AHBA classes

[kelpiegirl]

I am planning on entering an AHBA trial, they are having HTAD and HRD classes (it will be HTAD course 4). Anyone have any idea what the differences are between these?

[juliepoudrier]

I am planning on entering an AHBA trial, they are having HTAD and HRD classes (it will be HTAD course 4). Anyone have any idea what the differences are between these?

IIRC:

HRD = herding ranch dog. Those are the classes that are meant to mimic the daily farm work, where you may have a take pen, a graze, a chute/footbath, etc., and you can pretty much walk around the course with your dog.

 

HTAD = herding trial arena dog. The course is set up in an arena. I believe there is some flexibility as to the types/number of obstacles, etc.

 

HTD = herding trial dog. These are the "miniature" courses that are set up like a standard USBCHA trial, only smaller.

 

If you go to the AHBA website and scroll down to the bottom, you can click on links to each of the course types for rules and descriptions.

 

J.

[kelpiegirl]

THANKS Julie. So, which one would you enter, for your first entry in AHBA? I am leaning toward HTD... I did go to the site, but didn't see a huge difference between htad and hrd, and I had to pick one to enter

 

IIRC:

HRD = herding ranch dog. Those are the classes that are meant to mimic the daily farm work, where you may have a take pen, a graze, a chute/footbath, etc., and you can pretty much walk around the course with your dog.

 

HTAD = herding trial arena dog. The course is set up in an arena. I believe there is some flexibility as to the types/number of obstacles, etc.

 

HTD = herding trial dog. These are the "miniature" courses that are set up like a standard USBCHA trial, only smaller.

 

If you go to the AHBA website and scroll down to the bottom, you can click on links to each of the course types for rules and descriptions.

 

J.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

HTAD is an arena course - we did ours in a lot 80X150 ft. HRD is similar to ISDS style courses associated with a USBCHA Open/nursery trial, though of course the distances and stock difficulty are scaled way back from what you'd even find in the novice classes.

 

Ah, let's see, I did course 4, I think - it was just the fetch panels, a few panel obstacles around the perimeter of the lot, then a pen. I want to say the pen was in the corner, too. We did ducks and sheep both.

 

Huh, I didn't know they still didn't have the courses and rules online! We moved a few months after the trial, so the book I had got lost. But I think you can get them pretty easy.

[laurie etc]

I am planning on entering an AHBA trial, they are having HTAD and HRD classes (it will be HTAD course 4). Anyone have any idea what the differences are between these?

Go to the AHBA website - www.ahba-herding.org - for a detailed description. Click on the various courses listed at the bottom of the page. Basically HTAD is an arena class in a smallish area with obstacles like chutes and pens - sometimes a take pen instead of a gather; and either a shed, a hold or a ribbon pull at the end. HRD is a ranch class which can be in a large area - but usually doesn't have a large outrun - just "farm task" type obstacles; and the course is designed by the host. Since HRD is not a prescribed class - you can email the trial secretary for a course description so you know what the lay out of the course includes.

Just wondering... where is the trial going to be? I might be looking for one on the East Coast. Laurie

 

ETA - looks like we all posted at the same time!

[kelpiegirl]

I have gone to the site-and it is somewhat helpful, but I really don't know what to enter. I am a dufous, I know.

 

Go to the AHBA website - www.ahba-herding.org - for a detailed description. Click on the various courses listed at the bottom of the page. Basically HTAD is an arena class in a smallish area with obstacles like chutes and pens - sometimes a take pen instead of a gather; and either a shed, a hold or a ribbon pull at the end. HRD is a ranch class which can be in a large area - but usually doesn't have a large outrun - just "farm task" type obstacles; and the course is designed by the host. Since HRD is not a prescribed class - you can email the trial secretary for a course description so you know what the lay out of the course includes.

Just wondering... where is the trial going to be? I might be looking for one on the East Coast. Laurie

 

ETA - looks like we all posted at the same time!

