomery, and a Welsh contingent of David Meek, Jeff Hudd and Rona Davies hoping they would steal off to Wales with some prize money in their pockets. Anne Bloomquist and Goran Risne from Sweden, and Guillaume Josien from France made for a more international field, while "locals" Angus Jardine, Joe McRobert, Sue Horn and Charlie Bunting hoped they would enjoy the benefits of some insider knowledge.

The trials are run on two different fields. One field - what we refer to as the 'Small Field' - has a shorter outrun but is quite a technical course as drains criss-cross the course and one has to navigate various rushes and tussocks. The rough ground makes for interesting trialling as one has to be quick to command a dog depending on the way in which the sheep jump the various drains. All the morning trials are held in the 'small field'.

The afternoon courses are on the brae. Brae is the Lowland Scots word for hill. Bobby's brae is STEEP! Most people do not walk the course as it is hands and knees crawling in places. The outruns are long uphills and in places the dogs lose sight of the sheep, or the handlers lose sight of the dogs. The driving components of these course are long and a good challenge for the dogs. We love training and competing on the brae, and we love watching other dogs navigate the courses. Bobby runs several different courses on the brae. What we term the 'left hand brae' is the easier of the two outruns. It's about a 500 yard left hand outrun with the sheep immediately in front of the post. You can see your dog all the way out, although the dogs do lose sight of the sheep and can be sucked in under the sheep. The 'right side brae' is about a 600 yard outrun to the right where you loses sight of the dog until the dog is almost at the top of the outrun. Sometimes one does not see the dog at all at the top of the outrun, only the movement of the sheep as the lift begins. This is a harder outrun but once the dogs know where the sheep are, most get out to them.

We had planned only to run Blade, Meg and Roy at these trials and perhaps give the younger dogs, Sioux and Tina, a run in the small field if the opportunity arose. It did! All dogs ran well at times, and not so well at others. That's trialling for you. Most of the mistakes were ours, not the dogs. Hopefully they will be mistakes we will not repeat! There were many highlights to the trials...so we'll only point out a couple of them.

The biggest highlight was watching Bobby Dalziel and Jamie run on the brae one day, expertly handling an incredibly difficult packet of sheep. One sheep was literally sprinting away from the other 4 - it would take off at full-speed downhill in an effort to join its companions heading for the night field. The other 4 would simultaneously sprint uphill in a futile effort to escape Jamie. Where one would go left, the others would go right. Bobby put on a master class display of handling! It was thrilling and awe-inspiring to see Bobby and Jamie handle these sheep all the way around the course. There are few moments in life where one feels like being in the presence of greatness - and that was one of them. You really had to be there to appreciate the skill of this team but it truly was a WOW moment and something we will never forget - ever!

Another highlight was Angie winning her first Open trial with Meg on the bigger right-side brae course just pipping Bobby and Joe on the outrun, lift and fetch score, and also getting second places with Meg and again with Roy. Angie won the ladies prize on the last day after Roy finished 3 points ahead of Julie Hill's Bob. They were also part of the winning women's team that thrashed the men in a friendly battle of the sexes. The five person women's team running 12 dogs among them beat out the men running their best dogs! Not to mention names but Charlie Bunting, Donald Johnston, Sandy Montgomery, Bob Simpson, Kelvin, Bobby Henderson, Alastair Mundell and Billy Elliott are still smarting at their drubbing. The team competition was quite a lot of fun, and to ensure sheep welfare was kept in focus, competitors could retire their dogs without penalty (i.e you kept your score up to the point of retiring your dog) so as not to hash the sheep the sheep in an all out effort for team points. There was no team prize - just bragging rights. That's quite enough! One has to thank Bobby Dalziel for adding the team competition the night before the last day of trials. It was fun!

Another highlight was seeing little Tina and Sioux running in their first trials. Both got placed in the trials but perhaps the surprise was Sioux. Angie was not intending on running Sioux on the brae as she had never asked Sioux for an outrun longer than about 300 yards. But, the day before the trial, Sioux was practicing an outrun on the brae and Bobby asked Angie to move the sheep from the left side of the brae to the right side. While thinking it was a tall order for Sioux to drive 200 ewes a couple of hundred yards across the brae, Sioux proceeded to simply do it as if she has been doing it all her life. The next day Sioux placed 5th in the trial on the brae! Both Tina and Sioux are now ineligible for nursery trials this winter which is fine with us. It's Open points - and those are what matter to qualify for Nationals. In the UK, open trials points are good for 3 years so you take them when you can get them and hopefully over the next couple of years both Sioux and Tina will qualify to run at a national. For now, we are hoping Blade, Meg and Roy have sufficient points to run at the Welsh National this year. We could not have imagined when we left Canada last year that we would have 2 and maybe 3 dogs pointed up to run at any national, let alone a Welsh national!

The only downside to the whole trip was Angie getting food poisoning after going to Edinburgh for a course on one of our day's off. The person she had lunch with also got sick. The other downside was sleeping in a tent next to a tent full of snorers. On the last night, we arrived back in the campground to see the snorers' tent gone. We looked at each other with big grins on our faces. These grins were quickly wiped off our faces when a man drove up in a Mini, pitched his tent, and went to bed...he snored all night long and at a decibel rating high enough to keep the whole campground giggling...until the novelty wore off. It was a torturously long night.

The drive home seemed longer. We arrived home late but Nora and Mike were waiting up for us with a cup of tea and some Welsh cakes. They had left lights on for us so we could see the dogs into their kennels. How did we ever get so lucky as to find such kind and thougthful people? It was nice to come 'home' to Wales...but Scotland is still tugging our souls. We LOVE both.

Bailey enjoying the nightly walk/run and stop at the 'watering hole' for a swin. She is still sporting her red keel mark she received when we were marking lambs the day before we left on our trip.

Roy, also enjoying the watering hole on the nightly walk after a day of trialling.