Continental Sheepdog Championship

The Continental Sheepdog Championship is the European Championship for sheepdogs and it has been held in Denmark this weekend. My friend Helle and I went to see the final today.

The 16 best sheepdogs in Europe and the 3 best juniors were competing in the final and it was a tough course!

The dogs had to do a double fetch (fetch one flock of sheep 700 metres away, then leave the first flock with the handler and fetch another flock, which was 800 metres away), drive the sheep around a course through 3 gates, then sort the sheep with the red collars from those with no collars and split them into two flocks, put the sheep with the collars into the pen (as shown in the picture) and finally seperate a marked sheep from the others.

They had 30 mins to complete the course, but in the 3½ hours we were there, no one completed the course in time. It was very very difficult.

I used to do sheepdog trials with Hero's great grandfather Robbie and his son Whisper, so it was a chance to catch up with old friends too. I never competed on this level though! I only did the novice and the intermediate classes!

Our dogs had a great day watching the sheep and the dogs and meeting lots of people. They are fast asleep now :-)

The boys and I stopped in Næstved on the way home and had coffee with my dad.

See you tomorrow.
Emmy and the Hazyland Boys