[juliepoudrier]

Julie,

I've only ever entered one AHBA trial, and since my dogs were open trial dogs, I chose HRD III, the advanced ranch dog level. The ranch course had a take pen (dog goes in pen--this one was probably a couple of hundred feet to each side, more of a paddock--to get the sheep out), a drive around the perimeter of a field through a simulated foot bath and then across a bridge into another very small field, where we had to push the sheep out to a pile of hay to simulate a graze. You then called your dog back to you, sent it on an outrun to gather the sheep off the hay, and then did a miniaturized USBCHA style drive and cross drive (and it was tiny, measured in feet). The sheep were then taken back across the footbridge and put in a three-sided pen, one side of which was the fence line. This was a standard sized pen like you'd see at a USBCHA type trial. You then had to use the dog to get the sheep out of the pen (dog could go in the pen or behind the pen, whatever you chose). After that, the sheep had to be loaded on a freestanding stock trailer in the middle of the field.

 

I chose the ranch course simply because it seemed like it would be fun. HTAD didn't exist at the time, and the HTD course was simply the small USBCHA course held in the field where the trial host normally runs N/N and P/N classes. I believe there was a ribbon pull (a modified version of the shed in which the dog holds the sheep to you and you remove a ribbon--snatch it off--from the neck of one sheep). I just didn't think that course would be a challenge for open trial dogs. Plus I'm on a herding list that is mainly AKC, ASCA, and AHBA herding types and they always talk about how the ranch course is a much better test of a dog because it simulates "real chores," followed by the standard comments about how border collies aren't as well-suited for such courses because border collies are "big field" dogs. So I basically entered to see what it was all about.

 

That said, I think the advanced HRD courses can be fun, especially if they are set up in a thoughtful and realistic manner (for example, I didn't get the idea of loading a trailer in the middle of the field, since if the HRD course is to mimic real life farm chores I think we all know that, given the choice, you would pull your trailer up along a fenceline and use that to your advantage), which is another reason I chose them. Some AHBA hosts have HRD trials that use a large flock, basically 20 sheep instead of 3 or 4. I think that would be really fun too.

 

I don't trial AHBA simply because I found the entry fees to be steep for what you get. At the one trial I attended, the fee was higher per run than it is for a USBCHA open run. Since I have sheep and can do chores at home, I just didn't consider the AHBA trials necessarily a wise use of my money. That's not to say I'd never do it again, and it might be fun to take the youngsters out and try them in the ranch classes, but I don't make a practice of it.

 

The HTD course Becca describes was pretty funny. The course had been set and the people running the trial came in and rearranged it to make it smaller. They were literally measuring distances in feet as well, just to give you an idea of the scope of such classes.

 

Anyway, I would guess that if your dog can do a P/N course (i.e., can drive, even if not a full course), you'd be fine in the advanced HRD class or HTAD class. Laurie's suggestion of contacting the host to find out what the course entails is a good one, although I thought that the hosts usually send out the descriptions with the entry forms. Either way, you can ask to see what will be expected of you and your dog and then decide. If it helps you any, I would automatically put my open dogs in the advanced class. I would enter Lark (who has run in maybe four trials at P/N in advanced). I might put the pups in the next-lower-down class.

 

J.

[Lenajo]

HTAD courses are set patterns, arena courses. You can get the patterns from the AHBA rulebook, downloadable online from their webiste.

 

HRD course are ranch courses, set by the farm offering them and approved by the AHBA during sanctioning. They have to include basic skills, progressive by level, but otherwise they can be a lot of different things depending on the stock and the farm involved. The course will be posted in the premium list for the trial.

 

You can enter both at the same trial. They are seperately judged and titled.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Okay, you can only get the HTAD courses from the home page. Doh.

 

Yes, I did course 4 here. We did a gather, and for the ducks, because they were squirrelly, we did a simultaneous pen and re-pen - basically they did a "catch pen" that went right into a closed pen. That was fun, because many of the handlers never figured out that my sheep don't "draw" to them, and the ducks were downright terrified of people when worked in small groups. If I had had my druthers, we'd have kept the "arena" the original size, because one needed to give the stock space - not from the dogs, but from the people! The turn around the post turned into quite an "obstacle" because the ducks wouldn't pass through between the people and the fence.

 

But it was a lot of fun. Definitely call ahead and see what they are doing, because there is some leeway on courses.