Great Last Hurrah

We ended our show year with a Bang, and a good one at that!
Both Pinch and Moto received the PT title (Pre-Trial) at the last herding trial of the year, and both did so with very nice runs!
Well, except for Saturday. Moto was good. Pinch was, er, well, let's just say Naughty.
Moto only needed to qualify one more time to earn his title. He was in first, and made it look easy. It was simply a beautiful run and he did a great job from start to finish. He's usually the variable when it comes to showing, so I entered the arena with Pinch with great confidence. What happened next was stunning.
I sent him to gather the sheep. Instead of that pretty going-around thingie you see in the herding movies, Pinch dove right through the middle, scattering sheep all over the ring. I commanded him to sit. He kept on running. Then he decided to pick on one particular sheep and was having a great time chasing it. This is not herding, and the judge warned me to call him off. I abandoned the rest of the group and took off after my black blur. He finally stopped, and when he looked at me I saw he had no brain. Just a silly, glassy-eyed hyper stare that he was having the time of his life and didn't care what I said.
I made him wait a bit (hoping some brains would re-enter that cavity in his head) and we tried again. We went thru the panels, and I was getting ready to pen when the judge said "um, you're not done. Remember, you need to go the OTHER way around the course, too." CRAP! I was so rattled by Pinch's errant behavior I forgot we need to do a stop and a turn and go all the way around...again. We did manage to do so, but it wasn't pretty. Not at all. Our judge was kind and since he DID do it - albeit completely lacking style of any kind - he qualified us.
So that was Saturday.
Sunday, I moved Moto up to Started. It was a big step but we'd trained the Started course just in case. But alas, Moto needs more confidence and when I saw he was really stressed and needed more help than I could give him, we called our run. I didn't want him to have a bad first experience in the "big field". I'm fine with that, we'll practice this winter and try again next year.
Good boy Moto!
My theory that Pinch was out of control because it was his first time in a strange arena with strange sheep proved correct: day #2 I had the dog I knew back. When we were at the halfway point where we needed to turn I asked the judge "shall we turn here?" to which she replied "it's lovely. Turn and go." Once out of the ring a gentleman came over and remarked that I should be thrilled to have such a dog, that he was going to have a brilliant herding career.
Bursting with pride inside, I thanked him for taking the time to come over and say such kind things.
Title total for 2011: Moto - 3 Obedience titles - BN, CD, GN. Herding - HT, PT.
Pinch - 2 Obedience titles - RN, BN. Herding - HT, PT.
Not a bad way to finish the year! Well done boys!