I participated in my first AHBA trial 3 weeks ago down at ActionK9Sports.com I had never done this type of trail before and I was told by my instructor that I should START with level 2 HRD. Unlike the AKC courses I have done, this was working 9 sheep to start and from a pen.
We had to pull all the sheep out of the small pen into a larger pen. From there we had to sort out 5 of those include 2 ‘special’ sheep that the judge specifies. After the sort the sheep moved down to the hay at the far end of the second large pen.
This next section is very similar to the AKC A course. It’s an outrun, lift and fetch off the hay in a straight line from hay to the handler and around a cone to a y-chute. My movement was restricted since I was in level II.
Once through the y-chute there was a cross-drive to a tight z-chute and I wasn’t to leave the y-chute until sheep were within 12 feet of the z-chute entrance. Once the sheep were in the that obstacle the dog was supposed to enter the chute behind the sheep. This part is very unusual so Scot and I worked on it to get him past his inclination to go around.
This practice came back to bite me in the ass as he also went through the y-chute putting him in a bad position to control the sheep properly coming out. They wanted to break back down toward the hay and the exhaust area, and by Scot being in the gate he couldn’t correct the movement of the sheep as they came out. In order to keep this under control I moved to control things,
Once we got that fixed Scot moved the sheep very well through the z-chute and we exhausted the sheep in to the holding area.
Then is was back to the remaining 4 sheep still in the first large pen. We had to drive / fetch these sheep across the second large ring into a hold on the far side. That was simple and smooth and I kept Scot on the hold as I touched each of the sheep per the requirements. Then I had to fetch /drive these sheep back through both large pens to a trailer on the far side. The sheep had to be held until I could get the trailer gate open and sheep drove into it.
I was really annoyed at myself, but not too badly as I saw pretty early that I had at least a qualifying score of 78. What really pissed me off was when I got a look at my score sheet. Everything was nice but for one glaring note. I lost 6 points for the handler moving off-post. Then I noticed the winning score. Had I not moved off post, Scot and I would have won! WON! All I had to do was to stay put. ARGH I was pissed. Only at myself.
Oh well, herd and learn. Scot was solid, the handler, not so much