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I had the same question about who the judges were, but I didn't want to take up Geri's precious cell phone minutes. I'll see if we can find out. She did say something to the effect that it seemed that many non-UK handlers were having trouble figuring out what the judges were looking for.

 

I was one of the sheep spotters for a big trial in California this spring which utilized two English judges. After each day's running I was privileged to have time to visit with them over wine and cheese and I found their observations and comments fascinating and thought-provoking. They both were absolutely clear in their thinking about what they were looking for in a dog's run, and it had MUCH to do with the way in which the dog handled the sheep; some would call it 'style'. They were very hard on dogs which followed rather than took their sheep, for example. Lots of handlers were puzzled by their scores at the end of the day, but I found that I was able to predict with some reliability which dogs would point well and which would not, based on what I had learned from them.

 

Over here, style, or method, has been de-emphasized as a judging criterion, probably because it smacks of subjectivity, but in the end, if the judge as been consistent in his/her evaluations, all you've got is one person's opinion anyway.

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Congrats to Scott and Pleat- yipeee! Doesn't really matter if they come in first or last, just the fact that he had the opportunity to go over and compete is pretty darned cool.

 

Hi Wendy- any chance Rural Route videos is going to publish THIS one??? If so, sign me up like NOW. :rolleyes::D

 

ps, I have watched the 2004 ISDS International about 4 times now and can't get enough. Thanx again!

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Congratulations to Scott and Tom. I am sure we all have had a great time following their trials and tribulations! Can't wait to read and to see the trials. I sure do hope Martin Penfold of Rural Routes is going to make tapes of the World Trial 2005 and I do hope they will include some footage of Scott and Pleat, Tommy and Pearl.

 

Congratulations again, and have a good time while you are there!

 

Wendy and Brian

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Well, we will see in the next few days if anybody thinks it was worth it. It appears that the airlines saw us coming because they told everone to book return flights when you were in Ireland. When we started to book the return flights for the dogs we found out that we were quoted dramatically lower return amounts than they actually are. I am hearing the same from other people over there. It's going to cost us $400 to ship one dog back as extra baggage (you can only do one as extra baggage- we were not told that) and the other has to go as cargo and that is $1,681. We thought we were going to be lucky to get back at that price until we found out that it's going to be too hot to ship the dogs back on the same flight as Scott. Now they both have to go cargo to a different destination so we will be paying at least $3,362 (fyi it only cost us $2781.15 to send both dogs over and that included a vet visit and customs care and a kennel stay.) maybe more since we now have to fly them on a different airline. There are no flights from Dublin to Canada that aren't in the middle of the day. We think we can ship them to Seattle, but this is just terrible. We are not going to be the only ones with this problem. I think as people get ready to fly home they are going to realize that it's too hot to fly them. The weather is not the airlines fault but the inflated prices for a return trip are.

I think the world trial is not going to get anymore people from North America if they don't do something about the air flights. They should move it to the fall, right after peak season. Then flights would be lower, and there would be no worry about shipping dogs in hot weather. They wouldn't lose that many tourists, because I'm sure most of the people attending are either people going over just to see the trial, or are local people. The amount of tourists that were already going to Ireland, and added the trial to their itinerary must be very few.

Sorry to be such a downer but this problem with the airlines is realy burning me. I guess the trial people were going to talk to the airlines but I can't see that they were going to beable to do anything about it.

Thank goodness Scott had sponsors or we would have had to leave both dogs behind. I have heard other competitors are thinking they might have to leave dogs behind as this was an unexpected expense.

Jenny Glen

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Hi Jen,

 

Tell Scott congratulations!

 

Got 2 questions for you.

 

Were you able to book the return flights for the dogs, before Scott went over? Or did they tell you, you had to book the return flights from Ireland?

 

On Sunday, the reports said that it got hot when the sun came out in the afternoon. What was the temp and did the handlers retire because of the affect of the heat on the dogs, or were the sheep also cranky from the heat and posing problems. I was curious, because even with my limited trialing I have heard negative comments from oversea judges about how our dogs don't have any stamina, but I don't think they normally run thier dogs in 90 degree temps with high humidity overseas.

 

Hope Scott, Pleat and Gwen have a safe return.

 

