Picking up a single

[Guest Sue Whiteman]

Actually this is another judging question...

I was at the French Nationals last weekend and watched some vrey difficult sheep being nudged carefully around the course. one problem was that by the end of the very hot afternoon they knew where the exhaust was.

One handler "lost" a ewe...they had a tendancy to split easily if too much pressure was applied (but steadfastly would NOT shed...). Unfortunately the split happened while the flock was being driven towards the exhaust corner of the field. Normally I woudl have expected teh handler to stop the flock and either wait for the odd one to rejoin or send the dog back on a look-back to pick it up.

This handler flanked the dog and took the entire flock back to the split single, probably fearing a break to the exhaust for the sake of one ewe was worth the loss of points.

My question is, how would you judge it? Points off for turning back and being off-line (the turn-back wasn't on-line with the gates). Anything else? How many points and is there another way of dealing with this situation?

 

Sue

[Guest kimkathan]

From my past experience in this situation, it has been dependant on two things, weather the ewe broke off because of something the dog did/did not do, and the person judging. It's usually easier to bring the flock to one sheep than it is to try and work one sheep back (It always seems easier in theory). In our area, the judges usually will take off any where from 2-4 pts. if it was NOT dog error, but that always depends. If it was dog error they will take off much more even if you can get the sheep re-grouped. They like to see stockman ship rather than trying to get your dog to do something and cause a wreck.