Perky's Previous Updates - 2007

June 2008 News: 2007 in review

©2007 Michael McAdoo

Perky has made some wonderful progress since last year. Sometimes when I get focused on the little things, it’s hard for me to keep that in perspective. Thank you to Gene for reminding me of that—often! We’ve still got to work on the lift and pace with her, as she gets pushy. We’ve also got to keep working on getting her to take off-balance flanks. She’s a very obedient dog, but when it comes to her feeling that she MUST balance the stock to me, she’s a bit less biddable than her daughter Dare.

Her left outrun has gotten much, much better as compared to last year. A year and a half ago, she was so tight to the left that I didn’t always know if she’d go out far enough or if she’d just go nearly straight up the middle, sometimes even from as close as 50 yards. Of course her left side is something we’ll always have to work on regularly, but now when I send her come-bye, I don’t wonder whether she’ll go up the middle of the field, and I know that she is usually thinking when she leaves me. Away is her natural side; her away outruns are usually big, occasionally to the opposite extreme of being off-contact. Her in-bye work has also gotten much better since last year. Although I do not own sheep, she seems to really like to do farm chores, which I try to do with both my dogs whenever we have the opportunity.

©2007 Michael McAdoo

July 2007
I had hoped to be entered in several NEBCA Novice/Novice trials with both Perky and Dare this summer, but we weren’t quite ready yet. I entered them both in a “fun run” with a short 50 yard outrun to get a sense of our ability to handle the pressure of “competition.” The farm where the trial is held is well known for its usually uncooperative Tunis flock and the field’s very heavy pressure up the line of the driveaway leg. Even though I was well aware of the pressure on the drive (wear, at this level), I didn’t manage our turn to the crossdrive properly, and the sheep got away from Perky. A single made it back to the setout pen, which was also being used as the exhaust, so the draw was unusually strong. Since this was a fun run, we were allowed to try to go recover the sheep. The setout area had some very challenging nooks and corners and could have been a big problem. Although letting the sheep get to back to the pen isn’t anything to brag about, I was VERY happy with how nicely she kept her cool in the tight spaces and pulled the single out as nicely as you please. We regrouped and went on to complete our run.

September 2007
We entered our first Novice/Novice trial at the New Jersey State Sheep Dog Trials, judged by Michael Dathe of Vermont. The mostly-level field seemed rather straightforward and the setout was only about 100 yards, but the terrain and the sheep, in packets of two adults and a lamb, had challenged the experienced Open and Ranch dogs for the previous two days. The Novice classes were run as two consecutive trials on the third day, so I had two runs with each dog. In our first run, Perky was just plain too pushy, and our lamb decided three days of being pushed around by dogs was enough, and laid down and quit on us after the drive panels. We were granted a re-run, and Perky did not take good control of that group; I think we made it around the post and then they headed off to a corner of the field that was quite off-course. Our second run of the day started better, but as I flanked her for the turn to the crossdrive panels, she blew off some stress and buzzed them unnecessarily. I didn’t want to see any more of this attitude from her, as her previous two runs were too pushy, and I didn’t think she was likely settle down more through the rest of the run, so I retired. Although no score is earned for a retire, I able to find out that up to that point, she had earned 20 points of 20 possible for the outrun, 10 of 10 for the lift, and 16 of 20 for the fetch. I was certainly expecting a little more from both my dogs and myself—at least completing the course or timing out at the pen on this four-minute course—but I suppose this is part of gaining experience.

©2007 Michael McAdoo

November 2007
I entered another fun run at the same field as the one in July. Again, we lost the sheep at the turn from the drive panels to the crossdrive; this time she was just too slow in taking the flank I gave her. A single got away, and as before, Perky took very nice quiet control over him in the wedge-shaped blind near the setout, and brought him back with ease. As with our experience in the summer, I wasn’t happy to have let any of them get away from us—especially not happy to have had the same problem—but was very happy with how nicely she collected him and brought him back.

I’m pleased to say that our recent lessons have been going quite nicely, and I hope our good progress will “stick!” Now our biggest challenge is to get me to become a better handler. That should only take a few more years…

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