The National Finals by Donald McCaig

June’s qualifying run was third from last in the late afternoon, hottest part of the day. When I went to the post she really wanted to go left (fixing on the road traffic) but she’s a shallower outrunner than Luke and although she’d take a redirect and go toward the sheep, I feared that once she got over that first ridge and out of sight, she’d come to the center of the course down that gully and reappear (as many before) crossed over.

The outrun is supposed to be genetic so every command until the dog gets behind the sheep is a point off. A cross over is 19 points off and befuddles the dog. Thirteen minutes. I set June up on the left, punched my watch and sent her. Sure enough she started to come left. Whistled “down” and “away to me”. She took the redirect but started to come in again. Voice “Down” Whistled. “Away”. The third time I voice downed her voice redirected and, she understood and sailed out 

past the end of the stone wall and the rest of her outrun was fine. Nothing wrong with the lift. The sheep came off steady and onto the fetch which was fairly straight — they came back up after disappearing where they should be. At this distance they rarely can see the dog behind the sheep. One’s commands are determined by what the sheep are doing. They liked to slip downhill to the right and end behind the stone wall which was not only awkward but expensive to correct so I kept June on the downhill side holding them higher than they wanted to go. They were slightly off line most of the way to the fetch gates but they hit the gates. Two ewes, two lambs and as they neared the handler’s post, my heart lifted. None of my flocklet were related. No mother and daughter reunions in the shedding ring.

As they passed between me and the spectators, they spotted the shade under the tents and wanted to go there but that was predictable and June forestalled them. They didn’t like going back into the blazing sun toward the drive panels but June held them on line perfectly until they were so far through the panels I thought June was through too. MISTAKE! As the crowd groaned they slipped across the FRONT of the panels. An expensive error. But June held them on early part of the crossdrive. A band of reddish vegetation allowed handlers to know just where that elusive crossdrive line (between drive and crossdrive panels) was but that vegetation disappeared as the sheep passed in front of the stone wall. Everyone wears special shooting glasses to help gauge the crossdrive gate opening. Often you can’t tell exactly where the sheep are in relation to that opening until they’re in it or past it high or low. If they’re running it’s much harder of course. The wall swerved back from the line and the best way to guess the opening in the gate was the relationship of the sheeps’ heads to the wall behind them. If the sheep seemed to be getting taller as they trudged across you were probably on line.

The sheep — a farm flock — were mildly panel shy (“What’s behind that white thing, Martha?”) but not as bad as range sheep who sometimes shy in the opening and refuse to pass through. I kept June well off them so they moved slowly toward the panels growing taller. At the last minute I downed June and the sheep drifted right through.

They drifted a little too far before June caught them (minor fault). June put them back on line from the panels to the center of the shedding ring. The handler cannot leave the post until all the sheep are in the shedding ring but with two minutes remaining my whole body was straining for release. There! In! I run to block the flocklet, call June around, threaten the flock so they line up and the two ewes bolt and I have an opening. I called June in and she turns the two lambs.

“Good!” the judge calls.

Fifty one seconds left. I jog to the pen. Fortunately my sheep have stayed in the ring so I needn’t waste time regathering. I call June around as I jerk the gate open and clutch the end of the eight foot rope attached to it. Gate, rope, handler, handler’s crook on one side of the sheep, dog on the other. Aim the sheep for the gate hinge. Thirty seconds left. SECOND MISTAKE. I pushed too hard. Thirty seconds is a lifetime. Three sheep went in but one ewe slipped the pen and the others followed and the course director called “Thank you”.

“Thank you” usually means “ You’re disqualified” score zero but I heard it used for a woman handler whose dog was overheated so the judge called her off. (She kept her points.)

June had done fine, everything I asked of her and I had lots of dog left. I bent over and gave her a pat. As June left the course, the pickup dog came for her sheep and one of the lambs jumped over the dog. The Course Director, a courtly gent in a white straw cowboy hat met me at the gate to explain that I hadn’t been DQ’d, he’d meant to call “Time” and I thanked him.

There’s shade and a tub of cold water for the dog when it comes off the course and handlers come over to congratulate or commiserate. Tommy Wilson, June’s breeder said, “She went well,” he said.

“She’s well bred.”

He laughed. “I added, “I rushed the pen.”

“Aye. Easy to do.”

Shay McMullen said, “You’ve got to be in.”

I shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

I couldn’t stand waiting for my score so I turned June over to my niece Rachael and went to the car to fetch Luke and calm down.

Ward Pearse intercepted me at the handler’s tent. “I think you just knocked me out,” he said. Pearse was on the bubble, the lowest scoring handler in the top forty. Hell of a nice guy.

“I dunno. How many points do you have?”

“Hundred eighteen.”

Heather Houlahan had spent the day with her two dogs and we said goodbye. Her young red dog had been a handful when he arrived. Now, he was a quiet dog at Heather’s feet.

“It’s been good for him,” I said.

Heather agreed.

Eileen Stein came toward me grinning. “One twenty seven,” she said.

June’s second run:

You get two hundred fifteen dollars for getting in the top forty which is fifteen dollars more than the dog’s entry fee. Finally this business is turning a profit!

I lay on my bed that night, too tired to think, too excited to sleep, rerunning June’s run over and over again.

When Rachael’s visiting, June is her dog and sleeps in her room. Rachael is June’s Life Coach.

