DAL trial

Yes I drove to Edmonton on Friday. When I left Olds at 9 am I got on the #2 and got as far as Bowden and turned off and went for coffee at a friends. I was debating to wait till early Saturday morning ( 4 am ). Glad I did not.
I phoned friends in Red Deer to see if they were still going. They were. We met up in Red Deer at noon.
To get to Red Deer I drove the 2A. It was a very good choice. the hiway was snow covered , hardly any traffic and visibility was good.
Trip to Edmonton was twice as long as usuall as we drove mostly at 80kms. Sometimes slower.
Mostly both lanes were clear of snow, slippery sections, visibility was still good.
The wind however was really pushing on the van.
The big 4x4 trucks blasted past us and shortly ended up in the ditch. My little van and I tootled along and made it without any scary incidents.
At the trial boys did fairly well, not alot of Q's , lots of learning stuff, especially with Luc. I really, really have to pay attention "all the time" where on the course he needs the collection cues...will someone hit me on the side of the head to remind me?!!!
Standard and jumpers were the NQ's, gamblers on the other hand were unbelievable...
Luc was in his first Advance gamblers, under Christina, there was 2 mini gambles, one worth 14 pts with 12 weaves and a tunnel and the other was 12 pts with 3 jumps which included the 4 pointer. He got both those twice which left us at 52. Then we did the wall twice, teeter some other jumps and tunnels.then I was left standing wondering where to go next as I ran out of obstacles to do.Christina laughed, she knew exactly why I stood there. Finally the whistle blew and he blasted the main gamble and got it!!! When the dust had settled he ended up with 130 POINTS!!! Now that blew my mind. I have gotten just over a 100 with Cavall once or twice , but this? What a start to the weekend!
His second advance gamblers he earned 84 points. one more advance and he is in Masters.
What a dog!

remembering the special ones

This is Lisa Von Birkland, our beautiful intelligent pure of heart, German shepherd. She passed away 2 months before her 14 birthday.
1980-1994

Lisa came from working lines,
her father was:
Ulk vom Bungalow SchH III AD KK1 11a who was originally
from Germany
her mother was:
Katja Vom Bergmannshof SchH I AD KK1 Ia, also originally from Germany

She was with our 4 boys and was the best dog ever, so kind and gentle with kids, She actually got some kids over their fear of dogs.
Always remembered with love, Thank you Lisa!

Brrrrrrr

Its here, - 21 this morning,
winter tires on today. Starting to get ready for the DAL trial. Long underwear and wool socks will be packed.
Dogs are in the house alot more now. Sleeping inside.
Cats have the heater on full blast in the "cat house"
Mama cat who is 16 1/2 yrs old does not want in the house, probaly because she has always been an outside cat.
Cheech our 12 1/2 yr old cat and is a huge one ( 18 lbs ) is helping to keep her warm.
Luc loves the cold and the belgians are having a hard time walking in it.

sheep

Yesterday Luc went chasing sheep! When he was 9 months old he did really well, than at 1 year old he was not interested.
Yesterday we opened the gate and he ran in, 3 sheep went in 3 different directions. We let him have fun. Now I want to go back and see how he progresses with this.
Thanks Lou! Isla too. I think she got him all riled up, thinking he was a stud muffin and the sheep let him blow off steam. Luc is very sensitive and always wants to do what is asked of him. I think the instinct will come out even more if we just get out and do this.

Thoughts

Luc has been in 2 trials, Our first one was our group, Training Troop trial in Oct.
He was just in 2 runs per day. Our next trial was in Calgary at the CAA Nov. trial.
He was entered in everything. I was very pleased with him.

Words that people have used to describe him are, kind, common sense, thoughtful, and the latest one is peaceful. I agree with these descriptions of him.
Do not let these words foolyou into thinking of a easy,loping dog on course. He is a speedster.

We had to move our equipement out of the arena for 2 weeks as they are having a couple of cow sales in there. So I brought some equipement home. Teeter, jumps, weaves and tunnels.
Today we are going to do some jump grids.

Australian Kelpie Wranglar Lilly burradooranch.com

This is Luc's mom working in the sheep station in Australia before she was imported to the US