Jax the Gripper and our First Trial!

The weekend of Jax's second birthday was also the weekend of our first sheep dog trial. I was definitely nervous, the kind of nerves you feel before a horse show and your riding a 5 year old who hasn't been in a ring before. Jax wasn't nervous, the only thing that does that is small children and women over the age of 80. No, Jax was deliriously excited about two full days around sheep. And "cranked up" from having to wait all day around said sheep without getting to herd much.

Day one, Saturday. Overcast and windy (frankly miserably cold), but we were all ready and excited. Here's how it goes, everyone gets 5 sheep for their run. Let's just say we got some really shitty sheep. That gang of sheep that didn't want to play nice and who wanted to run as fast and far from my dog and not just make it easy.

Here we are at the start. Let this be said, Jax doesnt normally drag me into the field. He was off his rocker at this point from sitting in his crate all day. The sheep running willy nilly before we even started. 

"Wait......" 

See that leg, he gripped it shortly after this photo. DQ. 

So the entire run I was trying to get my dog to slow down and stop being such a predator. I've said this before, set your dog up for success. Seeing as he's such a young dog and still in serious training, sitting in the car all day, working with sheep that wanted to run away rather than play nice.... not setting him up for success. He grips when he sees no other solution (we're working on that). All in all Saturday happens to all of us, a whole bunch of dogs got disqualified from his run group. He's a lot of dog and that's one of my favorite parts about him :)