Unsere Beardies waren auch diesen Sommer sehr aktiv!

Zuerst gab es auf unserer Circle-C-Ranch ein 1-wöchiges HÜTETRAININGSLAGER, mit anschließendem Trial.

Als Trainer & Richter konnten wir Hrn. Terry Workman (USA) einladen. Ich, und auch einige andere Beardie Besitzer kennen Terry bereits von schwedischen, bzw. finnischen Hütecamps - und es ist daher kein Wunder, dass unsere Teilnehmer nicht nur aus Österreich, sondern auch aus Deutschland, Belgien, Frankreich, Tschechien und sogar aus Finnland angereist kamen, um an Terry´s Seminar teilzunehmen.

Terry ist - genauso wie seine Frau Jody, die ebenfalls ein paar Tage hier bei uns verbrachte - ein ganz wunderbarer Mensch, der sich toll in die Hunde hinein versetzen kann.

Liebe Jody, lieber Terry, ich danke euch, dass ihr den weiten Weg nicht gescheut habt und ich hoffe, dass es nicht euer letzter Europatrip war :o)

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...und gleich danach begann unsere REISE NACH ENGLAND...

Ich habe Kassie schon als Welpe versprochen, ihr die "Heimat" zu zeigen - und jetzt - nach 14 Jahren habe ich mein Versprechen eingelöst!

Auch unser Urlaub war natürlich total auf unsere Hunde ausgerichtet!

Zuerst besuchten wir eine HUNDEAUSSTELLUNG

zu der wir Bella gemeldet hatten - 7 Hündinnen waren mit ihr in der Klasse - Bella bekam den 1. Platz!!! Gebäude, Bewegung und Felltextur hatte es dem Richter angetan!

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Voller Elan ging es dann in den Norden - dort wurden wir bereits erwartet - auf

Jackie Goulders Farm zum SCHAFE HÜTEN!

K A S S I E

Extra wegen uns wurde ein Hütetag für Beardies organisiert - zu dem Hunde aus ganz England & Schottland angereist kamen! Wir haben wundervoll arbeitende Hunde gesehen - mit und ohne Papiere (Beardie von Farmern aus Wales) - und interessante Gespräche über Zucht und Hüteveranlagung geführt! Liebe Liz, liebe Jackie - danke für die wundervollen Tage bei euch und die tolle Aufnahme!

hier geht´s zur: NEWS Seite von LIZ

J U L A

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viel Zeit für Sightseeing hatten wir nicht, denn wir waren auf einem

BEARDIE-WORKING-CAMP gemeldet: Fährte & Obedience

B E L L A

J U L A

standen genauso wie Agility am Programm.

B E L L A

Als Trainerin stand uns Madleine kompetent mit Rat und Tat zur Seite!
Auch dir liebe Madleine an dieser Stelle nochmals ein herzliches Dankeschööööön!

J U L A

Wie im Flug verging der Urlaub...

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...doch schon war das nächste Event angesagt:

der HÜTEWETTBEWERB in Budsov, Tschechien!

Nach anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten hatte Julchen einen guten Lauf - vor allem auf die beiden Outruns zum Ende hin bin ich stolz, aber auch darauf, dass Jula kurz vorm Einpferchen bemerkt hat, dass die Schafe weggehen wollen, und selbständig reagiert hat:

VIDEO CLIP: JULA´s Run - 3. Platz - 95 Punkte - vorzüglich

So schnell kann die schönste Zeit des Jahres vorbei ziehen!
Wir hoffen ihr und eure 4-Beiner hattet einen genauso schönen Sommer wie wir!

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It was an absolutely fantastic weekend for

4 of our "WORKING - BEARDIES"

Whilst BELLA and JULA gave prove of their sportive abilities, we can report of a great show result of PHOEBE and MERLIN

BELLA:
did her obedience & character test BH examination with the mark
"excellent" - she was the best dog out of 36 competitors!!!
Judge: Karl Ollinger

At the following Agility-examination, unfortunately her handler fall and Bella was disqualificated after a great run, because she run into the wrong side of the tunnel!

JULA:
after only 3 starts in Agility Class A-2 (3 times "excellent", and under the first three competitors) Jula was allowed to start in A-3. Despite I made a big mistake (was on a wrong position by a 3-hurdle-combination, so she missed one and it was difficult to bring her back without jumping over a wrong hurdle - that cost us 6.08 penality seconds), Jula did her A-3 examination with "very good"
Judge: Karl Ollinger

MERLIN:
I am very happy that Merlin is the best prove, that a good herding dog can also be handsome! He got "excellent-2" and a fantastic description at his first show. We hope it was not his last!
Judge: Margit Brenner

PHOEBE,
if she is not out with the sheep, clean and groomed well, she is able to do it: She did not only win her own class "excellent-1" but she got also the title BOB (Best of Breed) at the Club-Show in Upper-Austria
Judge: Margit Brenner

Congratulation to our great Beardies and their proud owners!!!

