Our first ‘Intro into the World of Sheepdog Trialing’ write up

The NISDS held their very first ‘Intro into the World of Sheepdog Trialing’ and we were very pleased to see some new faces who are eager to get involved with the sheepdog trialing World. 🐶🐑

Last night, James P McGee and his family held our first event. James demonstrated and explained how a dog from the puppy stage can develop into a trailing standard.

James started off with a pup that was 6 months old going just around the sheep and explained how at that stage that you don’t want to do a long training session as it can be a lot for a young pup to remember but about 5 minutes training, three times a day would be perfect in an ideal world to start a young dog.

We moved on to the next dog which was a litter mate but was further on in his training and showed us how much further that dog was advanced compared to his litter mate. James showed us two other dogs at further on stages and explained the different methods he would use in training but James emphasised that every dog is different to train.

This led to James showcasing his open standard trial dog Nan. James first sent Nan out to gather up a few sheep in a large field with the sheep at his feet, he commanded Nan to turn back and leaped the gate and gather up the flock of ewes and lambs in the field behind and drove the sheep around the field. This is to show the capabilities of a fully trained sheepdog.

After our refreshments, we give volunteers a chance to show their dogs working and James would go out with them and give his opinion on what they might do to improve and go forward with their dogs. Throughout the evening everyone got chances to ask questions and James answered them the best he would with advice and what you might what to try to get a solution to the problem.

Overall, it was a great night and a great learning evening for everyone. Our V-Chairman, Gerard Hegarty ended the evening with thanks to James and his family for hosting the first event and also everyone who attended and we look forward to the upcoming events.

Our next events-

📍03/08/2022- 7 PM- Ballymaclary Farm, BT49 0LG, Limavady

📍17/08/2022- 7 PM- (J McCloskey’s) Tulnaree, Carndonagh, F93E8WF