Trial while the sun shines!

What a stunning weekend, quite different from the weather at the time of my last post.
My friend Louise must have brought it with her from the South East as she drove up the country for a visit. Louise is on a whistle-stop tour of friends around England and Scotland with four of her faithful border collies, two of which happen to be "cousins" of Fox: they are descended from Sadghyl Pip too, and in some respects it shows, especially in young Breac!

Poor Louise ended up helping Wal and I with fencing for the majority of her first day, but we managed to squeeze a little herding in too. It is good to know that it isn't just Fox and I who find our Shetlands hard work. They proved that they are the speediest of sheep and can give any collie a run for its money. Both Meg and Harry had admirable attempts at controlling them but the sheep had the upper hand and knew all of the escape routes behind boulders and around knolls.

Louise has advised that I get them in a round pen to get them used to a dog and I'm inclined to take it.


We drove back to Askham feeling that we had really earned our beer and a day of relaxing watching a sheepdog trial on Sunday. The photo is of Kilcreen Fox showing real style on his round.

We had an exciting moment when Louise learned that she could start trialling and still be able to register Harry on merit by taking a working test, because the rules have just been changed. But we were disappointed when the chap booking in the dogs said that there was no time for extra runners because of the long delay in the morning due to fog. I'm now hoping that Louise might have time to call in on her way South again for a new handler's competition next weekend.