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Our dear Kassie celebrated her 14th birthday!!!

Though nowadays you can see her age, she is fit enough to manage "her" flock of sheep!

...and it goes without saying, that she is still the boss in our dog-family!

We hope to present you over here many future birthdays.

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...and again a great success for our Beardies!!!

--> Video Clip JULA

At this event we saw not only Beardies, but also Briards, Australian Shepherds and one Schafpudel, as well as one Berger des Pyrénées!

It was the first time, that in Austria the competition "Traditonal Style" was held in class 3 also!!

3 of the competing Beardies were bred by Sylvia Schaffer (Silbermine) - one in each class - and in each class won a Silberminen-Beardie :)Thanks Sylvia, for those great dogs!!!

Trial-Class-3: JULA - 92 points, excellent

Trial-Class-2: KASSIE - 95 points, excellent

Trial-Class-1: FUCHUR - 94 points, excellent

JULA is the only dog in Austria who can start at trial class 3!

...but also the other Beardies had some amazing runs:

Trial-Class-2:

1st: KASSIE - 95 points - herding is still the life of my 14 years old girl

--> VIDEO CLIP: KASSIE

2nd: OTHELLO - 85 points

Trial-Class-1:

1st: FUCHUR - 94 points

--> VIDEO CLIP: FUCHUR

2nd: BELLA - 92 points

4th: JOUJOU - 88 points (it was her first competition!!!)

8th: PHOEBE - 79 points

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Our judge, Mrs. Marion Fuchs, brought her own obstacles along, to make it a bit more difficult for us. So we got two gates, a Y-chute, as well as a very small round pen!

For me it is always amazing to see so many different breeds at work - and I think also this time we saw a few great runs:
RESULTS 2nd Circle-C-Trial:

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by the way: our next event is in July - a one week herding camp as well as our 3rd trial this year. This time we invited Terry Workman, USA, and as expected we were fully booked within a few days! So I look forward to this event, as well as to see you all again - spectators are also welcome!

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Also this year we used the long Easter weekend for a Herding-Clinic for all breeds at our Circle-C-Ranch . It was the 3rd time, that we could invite Gianni Canopoly (Italy)

The two-day-clinic was fully booked immediately, and we could watch Beardies, Australian Shepherds and even one Schafpudel, Pumi, Sheltie & Berger des Pyrénées .

For the first time we took the opportunity for a trial on the last day - in Farmer-Style ! It was the first trial for our Circle-C-Cup 2010 !

16 dogs started in two different classes.
It was a great challenge! For example in class 2 Gianni asked us to re-pen the sheep in a trailer (they never saw one before), and to do a straight driving!

It was again a big success for our Beardie-Group!!!

Class-2:
in that class only Beardies started! My old KASSIE did a good job, and was only beaten by her nice JULA :)

--> VIDEO Clip KASSIE

--> VIDEO Clip JULA

Class-1:
there were only 2 Beardies out of the 11 competitors, but the first place was a Beardie, BELLA!

--> VIDEO Clip BELLA

RESULTS:

!

This time we took part at a very special event: the

Beardie-Working-Tests

in Jihlava, Czech Republic.

There are 4 levels, and it was developed in England extra for our breed! It starts with easy obedience tasks and goes up to very challenging exercises!

The hard part is, that you need your minimum points (I think this are 70%) at each exercise - if you fail only in one, you have failed at the whole examination!

It was a big pleasure for us that both judges came from UK only for the Working-Weekend:

Mrs. Elizabeth Kershaw and
Mrs. Margaret Buckley (kennel: Holtend).

Nearly
50 Beardies came to this event - it was a great experience to see so many Beardies working!

With KASSIE I started only in class 1 - but she could reach 99 out of 100 points!

Kassie, also with 14 still an eager working dog!!!

Also JOUJOU has done level 1. Primary-Test .
We had to do the following exercises:

Heel work on lead with distractions (other dog, clapping people)

Refusal of food - after you have shown the dog the food it has to pass it without taking it, you were allowed to give commands

Call the dog

stay down for 1 minute

judge touches the dog, while sitting

JouJou (1 1/2 years old) - needs a bit more training, than she can also start at class 2!!!

Class-1 Primary-Test:
JULA got also 99 points, BELLA98 p. So we were qualified for the next level!

Jula - she loves working with me best - it does not matter which dog sport!

Class-2 / JUNIOR Test:
JULA: 97 points
BELLA: 93 points

...and again we were qualified for the next level! Out of all the Beardies only 9 got the qualification for level 3, and tried to start!

Bella, she also loves every dog sport and is an eager worker!