In the morning I let Rach sleep while I took the dogs to the trial ground. The National Finals has very few paid employees: the police who monitor the road crossing between the campers and spectator parking, the setout people and the judges. Everyone else is a volunteer. The flowers outside the handlers’ tent, the free ice cold drinks, fruit, pastries, the scorekeepers, runners, judges’ helpers, course directors, gate and parking attendants, pick up handlers are all unpaid. Some of them drive a thousand miles at their own expense to work the Finals.

It’s a different course today with five adult ewes and in the cool morning they are running well. Same course as yesterday but they’ve moved the fetch panel behind that wall so the sheep must go through the panel then climb the wall and down — in a straight line to the handler — Instead of a simple split then pen, you’re to shed off any two of three unribboned sheep, regather them, pen them, let them back into the shedding ring and either of two ribboned sheep. Fifteen minutes. Possible score 220 points.

I imagine I spot a clump of deeper colored grass right in front of the crossdrive panel and tell my friend Shay about it. This is Shay’s second National Finals/his first in Open and when he scored 156 to qualify he phoned his mother and bought his dog a steak.

Handler’s don’t keep secrets and the tent is full of observations about the sheep and the course. “They want to go left at the drive panel but you have to watch for a hook right at the last.” Talking dogs and more dogs. Sheepdog trials allow mannerly pets and there are dozens of dogs — mostly Border Collies — but other breeds too under the tent.

In twenty three years, I have never seen a dogfight at a sheepdog trial.

The woman who self published “The Dog Wars” has arranged a book signing at 2 pm. I’ve drawn the 37th slot — same as yesterday — and they’re running 7 dogs every two hours so I say I’ll do it.

I woke up this morning worried. A civilian asks, “Are you having fun?”

“This is a sheepdog trial. What’s fun about that?”

Eight hours of worrying and fifteen minutes of agony.

Beverly Lambert’s Pippa is ten years old. She was second last year and won Soldier’s Hollow this year. Her run is as close to perfect, utterly beautiful, as any I’ve seen. The tent explodes with cheers when the score is announced: 205 points.

It is very beautiful. Although I’d like it to be my dog creating that beauty, I am blessed when another’s makes it happen.

I bring Rachael to the trial and chain my dogs under the car. When I chain a dog I put my keys somewhere they’re hard to get to. I know a vet who got an emergency call and…

Shay runs at noon and has a good run going but misses those damn crossdrive panels and after he gets his sheep penned, he slaps his leg and his dog misreads the cue and darts inside the pen and a big ewe slams into Shay and nearly escapes. Boucoup points off. Shay scores a 156.

By now I’m avoiding the handler’s tent — no breeze. Better to stand in the shadow of the construction trailer that is the USBCHA’s temporary office.

The crossing guard appears with June. The keeper that attached her chain unscrewed and so, being mannerly, June walked over to the little police post and explained that she was lost.

I do my book signing. It gets my mind off my run. We sell out of “A Useful Dog” — I’ve only brought fifty — and “The Dog Wars” is selling even better. I’m a little surprised about that. I guess the AKC’s shenanigans have touched more lives than I thought.

The scores start to drop. The sheep haven’t had a chance to graze and they’re overheated and cranky. Some of them fight the dog around the course, others take off running.

When you’re next, you can enter the little black blind and sit on a hot metal chair and reflect on what sins in a past life brought you to this place. The handler before me can’t keep his sheep on the course and retires.

June would still like to go left but I set her up right again. She got out there yesterday and SHOULD remember.

She does. Without a word or whistle from me June executes a flawless right hand outrun and stops behind her sheep. I call her up and though they’re heavy they lift properly and come onto the fetch line and its a good fetch, through the panels, over the wall – a little off line here, a point or two and to my feet. I’ve got two big white leaders, two middlings and a spotty-faced ewe whose having trouble keeping up. She’ll be my single. Around my feet, a jig and jag at the drive gates but through and turn onto the crossdrive. In the late afternoon that patch of grass at the crossdrive shas vanished and the 

sheep are moving pretty quick and a couple last second corrections (points off) before three sheep go through and two miss (more points off). I’ve five minutes left and these sheep are fairly easy to pen and shed.

It isn’t a great run but so far we’re probably in. I don’t think I actually think that thought — don’t have time to think — but maybe the pressure affects my brain because when, sure enough the ewes come into the shedding ring, panting, those two big whitefaces are in the lead and I block the last three and call June in ON THE WRONG DAMN SHEEP. I realize my mistake right away and turn June onto the escaping whitefaces who are still in the ring and wait for the judge’s “Okay!”

It doesn’t come, so June regathers the sheep and we go to hell in a handbasket. The sheep are wise to me now, cranky and unthinking. They run through the shedding ring and we never get a second chance and next time I check my watch we’ve a minute left and June’s tongue is hanging out and the sheep are stressed and we’re toast. So I tip my hat to the judge and call June off. She beelines to the cool water.

Rachael — who loves June — is painfully disappointed in me. I guess that’s fair.

A couple handlers come over to tell me how much they admired June. Allan Higgenbottom says, “Whatever happened today; yesterday your bitch beat 115 of the best sheepdogs in North America.”

That was yesterday. Shay doesn’t get into the 17 either.

As I’m walking to the car, a well regarded American judge intercepted me. “They should have called your shed,” he said.

“I turned her onto the wrong sheep.”

“Yes, and that should have been pointed. But she was controlling the proper sheep before they were out of the ring.”

“Well, I wish you’d been sitting in the judge’s tent.”

“Your bitch had them before they were out of the ring. We all saw it.”

“Oh well,” I said. “That’s sheepdog trialing.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Donald was author of Nop’s Trials, a classic sheep dog novel, as well as Rhett Butler’s People, authorized sequel to Gone With The Wind. He died November 22, 2018.