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Monday, 28/Jul/2008

Islay Sheepdog Trials

Picture of a sheepdog (border collie) driving sheep through a gate during a sheepdog trial

Islay has its fair share of sheep living on the fields and hills in many places on the island. There are also quite a few dogs on the island, several of them working dogs, sheepdogs. Sometimes there are a number of visiting sheepdog. For example during the recent ‘Annual Sheepdog Trials’ at Whin Park Bridgend.

Picture of a collection of trophies for a sheepdog trial event

Before leaving for my visit to Islay I had noticed the listing for the ‘Annual Sheepdog Trials’ on the ‘What's On’ page of the Ileach. Having only ever seen snippets of those trials on television I decided to keep them in mind and to visit them if possible. They were scheduled for the day I was leaving at the end of my holiday, passing a several signposts for them in the days before reminded me of the event.

As the weather on the days turned out very nice (although quite windy) I decided to at least give it a quick look, even though I didn't have much time left before I had to be in Port Askaig for the ferry leaving Islay. It was certainly a good decision, the 45 minutes were well spent. Very interesting to watch! I managed to capture one run on video:

DirectSheepdogTrialsOnTheIsleOfIslay,Scotland

Apologies for the sound quality, it was a quite windy day and the field where the event took place was fairly exposed. Unfortunately the microphone on my camera didn't cope very well with the wind, despite the ‘wind screen’ being fitted to the microphone. But it also picked up the commands the dog owner gave to the dog quite well, so I decided to stick to the original sound. I hope you'll still enjoy the video.

To finish another picture from the event, dog and owner working together to herd the sheep into the enclosure:

Picture of a sheepdog and its owner working together to control 4 sheep

The CD playing while writing this entry was an old classic: Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run.

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