did not fare well on the sheep but had a qualifying run on ducks. This, his first AKC started leg, and on
ducks of all things. Preacher had only seen ducks four times in his life prior to this. Judge Joyce Norris
wrote “A cattle dog with eye. Cool!” on the score sheet.
Now it’s Friday at the 2009 National Specialty trial; it’s Preacher’s turn for a go at the cows. My confi-
dence isn’t high because he failed to qualify on both cattle and sheep on Thursday. On Friday’s cattle
he cut in on the outrun and lost 2 points, lost another 2.5 on the lift and 2 off-line points bringing the
cows to the cone, but he had them moving. My lack of handling skills contributed to losing another 4
points at the “Y” chute. Preacher moved the cattle through the Z but lost 1 point for splitting the stock.
He took them cleanly through the panel runway and down the fence. I didn’t get in position to help with
the cross drive and the cattle passed left of the center-line gate. “Is that an attempt?” I asked. “No”
came the reply. By this time the cattle had escaped to the exhaust. Preacher tried hard to bring them
back around for another go at the center-line gate but kept losing one cow back to the exhaust. With
less than two minutes left our “Q” was not going to happen today. The judge asked me to stop the run.
As Preacher and I walked out of the arena Craig Watson came down from the judges stand and told me
“That is an awesome cattle dog. He has eye. He fetches cattle to you. What line is he out of?” “He’s a
rescue.” I said “He was picked up stray. Thank you for the compliment.” “No.” Craig said “Thank you for
exhibiting this dog.”
With my confidence boosted by Craig Watson’s comments, I still had started sheep runs with both
Preacher and my younger dog. Preacher was up and had a nice run and a qualifying score of 86. As it
turned out my younger dog also scored 86. My dogs had tied. They ended up in a five-way tie for fifth
place with Grit taking the tiebreaker for the ribbon. Preacher may have lost the tiebreaker to his
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