New DD!

Congratulations to Nikki Wiebe and her wonderful Bernese Mt. Dog, Bailey, on their new Draft Dog title.   Those of you who know Bailey understand fully how anxious she was about anything to do with carting.  Well, today, she did us all proud by becoming a CKC Draft Dog.  Good on ya, Nikki.

And now, on to Brace DD with Sophie and Bailey together.  I can't wait for the next parade!

The Prez 

Shell Community Service Fund

A huge thank you to Russell Lee from all the members of the Southern Alberta Working/Herding Club for his successful application to the Shell Community Service Fund for $1000.00.  This funding has made it possible for our club to purchaseportable agility equipment, which we will put to good use at our community event demos at the Crestview Lodge June 22nd and at Heritage Acres in September. 
We are so grateful to Shell for their support.
Here is the email Russ received from Susan giving him the good news!!!

Congratulations!

Your Community Service Fund (CSF) request for a grant of $1,000 has been approved in support of your volunteer work with the Southern Alberta Working Herding Dog Association.

The cheque will be sent to you within the next 8-10 days via interoffice mail. We ask that you present the cheque to the organization once received.

Please note: the organization will have up to six months from the date issued to deposit the cheque. After this time the cheque will be stale-dated and may not be replaceable.

Thank you for applying through the CSF and we hope this grant will help you in your endeavours to give back to your community.

Kindly,

Susan Lam
Social Investment Advisor
Shell Canada Limited

                                               AND.....

We are further blessed as Laurie Milley has been able to procure, at no charge to our club,  a set of 6 pairs of custom made agility jumps worth $610.00,  donated to us by  Blairmore Precision Machining and Welding!  These jumps are collapsible and make transport a dream!   A wonderful and much appreciated surprise to us.  Thank you, Eric.  We assure you that they are already being  put to good use in our practice sessions for our community demos.

Thanks again to Russell and Laurie for their commitment to our club. 

Good Luck to everyone who is taking in the NACA show this weekend. 

The Prez 

Pets as a Preventative

Read this the other day and just had to share it.

"Children who spend lots of time with animals are four times less likely to ever struggle with allergies, says U of  Virginia researchers. Their studies show that regular exposure to animal  dander trains a child's immune system to stay calm when harmless substances like dander, dust, and pollen are in the air ..... and to focus instead on tackling the true troublemakers like viruses, bacteria, and fungi. "

Enjoy your pets.

Keep practicin'

                         Due South is Scent Hurdle Racing at Coaldale on June 15th.  

A report from Sylvia who is having lots of fun with her two poodles, Julie and Oscar.

'Julie and I did a AAC Agility trial over in Pass Creek this past weekend.   Julie ran well and we managed to get a couple of Q’s.  Our first Q was a Starter Standard run in which Julie placed 2nd and our other Q was in Advanced Gamble.  Julie is working awesome distance this year, I am so proud of her. 

Oscar graduated puppy school last week with Cathy Smith Clark and started puppy Agility Classes at Denise’s on Wednesday last week.  I am working on Rally at home with Oscar and Julie.'

We wish Denise and Sylvia the best of runs Sunday at the APDT Rally O trials at Sit Happens!!!



Just a reminder to all Due South Demo teams that we have our Crestview Lodge presentation coming up on June 22nd and the following events will be in place:

Barrel racing

Jumps and tunnels

Relay racing 

Flyball    ........  against people

If we have enough people, we would like to do a set of square dancing.

We practice at Shadowbar at 6:30 on Tuesday evenings.  People are responsible for training their
own dogs and helping with equipment.  Bring a friend.


Keep practicing and we will see you in Pincher Creek at 11:00 a.m. on the 22nd.

The Prez 

More Results from Downriver Herding Trials

Gloria, Fido, Daisy-May & Lore 

Both Daisy and Fido were High Scoring Cardigans 

Gloria and Fido 

Lore took to the road with Remmie and Daisy-May entered in the three day sheepherding trials at Downriver Farms in Hope, BC. and arrived bright and early Friday morning in time for the handlers' sheep meeting. 

Her dogs did a great job the entire weekend as shown by the results below.

                                                  Daisy-May

                                     May 18th   stockdog started 95

        She got High in Trial for Stock dog and High for the Day Cardigan.

