The Cariboo Stock Dogs Wild and Wooly Outdoor Arena Trial ran June 14 to 16 at Quesnel's Alex Fraser Park.
For the event, herding dogs and their handlers compete to get sheep through a variety of obstacles including barrels, a ring and a fenced in area. While handlers shouted out or whistled commands, some competing dogs were disqualified from their runs in the events for chomping the sheep.
Brian Nelson has been training dogs for his sheep farm for 25 years and brought his five-year-old dog Bill to compete. He said the key that goes into training dogs is time.
"The more the better, the more you put on them the better you are," Nelson said. He added not all dogs are cut out to work to herd and it takes a few years before a dog is ready to truly work. "I enjoy it too, it's a challenge."
This is the second year Cariboo Stock Dogs has run the event. Organizers Crystal Smith and Natasha Reichlin started the event because they just wanted to play with their dogs and see who would join them.
"We've got people who came from all over B.C.," Smith said. She added they had so much interest from handlers they had to turn potential competitors away this year. "We're hoping to expand it more and more over the years. But right now we're just trying to make it through the day."
The next event will be a memorial trial for the handlers who have passed away in October. That event will be a small field trial on the four-acre field at Alex Fraser Park.
Smith said the dogs aren't just for competitions but make farm life easier.
"Nobody wants to run that far out to go get the cows, they just send the dog and the dog's quite happy to do it," Smith said. "By the time you get a really good dog they're about four or five-years-old. It takes quite a while to get them right up to where you really want them."
Smith said handlers come to the events in part to show off their dogs, but mostly to put the dogs under a bit of pressure to find out where the gaps in their training are.
Other trials include small field trials, which will be coming in October and field trials which Smith said are done on massive fields where audiences need binoculars to see the action. She said she's hoping to bring something like that to Quesnel if they can find the space.
Smith said she appreciates the support the event has received from the community and she's glad to see so much interest in stock dog trials.