I arrived
home to Kamloops, BC, Canada on Wednesday the 13th. of July after a very exciting
and enjoyable trip to compete at the World Sheep DogTrial in Tullamore, Ireland.
I had planned this trip from January of this year after assuring myself that
I had enough sponsorship to get there and come back comfortably. I had one dog
qualified, RMS Wisp and, having been to the UK twice before with dogs, was fully
aware of the necessity of meeting all of the DEFRA stringent qualifications
for the pet travel scheme. I booked my flight to Heathrow in April and made
arrangements with World Wide Animal Travel Brokers to ship the dog by cargo
to Heathrow on the same flight from Vancouver, BC. My plan was to visit Scotland
for 10 days,staying with James and Christina Lamont on the Isle of Skye and attending a few trials while there and then drive to Tullamore via North Wales where I had made arrangements for a B&B near Ballymahon northwest of Tullamore.
I arrived at World Wide Animal Travel in Vancouver at 9:30 AM, dropped off Wisp and paid my fee of $1760.00 CN and then headed for the Airport to await my flight. We had an uneventful trip to Heathrow of about 9 hours. I got off the plane and went to the Avis booth after picking up my bags and they in turn took me to the rental area where I picked up my rental car. I then went to the Animal Reception Center for DEFRA and waited for 5 hours while Wisp was cleared with DEFRA and Customs. This is pretty normal.
The sign at the Animal Reception Center states that it will take at least 4 hours if you’re from a non EU country. After getting Wisp from DEFRA I then left for Inverness, Scotland where I was to meet James and John McDermott to go to a trial at Dornoch in the north of Scotland. What a trial. Cheviots wilder than I’d ever seen in my life before and just to make it a little more interesting I hadn’t slept for almost 30 hours. The folks there were wonderful and the trial was very competitive but also at the same time very relaxing. Lots of good conversations, some with folks I had met before and some new friendships initiated. Wisp even had a fairly good run but ran out of time in the shedding ring. I spent the next week working on the Lamont’s blackface and cheviots which was a hoot as they are a different breed altogether and we also went to John McDermott’s farm where we ran a mini trial on the hill where we gathered sheep from about 600 yards away up a pretty good grade. It was steep enough that my neck started getting sore just watching where the sheep were going. Lots of fun and good work for Wisp if he was going to be running in the World’s.
I left James and Christina’s place and drove down to Balmaha near Glasgow
the next Saturday and ran in that trial on Blackies this time. Man, some of
them were wild! We managed to get to the pen in a fashion but it wasn’t
pretty. Had one ewe that seemed to be able stretch her neck and pop her eyeballs
right out of her head. Wild!! That one was great also and I met another whole
bunch of nice folks there. I continued down to Bobby Dalziel’s beautiful
spot in the Ettrick valley where I took advantage of his and Sheila's great
B&B and entered his hill trial on his own sheep on Sunday. Now that was
an experience. Bobby prides himself on his sheep and they are, without a doubt,
the nicest sheep I have ever run on. The course was a 500 yard outrun up an
extremely steep hill to gather 5 blackface and fetch them through fetch panels
set about 200 yards away from the handlers’ post. we then drove back through
the fetch gates, turned the sheep to the left and drove about another 200 yards
through the cross drive panels and then the last leg of the drive was about
the same but we had to stay on the inside of a hydro pole which was about ¾
of the way down on the 
third
leg of the drive and then through a chute which completed the run. It was definitely
a test of having control of your dog and your dog helping you also. The sheep
were nice if you treated them right and totally uniform. I had to leave unfortunately
before the trial was over as I was meeting some friends in Southport on the
west coast of England where I would stay the night and then drive through Wales
to the ferry at Hollyhead on Monday. I think Johnnie Wilson won the trial but
I’m not quite sure yet. Wisp missed the chute at the end of the trial
but had a very good run otherwise.> I got to the ferry at Hollyhead on time and the trip was pretty uneventful except for getting lost in Dublin. Just to give an indication of the difference in costs between the UK and Canada; it costs $75.00 CN each way on the ferry from Vancouver to Vancouver Island which is about the same distance it is to Ireland from Wales. It costs $586.00 CN to travel from Wales to Ireland and back. Quite a difference eh?
from
Soldier Hollow were there handing out hats to the competitors and the Canadians
received hats with the Canadian flag on them and their name embroidered on them.
That was great for them to do this especially along with the little party they
put on at the Tullamore Dew Cultural Center which is a very nice quaint pub
in downtown Tullamore where they distil their own Irish Whisky. We were given
a very nice and complete handlers’ package with our competitor number
vest, our competitor badge, and some keepsakes along with the very nice program
they had done up. Even a mickey of Tullamore Dew in there along with a very
nice commemorative mug. We all knew exactly what was going on when we left and
Thursday morning came all too soon for me.
of
the qualifiers, the sheep were moved to different fields so they were still
pretty well fresh even though they ran the day before. Field two seemed to be
the field that most would have liked to have run on with the nice Suffolk sheep
on day one. Things changed a bit on day two though when we found the blackface
running on field two which made the scores drop a little from day one. Still
very fair though as only those running on the same field were actually competing
against each other. I ran on field three on the first day and we ran on the
blackfaces, my nemesis. The run started out quite well with me having to redirect
Wisp once on his outrun to the right. He took it immediately and I never had
to give him another. He got to the top in good style and did his beautiful soft
lift and we were on the fetch. It went very well with me giving him a couple
of whistles just before the fetch gates to get the sheep through and then on
to the turn around the post. The drive started with me having to put some brakes
on Wisp as he was really starting to 
get
a little full of himself and wanting to push a little too hard. He took his
steady and we got through the first drive panels well with a nice turn for the
cross drive. The cross drive went fairly well with me having to direct him a
couple of times to get the sheep back on line and then came the last 20 yards
before the cross drives panels where there was a path that crossed in the front
of the panels. I was aware of the path and had seen quite a few of the competitors
get stuck with the sheep wanting to get on and stay on the path and consequently
missing the panels. I guess I went a little brain dead because the same thing
happened to me. I just forgot the path was there and allowed the sheep to drift
down on to the path and we missed the panels and also made quite a wide turn.
I got the sheep back on line for the final leg of the drive and into the shedding
ring. I didn’t take long to get the shed and Wisp came through like a
bullet and stood to the two unmarked sheep he had just shed. They decided it
wasn’t a good place to be and took off from the others toward a tree just
behind 
the
ring about 40 yards. I gathered them all together in the center of the ring
and went to the pen and started Wisp bringing them to me at the pen. I just
got them started into the mouth of the pen when two of the sheep on the left
side made a quick break for parts unknown and, although Wisp tried to cover,
one of them got about 150 yards away before he caught her and brought the group
back to the pen to start again. I ran out time at the pen still needing about
20 seconds to get my pen. That was my run at the Worlds’ and even though
it felt like a disaster at the time and the end of the world when I thought
about it later on I realized it was one of Wisp’s better runs and that
I needed to understand that we all do the best job possible on any given day
and that all of us can’t always win. We can only do our best and that’s
what we did. Wisp’s breakdown for his run from two judges was outrun 2
off, lift 0 
off,
fetch 12 off, drive 26 off, shed 0 off, Time out at pen. He scored 86 on his
outfield work, 4th. for the day on that field. I was very pleased with his effort,
but I’ll always wonder what caused that ewe to split like she did.
