As the sheepdog trail came to its end, I found out that Blade had won the Long Road award for the class I run both he and Skye in. The trial is in Cummington Massachusetts during the Massachusets Sheep and Woolcraft Festival. One of the two days Skye had trouble with her run, but the next day she and I got it together, and we won the class. Blade finished third and sixth in the two-day trail enough to receive the Long Road for the Ranch division, the highest level classes before dogs compete in the Open Trials. The Long Road goes to a dog, usually Border Collie or Kelpie which only has been owned by his or her original owner and never has been trained by anyone else! Training and owning herding dogs takes a lot of work and understanding so often handlers and farmers will need help with training.
Before I ever started our geese control service I learned I indeed needed to buckle down and take lessons with our original Border Collie. Soon one Border Collie became two, named Merck and Will and I committed to taking lessons once a month from experienced and talented sheepdog people. These individuals are sheep farmers and compete in sheepdog trials. Good farm dogs become good sheepdog trial dogs, that’s the whole idea. I felt better and better about what I was doing with my Border Collies after several months and passed on what I learned to our sons Sam and Caleb. Now Caleb also takes lessons and competes in sheepdog trails and is a great guy to have on the homestead. Sam who lives away from home now, can step in and work with the Border Collies like he does it all the time. He grew up with them as Caleb did.
It’s a long road to acquiring the knowledge of how Border Collies and Kelpies and other farm and working dogs think and behave and interact with their people and the work we do with farm animals, sheep especially and in our case, geese for what some call geese removal. If someone grows up and lives and works with these dogs that’s one thing. I did not. For most Americans, farm dogs are something new to take on. There’s no instruction manual. What you often find online is erroneous. It takes learning from or watching skilled and practiced dogs and handlers for quite some time,to catch on.
As I drove home from the sheepdog trail, I kept thinking of what went right and what went wrong. Not that anything went very wrong, sheep and dogs were all good, but enough not to place well two out of four times. That’s what putting your self on the line does. It’s a test to see how much you and your dog know and can do and can do well. Twenty years into owning, living working with Border Collies, there’s always something new to learn. One thing is, these beautiful dogs all have different personalities, and that needs to be taken into account when you interact with them every step of the way. They are not just smart, but instinctual dogs that love their work.
The next morning after that trail, Blade and I and the mixed breed Nash got up early and went on some goose control visits. Nash had the day before off from geese control. He had stayed home and was the farm dog taking care of the sheep and poultry while I trailed, and Caleb took Border Collies Tara and Jim on goose control visits. As the visits, that morning went on Blade enjoyed himself despite the weekend at the trials. He wasn’t overly tired. He and Nash did very well herd-chasing geese from three schools. Chasing geese is tricky for Border Collies because they fly. Sheep don’t fly! This is just one example that it is essential to make sure the dogs are good with their work, don’t get stressed and that they understand the objective. It’s important to keep your dogs happy and focused when herd-chasing, getting rid of Canadian geese on a visit.
Later that day, Caleb scrambled up some of our duck eggs to feed out to the dogs for an extra treat. Lots of work requires a bit more, input, feed. The dogs happily gobbled their eggs down that afternoon and settled in for an extra long nap. I indeed joined them with Skye cuddling by my feet. The garden work would have to wait.