Here is the layout of the official course map from the trial - includes all three levels and yardage: Thanks Sherry Lee!
The C course is a hike out from the main barn and parking, if you look on google maps you can access it from the B course, and it is next to the B course and behind the pasture behind the small A course. There is a small white shed for B sheep in the corner of the pasture, and a good filled water stock tank for dunking heated tending dogs in the corner. The sheep on C were drawn to this corner of the field with the pens and tank and entry gate, so be aware when leaving the pen and hitting the traffic stop - both places where they might decide that they could make a break for it.
Sheep were reasonable, but I'm not sure they were familiar with being called out. They didn't act like sheep that were used to being called out of the pen or grazes, although by the end of my narrow graze they were starting to get the idea with my dog - Person rhythmically calls sheeeep, sheeeep, sheeeeeep, sheeeeep (or insert your rhymic call here) and if you don't move, dog will come put pressure on you until you come out. You can teach with grain, but also good to do positive reinforcement and positive punishment on them both, but gotta have some sort of verbal for them. Only fair to let them know what is expected and what the consequences are if you don't do what the shepherd suggests. With these you also had more of a challenge in your corners initially, and your bridge, as you had to put the dog farther from ideal then call them up to reset them as the stock passed, rather than being able to set them once. My sheep on Sunday were better about it and got the hang of wrapping around the dog on the corners by the time we hit our third use of that skill.
I would have like to string them out better, so that our road was easier to handle and they weren't so much of a blob, but hard to get them to relax. It somewhat happened for the terv and shepherd on Sat, we messed it up on Sat, and on Sun they seemed calmer in general but still blobby. That's the handler, dog and sheep problem - takes all three doing the right thing to string them out nicely. So I'll put the blame on us rather than them on this one. Easier on a bigger flock, or heavier flock. There was fence on a good amount of the narrow road, making this course an easier one than one out in the open, and as such perhaps a good one for hot dogs that need settling - you would have nearly 600' of narrow road adjacent to a fence to settle them and their sheep.
Grazes and roads were all very nicely mowed, with no boundary lines on the road, and no posts on the corner of the grazes. So if you have a dog looking for the side of the road, they'd either have to be working inside of what looks like a graze ( tall grass) or work in the road itself. I personally don't mind them being in the road itself, so it wasn't any different than my typical training situation. Grass was about 6-8 inches tall in the graze areas, so VERY easy to see where you were to go and the dogs didn't seem to have any problem. Spectators and photographer had a bit of a problem seeing my dog during the narrow graze, but that's because he's shorter than the average Shepherd! A few little track holes/short grass holes in the ADV graze, but nothing that should be a problem and of course that's seasonal anyway. I didn't mind lack of corner posts - I mostly train without, but that can make judging crisp corners difficult from a distance for the judges, and some novice dogs that need that extra little reminder. A couple of the grazes had two round corners and two crisp corners - not sure if that would be a problem for anyone. Remember - in reality a graze might be any shape at all, with any natural border, so little detail stuff like that should only get the person training only in one place and only too abstract. Grazes were on the small side, which was ok for an old dog, but might encourage running laps in drivey or hyped up younger pups. Graze times were on the long side of AKC standard, but still far too short for my taste. I think we did 12 for Adv and 10 for started?
Both bridges lacked wings, the started bridge being a white picket fence type, the advanced being two stock panels. Neither seemed to present a problem if the dog was handled correctly and the handler walked into the dog's pressure and confidently lead the sheep through. I think I "drowned" a few sheep on Sat, due to me being about 2 ft to the right of where I should have been, not leading them into my dog's pressure, and therefore losing several off the other side. Also my problem from not stringing them out enough - much easier to lead them over two by two than a big blob 5 sheep wide! I stopped the dog about 4 ft short of the bridge, and then called him up another foot, but they weren't settled enough to have him right at the panel where the ideal would have been.
The narrow graze as you can see on the map was inset, with the long side running along the narrow road. This presents a handling challenge to come into the short end properly (probably requiring a nice corner placement of the dog) and exit the opposite short end properly without running into the adjacent graze areas and staying on the boundary/road areas. Definitely doable though with this small flock, and probably up to 60 or so. Nice and long, and just narrow enough for the flock to span out across it. The sheep were happier to eat here, or they had figured out me and my dog, as they relaxed and nearly immediately started grazing on Sun. They stayed pointed the right direction, ate and slowly moved forward. Given that I used 39 min of the 45 min course, and was given no time max for the narrow graze, I'd say that it took a fair amount of time and that it might be possible to run overtime if you had any bobbles or stalls and still tried to graze them properly. That's strategy though, and I'll just have to wear a stop watch next time!
Overall a nice course, well kept and much appreciated!
