ONTARIO BORDER COLLIE CLUB

By Celeste Lacroix
photo credit to Stacey Rember, Amanda Milliken, Celeste Lacroix

It started out with a simple request from a member for help on how to host a trial.  We are always delighted to have members stepping up for active participation.  So, a few of us decided to create an experience whereby those newer to the world of sheepdog trialing could together learn, via the guided experience of putting on a small trial, what all needs to be done.  That was the plan.  And so we dove in.

The NEBCA Webinar team had, over the winter of 2026, put on a series of great sessions, one of which was Putting on Trials.  That was the place to start.

Second step was to form a group of those interested in learning-by-doing  how to host a sheepdog trial.This effort was led by Celeste Lacroix and the Ontario Border Collie Club (OBCC) Learning and Development Committee and included members from both OBCC and NEBCA.  The idea was to form a learning committee to host an actual trial and provide mentorship for participants. It was early in the season; most people did not have large numbers of sheep as most ewes were lambing. Many of us have a few sheep for training but it takes hundreds of sheep to host a multi-class trial. We decided that Nursery was a good class as we knew numbers of dogs would be limited so we would be able to get by without a lot of sheep.

PowerPoint and Zoom were used to effectively communicate important points among the group members in the initial planning stages. Some of these points may be of interest to the reader. First we learned about sanctioning.

1.  Sanctioning a trial
In our area, we often sanction trials with NEBCA, OBCC and USBCHA.  Not all sanctioning bodies support all classes of sheepdog trials. See the chart:

2.  During our Zoom call we spent some time explaining how each sanctioning body has its own rules for classes, so hosts and handlers must understand and follow rules for each organization asked to sanction a trial. This is especially important to know when you travel out of your region to trial, or if you are the Host!
For example:

• NEBCA Pro Novice has a one leg drive component but OBCC Pro Novice has a cross drive. The drive component has different points (NEBCA 20. OBCC 30).
• NEBCA and OBCC have different move up rules.
• USBCHA is the only body to sanction Nursery trials. Regional participation in nursery trials is often dependent on where the USBCHA nationals are held.  Also nursery class is the only class that has a dog age restriction, which is calculated based on the dog’s date of birth and the USBCHA trial year (August 1 to July 31). Nursery is also different from USBCHA Open as far as qualifying for the Nationals.
  •  To qualify for the USBCHA Open National Finals, the dog must earn points by placing in the top 20% at sanctioned Open trials. How many points are needed to get you into the Finals varies by year and location as it is relative to all other dogs wanting to enter.
  • To qualify for the USBCHA Nursery National Finals, your dog must place in the top 20% on two separate occasions in a sanctioned Nursery class with five or more dogs.  Each win is called a ‘leg’;  you need two legs to qualify for the Nursery Nationals.

3.  In past years, Amanda Milliken and Leslie Gamble had hosted a series of Nursery Trials in Ontario, so I approached them to see if they’d be interested in hosting again.  The learning committee will do all the work I assured them. Reluctantly they agreed, each having their legitimate concerns. This learning series of trials took on a life of its own.

Our plan: We would host Nursery trials at Butternut Creek Farm in Kingston (Ontario), Forfar Farm in Portland and Kitley Corners Farm in Jasper. USBCHA has a rule that you cannot have two nursery events on the same day in the same location so the plan was to have six trials over three days as follows:

• Day 1: Location A & B,
• Day 2: Location C & A, 
• Day 3: Location B & C.

What could go wrong?

4.      Some lessons learned and areas we needed to be flexible:

1.   When you look at the trial calendar, there are three very important date:
   • Trial Open Date:  When you can send in (postmark or email) your entry to the trial secretary.
   • Trial Close Date: When entries will no longer be accepted.
   • Trial Date(s):  The date of the actual event.
     As it turns out, I thought the Trial Date had to be 30 days after approval for USBCHA sanctioning but I was wrong, the Trial Open Date has to be 30 days after approval. It was March 31st  when we had our first Zoom meeting with the learning committee, this meant that we couldn’t even have a trial open for  entries till April 30th.  This didn’t leave us much time for receiving entries and doing all the work to get to a running order.
2.   Hosting a Nursery trial in a year when the USBCHA finals were to be held in California was not going to be a big draw.  We were hoping that after a long hard winter, people were anxious to get out and trial with their young dogs but ……
3.   We used Facebook to try to announce the series of Nursery trials and see who was going to come. Our dates changed within a window of 3 weeks due to conflicts with other trials (that weren’t posted yet but had bigger name draw) and host medical issues.
4.   We officially knew we had 5 nursery dogs coming (before the official entry date) and Facebook helped us determine there might not be more. Of the 5 we knew of, 3 already had their Nursery legs and didn’t need another win so it looked like the field was going to be small – maybe TOO small for any competitors to get legs.
5.   Fuel prices had skyrocketed. We knew that going to different locations each day was not efficient for fuel usage.  
6.   Considering all of the above, the trial hosts decided there was little value in hosting a sanctioned Nursery trial but were still happy to host a fun trial.  We contacted USBCHA secretary to cancel the trials officially but advised everyone who was coming that we would host a fun trial. This meant it was OK to have two trials in one day in the same place.  As it turns out we had 10 dogs entered in the first trial and 5 in the last.
7.   We finally landed on dates:
   •  Amanda Milliken, Butternut Creek Farm, Kingston - Saturday May 9
   • Leslie Gamble, Forfar Farm, Portland - Sunday May 10
   • Celeste Lacroix, Kitley Corners Farm, Jasper - Monday May 11
8.  Yes, there are many positions to fill in a trial.
   • It became evident that this was not a good trial series to mentor the learning committee.  The committee was enthusiastic and was invited to participate but it seems geography, personal schedules and all the changes required made it difficult to manage as a group. We agreed to try again on a future event.
   • Werner Reitboeck was ever so accommodating with changing dates, locations and sanctioning format. He judged all  six trials gracefully.
   • Brian Epp did setout at all the trials
   • Tara Dier was the official scribe
   • Pen crew was managed by each host requiring somewhere between one to six humans at each trial.
   • A delicious lunch was provided by each host.

Summary

What a great way to start Trial Year 2026!  We were blessed with fantastic weather, good sheep, great fields, enthusiastic participants and good-hearted generous hosts. Who can ask for anything more? Overall winners were Felix Bergeron with his dogs Soul and Fritz as well as Mich Ferrero and Artemis.

I would like to thank the OBCC Learning and Development committee and all who registered for this learning experience.  Your active and enthusiastic participation was greatly appreciated. Thank you to Amanda Milliken and Leslie Gamble for opening their farms, preparing their sheep and fields for our Nursery trial participation.