Nancy O

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Nancy,

OK this is how it happened for us. Scott orginally talked to the airlines, they told him he couldn't book the return flights in advance. Reason being that if there was a dead body booked on the flight, the dogs couldn't go with it. Go figure. They quoted him around $300. This was to send the dogs home as excess baggage-something you couldn't do on the way over because of DEFRA So he called me from Ireland and said book it. So I called the airline who said "nooo". You can't send these dogs excesss baggage! After some more calls, I got both dogs booked as excess baggage but was told that the distance was too long, and it was going to be under review. Then I got a message that said, You can only ship one dog excess baggage, the other has to go cargo. So I tried to book one dog cargo but was told that I had to call Ireland to do it. I couldn't book it with the Canadian cargo. So they gave me some numbers that aren't right because they don't care and aren't trained with the proper information. I finally get a cargo number for Ireland, but you can't book directly to cargo over there. You have to talk to an agent - like a travel agent for cargo. Called the recommended number but was told that I couldn't possibly book the dogs this close. It would take at least 10 days because she had to email the airlines, they had to email back then she had to email me. She wouldn't do phone calls. I yelled at her that this was silly and called another agent who, finally, had a clue and made all the calls in 20 minutes (needless to say I emailed the other place and in a nice way told them to stick it) and had Gwen booked on the same flight as Scott. BUT it was going to cost $1,687 Canadian, AND they probably wouldn't fly the dogs because there was a stop over in Toronto and it was too hot there. All flights, no matter what airline or which country had stop overs out of Dublin. Heathrow had direct flights, BUT that meant that neither dog could go as excess baggage they both had to go cargo because Scott was flying out of Dublin and that is where the prices got insane. Like I said before, on the way over we shipped the dogs domestic to Vancouver where they stayed in a kennel, got a vet exam, got a tick treatment, were put on a plane, picked up and walked and taken through customs and we still paid $1,000 less to do all of that than for Scott to walk to the cargo office drop off the dogs and pick them up at the other end.

We found a nonstop, cheaper (around $1,000) cargo with Joy Crawfords flight, so she took Pleat with her and is shipping him from Scotland to Montana on wednesday. We sold Gwen because it was too much to bring her back.

We were not the only people with this problem. Some people seemed to not be screwed as badly, Joy had good rates for example. I would get names before I shipped next time and I would make sure someone lost their job if this happend to me again.

It was hot on Sunday. Scott never saw any complete runs because of the havoc of trying to find a way out of the country that wouldn't break us. The trial secretary was being kind and allowing everyone to use their site phone for free. Scott said it was "like Virginia" on that day and it was too hot. Tommy's Virginian dogs might have done well in that enviornment. Scott certainly felt Pleat would be fine. It was luck of the draw in the Semi's that put both of them in the AM on the bad sheep.

Jenny Glen

Jenny

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Hey Jenny - I understand if you don't want to say who bought her, but will we be seeing Gwen over here again, or is she staying overseas?

 

Glad you got stuff worked out. Have you pulled all of your hair out yet in frustration?

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Just got back from Ireland tonight after a very long and somewhat trying day. I have to agree with Jen, from everything I heard, shipping dogs home was a real problem for some. One handler was informed, in Ireland, that cash was required for the return trip not credit (as was used on for the trip over there), and the handler was hard pressed to find enough cash.

 

Yesterday was very hot. Only six competitors finished the course out of sixteen. The finals course was very difficult. Dogs had to outrun on the come bye side to sheep that were a half-mile out. The roll of the land meant that the sheep were not always in sight on the outrun. A complication was a fence that ran between the main part of the field and the section where the sheep were being held out. A dog that ran REALLY widely out to the side and along the outside fence, could get through an opening in the interior fence and finish the outrun up and around the sheep.

 

The other opening for this fence was just in front of the sheep - many dogs came up to this interior fence and ran clockwise along it, right past the sheep. Several that found the opening, wound up crossing over in front of the sheep as they came through the fence and finished their outrun.

 

Jim Cropper's Sid saw his sheep after working back and forth along the fence, and jumped the fence, and then another fence inside that interior fence, to get to his sheep. Jim Cropper has a book out now. His handling was very interesting - real quiet, not a lot of whistles and "micro-managing" and very impressive.

 

The second gather was located about 1/2 mile to the right of the first group, and also about 1/2 mile from the handler's post. Some dogs never found these sheep. Two dogs in a row cast wide on this away side, didn't see the sheep, and jumped the fence surrounding the trial field, and went down towards a paved estate road, looking for the sheep.

 

After the lunch break (which happened at noon), most dogs retired after the outruns and fetches. It was too hot for most of the dogs for such a huge course.

 

The scope and difficulty of the course was amazing. A few dogs never found their sheep and were retired, or never found their second group of sheep. This was an incredibly astounding group of dogs and handlers. The quality of some of the work was unbelievable.

 

Spectators (apparently knowledgeable and experienced sheep and dog men) in my part of the stands commented VERY favorably on Scott's and Tom's semi-finals runs, and seemed surprised that their scores weren't significantly higher.

 

The winner and reserve in the finals had runs that even I could see were outstanding in a field of fabulous dogs and handlers, and well-deserving of their winning places.

 

Jen, you would be pleased (and not surprised) that I heard comments from the spectators and others on what a nice person Scott is. I also heard nice things about Tom Wilson. There were a number of folks who thought they belonged in the finals, or at least higher up in the scoring in the semi-finals. They represented Canada and the US with style and class.

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Thanx for those comments Sue! I'll pass them on to Scott. I did read what Patrick said. What a mess. Pleat flies out tomorrow with Joy Crawford and her dog. She has a stopover in Denver and they won't let the dogs fly any further from there because it's too hot. She lives in Montana. She was very frustrated and wanted Scott to get on another plane tonight (he gets into Calgary at 8:45) and fly to Denver and rent a car to bring the dogs to Montana. I told her I didn't think that was a good idea. For obvious reasons. I did tell her that we'd split the cost of a rental car with her if she'd drive back from Denver with them. She'll already be there so she might as well. She wants to talk to Scott so she'll call us back tonight at 2:00AM. I'll be glad when this is over.

Jenny

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