Class-3 - Intermediate Test:
...the dogs had to

stay down for 3 minutes - we were not allowed to look at them,

down and leave the dog - call him, after you have changed your way

call here and stop the dog at a marked point

jump: 60 cm

retrieve

look back for an item, which you drop down on command during the heel work, send the dog back

judge touches the dog - dog is standing on loose lead

and of course heel work with and without lead

...from the 9 competitors reached 7 dogs a qualification- also our dogs:

BELLA: 87 points and
JULA: 92 points

...because it was late afternoon and our dogs were very tired we decided to try level 4 on the next day...

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SUNDAY:

Class-4 - Senior Test:

Jula got all points for this exercise!!!

...the following tasks were to do:

5 minutes down - out of handler´s sight

heel work, with distractions

Searching for the small judge´s item. Area: 11 x 11 m - dog has to work independent, you were not allowed to cross the line of the search area, retrieve the item back to the handler

judge touches the dog, who was standing without lead a few steps away from the handler

Long jump: 150 cm

High jump: 75 cm

Send the dog back to your cloth - lay him down - put on your cloths - walk away - and call your dog for heel work.

...our young Bella was not prepared to come so far - so she did not train this task and failed here!

At the end three Beardies could finish level 4:

one of them JULCHEN - with a great scoring:
Jula: 94 out of 100 points

Another excellent work was shown by:
Pavlů Marek with "JACK" All My Life Kiaora (93 p.)

and Dvorácková Jolana with Apollo z Filipova Rance (96 points)
- no photo available, because she was not in our group!

Our thanks goes to our judge, Mrs. Margaret Buckley. She did not only judge fair, but took time for the dogs who have not passed to show them how to train in the future!

It was really an outstanding event! And we were glad that we got the chance to attended!

So thank´s also to Jana & Lenka, for organizing this great Beardie Event!

At the end I have to say, if you ever get the chance in taking part at a BEARDIE-WORKING-TEST - don´t miss it!

OTHELLO

...we took part was this year in Vál, Hungary. As it was the year before it was again a successful event for our Beardies :)

The trial was arranged by the Club of the French Herding Dogs. We saw many different kind of breeds: Mudi, Berger de Beauce, Berger de Brie, Malinois, Australian Shepherd, Berger des Pyrenées, and of course our Beardies :)

JULA

Unfortunately every now and then some of the participants lost their sheep, and it took a long time to find another group, because there was no fence.
So not all of us stayed for their run - after 8 hours of waiting some of the people drove home again!

JULA

There were more than 30 competitors - 3 of them had the bad luck to get a group which was not used to people and definitely not to round pens ;) - unfortunately 2 of the dogs where our Beardies Jula & Othello. Though they showed an excellent work, it was not possible to get a good mark! But it was definitely a very good training and the dogs could show that they where able to handle difficult sheep also!

BELLA

TRIAL CLASS-2 / 10 competitors:
2nd: Vallarens Ulla Bella - "excellent": 57 out of 60 points
3rd: Lucy´s Kassie Black von der Silbermine - "very good" 54 points

KASSIE

Kassie is nearly 14 years old, but herding is still her big passion and keep her in shape :)
Kassie got only 4 instead of 20 sheep - all the others run of and disappeared...

ERIN

TRIAL-CLASS 3: (10 competitors)
1st: Xancinetti Ducky Jonathan "Merlin"- "excellent": 68 out of 70 points
3rd: Erin z Vilete Bohemia - "excellent": 65 points
6th: Ulla Black Livies v.d. Silbermine - "very good": 51 points
-- Lindsay´s Black Dandy of Dog4U - lost the sheep during the attempt to re-pen them :(

MERLIN also got the title: "Best British Herding Dog"

OTHELLO had a great run till short before the end...

JULA

...we have trained herding...

ERIN

GWENNY

...and we have also done an Agility performance - without trying before Jula and her friend Skip did a "pair run" - they had no mistakes, and it was funny to see, that the distance between Jula and Skip was the whole time the same!

...and if this works so well at Agility, why it should not work just as well with sheep? And we were right: though there where 12 years difference in age, it worked perfectly - and was great to watch!

Our marvelous team: Kassie & Phoebe!

We wish all our friends and Beardie lovers a peaceful, successful, happy 2010!

We will organize also this year herding-clinics and trials - for more information please look at:
our Circle-C-Ranch

My Dear Beardie-Friends,

...again a very active and successful year for our breed has passed by!

And I think this year we were also able to present the Beardie in the right light - as he was, is, and should be in the future: a reliable, intelligent working dog!

So my special T H A N K S goes to all of you, who were bothered to work with your Beardie, and show at examinations and competitions the general public what skills our Beardies have!

I hope you stay turned on busy working also 2010 and wish you and your family in the name of our team of the "Circle-C-Ranch"

a blessed Christmas, and all the best for the next year!!

So long & Beardie Forever,
Gerlinde & Herbert Krachler