Wisp was born on 11 May, 2001 and was the third pup born in a litter of 5 pups out of our Llewelyn Fan, CBCA 1165 and our Del'mar Turk, CBCA 122900. He was a very large boned flashy, half white faced pup who drew your attention right from the start.

He is now a big, handsome, flashy dog who still draws your eye to him. He has an extremely kind temperament with people and is quite strong on stock.

Wisp was originally trained as a cattle dog and was sold to a local rancher at the age of 15 months as a cattle dog. This rancher had never handled a dog before and, due to time constraints, was not able to take any lessons on handling at the time. Wisp was quite a sensitive pup and was very close and bonded to me and didn't get on well with his new owner. I went to help out about 3 or 4 times but I could never find anything wrong with the dog other than he didn't like to work for his new owner.

I subsequently bought him back and took him to a trial in Oregon the next week where he was second in the nursery class on sheep. He has been a dog slow to mature but always very willing to please. He has always done well in his Pro/Novice and Nursery trials being one of the top three Pro/Novice dogs in BC this year. He won the Nursery Class at the North American Championship in Fillmore, CA this year.

We went to the Nationals in Sturgis, SD and had a good run the first day standing 18th out of the 80 some dogs running. Unfortunately his second run was not as strong and we wound up out of the top 20.
I find that this is not something to become too concerned about as my goal is to develop the pup at his speed to have a long lasting dog who runs well at 4 years of age and on.

Wisp is definitely proving himself as he matures and I look forward to running him in open next year. Well here it is next year and Wisp has been doing really well and placed well at the Canadian Nationals. Unfortunately I became an invalid with a bad back and missed the US National Finals so Wisp didn't get to run in them in 2004. However on a good note, RMS WISP has qualified to compete at the World Sheep Dog Trial in Tullamore, Ireland and we are leaving for that Trial on June 23, 2005. Scary! Wisp is running extremely well for me and I have all the confidence in the world that we will do a respectable job of it.

We're back from the World Trial and what an experience. I trialled in Dornoch on the wildest Hill Cheviots I have ever seen and that was a blast. Wisp did quite well, or as well as could be expected, scoring in the low 70s without his pen or shed. I met quite a few of the handlers that I read and hear about including Willie and Jock Welsh, J.A. MacLeod, Stuart Davidson and his son, himself quite an accomplished handler. Of course my friend James Lamont from Skye was there with his two dogs, Ben and Kerry. Another farmer from Skye who I had met earlier and a good friend of James' was there also. This was John McDermott who has some very nice dogs and quite a nice farm running, I think about 700 ewes. We did some hill gathers at his place when we were there visiting and that was quite an experience gathering from 600 or 700 yards away on a hill so steep I'd have to be on all fours to get up it. Wisp handled this like he had been doing it all his life, although I must admit he was pretty tired by the time he got to the top to lift the sheep. We went to the trial at Balmaha the next week end and this was on Blackface every bit as wild as the Cheviots from the week end previous. Once again, Wisp did his beautiful outfield work that he has always been noted for and then a beautiful drive and then, with problems at the pen, we timed out. The next day we went to Bobby Dalziel's place in the Ettrick Valley. For me this was the highlight of my trip equal to running at the World Trial. The Ettrick Valley is the birthplace of sheepdog trialling and Bobby is a handler that I pattern myself on. His double Supreme Champion Wisp 161487 is, in my opinion, one of the greatest dogs ever to master sheep. So I am very much in awe when I am at Bobby's especially when I am able to run my Wisp on his hill trial. We did very well there and Bobby's sheep were beautiful to work if you treated them right. Wisp laid down one of the nicest runs he's ever done and placed very well which was a nice experience to have before going to the World Trial.

The World Trial at Tullamore, Ireland was a great experience and you can read about it elsewhere on this sight. Right now we will deal with Wisp's performance on the Blackface on Field three of day one of the Qualifying runs. Wisp had the forth highest points for outfield work of the 41 dogs that ran. He lost most of his points when missing the cross drive panels on a very costly mistake by his handler, me. He had a perfect shed with no points lost and then ran into trouble with one ewe breaking and running about 150 yards before Wisp caught her and brought her back to the pen. We ran out of time just as the sheep were moving into the pen. I was pretty disappointed at the time but realized after a while that we had done our best under unfamiliar conditions with sheep that we have never worked on other than at Bobby Dalziel's place. I was very proud of Wisp and a little disappointed in myself but I've since let it go. Wisp's next big venue was the Nationals at Sturgis, SD and made it into the Semi Finals after a very nice run in the qualifying trial on tough sheep. He's a dog for all sheep and very good at reading his sheep and extremely biddable.

I had made an agreement with Bob Kelley of Indiana in May of this year to sell Wisp to him. Bob had seen his full litter brother, RMS Tak, who belongs to a friend of his in Indiana and had called me to ask if I would sell Wisp. At the time I had 4 Open dogs and, as Wisp had been neutered due to an accident, I agreed to sell Wisp to Bob. He is a very kind man with lots of experience and I felt this would be a win, win for all involved, especially for Wisp. He went to Bob right after the completion of the National Finals and Bob is very happy with him and Wisp must be happy too because he laid down a couple of pretty nice runs for Bob about 6 weeks after he took him home in a trial in Ohio. I stay in contact with Bob quite regularly and, if Wisp could talk, I'd stay in contact with him on the phone too. Good luck to Wisp and Bob Kelley and we'll see you at the Nationals Bob.