April 20, 2010: Spring Marks the Beginning of the Trial Season
The weather in Wales has been absolutely spectacular over the past two weeks. The sunscreen has well and truly been called into action. One knows for sure spring is upon us when Bailey starts attacking the lawn mower again. This year she seems to be particularly enthusiastic about its front wheels. It is quite a feat to get the lawn mowed with her waiting to pounce. Balls are strategically placed right on the blade of grass about to be mowed, and while many get tossed back at Bailey for a 2 hour retrieving game, some have fallen prey to the lawnmower. We are down to the very last piece of orange hockey ball from the dozen or so we brought with us from Canada. In Canada, all kids own orange plastic hockey balls purchased from the local 'Canadain Tire' store. Bailey kept Canadian Tire afloat in tough economic times with the number of balls that were purchased from them. I look at the last remnant of her orange ball and feel a tinge of nostalgia for Canada.

Trial season is here. Yippee! The sun gods have shined on us for the last two weekends. Trials seem to be that much more pleasant when you can sit out in the sun and have a yarn to other competitors and spectators. When it's raining and cold, everyone huddles in their vehicles so the social element is a bit more restrained. It sure is good to see our trialling buddies again. The Welsh have a really nice wee greeting to friends they have not seen all winter, and that is: "You've wintered well." I'm a bit worried that no-one said that to me! Is it because I am not Welsh or... ? Ok, I did have a dream last night that I had lost a chunk of time in my memory, and during that missing chunk of time I mated a bitch to a dog I would never have mated a bitch to. OMG, is this the start of the decline?

Last week we made a rare trip to Pembrokeshire for our first trial of the season. Pembrokeshire isn't that far away from us but we hardly ever seem to head west. It's very pretty so we really must take another trip over there and perhaps without the destination being a sheepdog trial. The weather for the trial was perfect! We made a complete pig's ear of our runs but this did not detract at all from a fantastic day out, the picnic like atmosphere, and the obligatory ice-cream on the way home. A well organized trial.

This week we headed to Nigel Watkins' place in Llanddeusant for two days of trials (4 trials in all). The sheep at this trial are notoriously tricky and sometimes just plain unmanageable. They pick up any weaknesses in a dog and exploit it to the max. Those crafty little devils are humbling. In the last trial of the weekend, 24 runs out of 40 ended in a retirement when the sheep won over the dog! Dogs that knew how to follow sheep seemed to do better than those with a bit more spit and vinegar about them. My typical 'bull in a china shop' style of handling was the antithesis of what these sheep needed. Still, my little Sioux and Kelvin's Blade suited these sheep and both dogs managed to get in the placings twice. Meg also had one run, her first trial in over 10 months. We did not have a stellar run (my handling sucked!) but we did finish and it sure felt good to have her out on the trial field again. There were times last year when I thought her career had ended and that put a damper on my whole trial year. Irrespective of how we do on the trial field, she's still an incredible animal and she makes me keep trying to improve to learn how to handle her. Jamie did not run as he hurt his leg in training on Thursday. Argh!

At Nigel's trials I saw a most magical piece of handling by 80-something year old Alistair Gilchrist. Not only did he put on a master class display of handling by winning one of the trials but with his young dog, he handled a very tricky outrun and lift with clever, clever handling and reading of the sheep. WOW! I was blown away.

This week marks our second year in Wales. We arrived just in time to make total fools of ourselves at the highly contested Llangadog trial, which is this coming weekend. We went back to this trial last year and made asses of ourselves again. Will it be a three-peat this year? Stay tuned for next week's blog.