When I am traveling, I wake up at dawn. Doesn't matter whether I have to, I can't help it. Of course dawn comes remarkably early at the latitude of Washington in midsummer, so after a cupful of sleep, I rose to birdsong, fed and walked my dog, ate breakfast, packed my car, for I was not returning to Vashon after the trial ended, and finally, woke the others. They did not share my perky morning behavior. More like the living dead. We just barely made the ferry in time.

Despite promised rain, it was hotter than ever on Sunday. I had promised myself that, whatever else happened,we were not going to make the same mistakes on the ducks that we had on Saturday. I had practiced solidifying Bonnie's drops on Pat's ducks Saturday evening. And I carefully watched the best Advanced runs. That was enlightening! Those dogs were WAY off their ducks, sometimes half the arena away.

Before I could put this new knowlege into practice, it was time for my sheep run. It went about the same, only a little worse. Bonnie was more barky, the sheep were more glued to me. But we managed to get around the course acceptably, I thought.

Finally the ducks. I dropped Bonnie whenever she got within fifteen feet. It worked! The ducks waddled their ducky way up the fence, through the first panel, and then, of course, turned for home. But Bonnie was far enough away that I could flank her around me and redirect them. Off they toddled through panel two. There they stuck, but Bonnie is a wizard at winkling stock gently out of corners, and they didn't stay there long.

They holed up in the far corner of the repen fence line while I opened their pen gate with Bonnie on yet another down. Then I flanked her way wide to bring them. Good job, that'll do. Not a beautiful run, with all the drops, but I was pretty sure it was a qualifying one. I was done for the day.

Turns out, I can either watch trials or run in trials but I can't do both very well. I missed observing about three quarters of this trial, because I knew I needed to just focus on me and my dog until my runs were over, and Started runs come late in the day. The way this trial was judged, the cattle were run after the ducks were over, so I was able to see a lot of cattle and the last of the sheep. Now I felt a lot more like talking to people too.

There were a lot of people to talk to. My head began to spin a bit. It was very hot and humid, and besides going to bed at midnight and getting up at four thirty a.m. every morning, I had also mostly stopped eating, because I lose my appetite when I am overwrought (I ended up losing six pounds in eight days). I was running on coffee and nerves, and had been for days now. There were some dramas. For example Marti Parrish's dog Lucas mixed it up with a cow, stopping the trial in its tracks for awhile (although it looked awful, he came out of it with only bruises).

And, on the wholly positive side, I watched Tim Ballard and his young dog Zorra do magic with sheep. I think I will always remember that sheep run as a model of teamwork and Aussie finesse. Zorra was exact, slow, and totally confident. She turned those sheep dead on for the free-standing pen, and they walked in a straight line right into it from the second panel. They acted like deadbroke old ewes out for a stroll. They weren't though. All this, by the way, with no clapping, no huge wide Border Collie-style flanks, just that cool Aussie eye.

At long long last, the cattle were over, the scores were tallied. Oh what a long day. Tim and Zorra won High Score Sheep, no surprise there. But I was amazed: I had won Started Ducks! That was my STDd title. I had qualified in sheep too: that was my STDs. But at the end, I was even more amazed, because my previous day's sheep run was the highest Started score that weekend for an Aussie. So I brought home a rosette and a set of windchimes, which I proudly hung in my car and which annoyed us for the next thousand miles.