                                    May 19th  Stock dog started 83

                                                     Arena sheep started  83

                                   May 20th Arena sheep started 90.5

                       That gave Daisy-May her HS (herding started) title!!!!

                                                             Remi

                                        May 18th Stock dog started  86

                                        May 20th Stock dog started 81

                                                           Fido

Bred and co-owned by Lore and Gloria Graham, Fido was High Cardigan on Saturday!!!

On the road again to Saskatchewan for the AHBA trials..... we wish her the best of luck!

                      

                   On Victoria Day Weekend, we headed to Hope, B.C. to do our first 2013 CKC trials with Drummer and Hunter.

It was truly a learning experience.  We have practiced little parts of the whole puzzle but I really lacked  trialing experience when it came to the Herding Started Arena work and I had almost no idea what to expect in the Started Stockdog work. So I make some handling errors that cost me a run in some cases and a score that would have been in the High 90's!  And I called my run (retired the dog from the course) in two cases because it was a no win situation for sheep or dog.  

However, that said, having three days of trialing and three attempts at passing with both dogs, we did quite well.  No sheep were harmed and neither of my dogs were out of control at any time. They both handled the sheep calmly.  And they got better with each run, too.  I think both of them rocked!

Drummer qualified once in the Arena work with a score of 95.5 to tie the High in Class Score out of ten dogs trailing at the Started Level.  

Hunter qualified in the Arena work with a score of 82.5 and a Second Place out of 10 dogs with only two qualifying!!!

In the Stockdog Started work, Drummer qualified twice, with a score of 89 (5/15) and 87 (4/15) dogs trialing.

Hunter qualified once with a score of 79 1/2 (10/15) dogs participating.

The stockdog courses involved chores that a person would use a dog as a helper to accomplish on a sheep ranch.  They involved working in two arenas, a round pen, and sorting pens. Some of the work, my dogs had no clue about, but they did their best.  Hunter lost points in the sorting pens because he just couldn't stand to sit idly by and let me sort sheep into the pens by myself.  I would have to stop what I was doing and take him back to his position.  He improved each day and I was glad of that.

Here is an example of one of the Started Stockdog courses.  Take 7 sheep (three of which will be marked) from the take-pen.  Bring them through a fenceline chute across a 220 foot arena and put them all into the round pen with three other sheep (which are marked)  Leave the three marked sheep you brought to the pen in the round pen, and take the three marked sheep that were in the pen when you arrived, along with the four unmarked sheep and put them into the other larger arena.  Take them through a fence-line panel and then through a freestanding set of panels, do a figure 8 with them,  leave them there, take your dog 60 feet away and send him to gather the sheep (presuming the damn things are still there), bring all seven of the sheep through a pen into the first arena, take them through a free-standing pen and do an 's' turn to put them all into a foot-bath holding chute, have the dog hold them in the chute until you open the gate at the far end to let them out.  Shut the gate (-4 pts. if you forgot) and then re-pen the sheep in the exhaust pen.    Whew!!!! 

Came home much more educated with a list of stuff I need to practice with my dogs and thrilled with the work they managed.

Another plus was that the diesel pulled the new trailer as though it wasn't there and everything in the trailer worked wonderfully.

                                                                                                     

But the best thing of all???? A comment from the judge, "Nice, calm handling."  
                           Imagine that...

                                                          Drummer, Judi, and Hunter Dude

Members' News

Spring has sprung.  Believe it.  It rained so hard two days ago that the worms left the ground. 
Squish....yecht.  And Shar's new puppy found the mud in the ditch!! 

Denise and Jagged are competing in Oregon and sent us a video of their performance.  Very nice to see Jagged running again after a long recovery from a broken toe.

Sharlet and Jonty have sandhills cranes visiting the ranch.  How strange to walk outside and see two tall wading birds standing in the middle of your pasture.  

Sometimes, the reaction isn't quite what was expected.......

I don't think Deb expected this puppy to do an ape-leap!!!

Maureen has volunteered to judge the first Independent Scent Hurdle Race at Dignified Dogs in Calgary. 

Good luck to all the teams and treat the judge like royalty!!

Good luck to everyone who is traveling to compete in next week's Medicine Hat Dog Show. 

        See you soon!

The Prez