Flint is a great dog to work with. Very stable, with a very good pace and he listens perfectly. Flint can be used for stud services, but only with bitches that are hip-scored (minimun HD-A or HD-B) and the eyes must be checked and declared free. For more information send me an email...more info. Further down you can read Flint's livestory...Flint's first pups are born with Decathlete's Fidus Achates ("Aino")
And in a few weeks there will be born pups out of Flint and Amy vom Wehretaler Land and out of Flint and Blaze from the narrow lane. Flint (born on the 23rd of September 1997) is a littermate of Laddie and I bred him myself. His mother is Tara and his father is Mighty Mitchell of Mac Sleeves of Henrie van Steenis. Actually I didn't plan to keep Flint when he was a pup, but when he was about six weeks old he got a stomack flue so of course I couldn't sell him at that time. After a day or ten he was getting better but he was still a bit skinny. With a bit of patience and some extra attention, Flint got over it after a while. At this time he already stole my heart and I decided to keep him which turned out to be a very good decision. Flint has never been ill since then and while he's working he is listening extremely good. When he's at home he likes to be a little bit lazy (taking naps in his favourite chair) but as soon as he thinks I'm going to the sheep he is the first one who waits for me at the door. In the beginning of 2000 he got his licence to go to the trials and so we started in the novice class which turned out to go very well. In Postel (Belgium) he even won his first award; the silver whistle. With agility Flint is also doing very well, although he is a little bit crazy (but not less fanatical) and even here he has already twice won an U (=excellent). Besides this all, he's wild about swimming, sometimes so bad that we have to drag him out of the canal. (He'll jump into the water without first making sure he's going to be able to get out again, so we have to help him sometimes.)
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| Click on the pictures to see them enlarged (between 38 and 75 KB) | |
Flint has been to the championships (novice class) in Hijken - 2000, and his run was very good. So good that he won the second price out of more than 60 runs (and this was only the 6th run he ever did!) Now in the meanwhile Flint is running in the class 3 and when he keeps doing what he's doing in the last few trials I'm really satisfied. Hereunder a few pictures from these championships...
Click on the pictures to see them enlarged (103 and 50 KB)
We're a few years further now and this year (2003) Flint and I are in the Danish team for the Continental Championships in Belgium.... let's see what happens.
Click on the pictures to see them enlarged (65, 75 and 121 KB)
Someone said to me once: "Life sucks... and then you die". Well I can assure you that this is not true!! LIFE IS GREAT :-)
Flint thinks he always has to keep an eye on what is happening, when someone else is training with the sheep
To compete at the Continental Championship in Belgium has been a great experience. Flint certainly didn't let me down. He even went so well that we were only 5 points (out of 220) away from a place in the finals. I think that this is very promissing for a first time.In the meantime Flint is on a 3rd place in the qualification for the Continental 2004. With only 1 trial left to go, it's not easy to loose this place. At least we are quite sure of competing already....
And yesssss... we did compete at the Continental Championship 2004 in Zwolle (Holland) and what a trial it was. The field didn't seem to be too difficult when we saw it the first time, but soon after the first runs had taken place, one could see that it wasn't that easy as many of us thought it would be. There were many obstacles in the field which distracted many dogs! The first day it rained all the day and there was also quite some adverse wind. Flint's run was one of the last runs on the first day and it made me quite nervous that I had to wait so long. But Flint was just great :-D He made a perfect outrun and didn't let him distract by all the obstacles in the field. The lift and fetch were also very good. I had a flock of sheep where 4 of them would like to eat when they got the chance and the fifth only wanted to speed up all the time. So during the drive I had to pay really good attention to keep the whole flock together and after the second drive gate the speedy one tried to escape. Flint hold that one very good on the field, but this situation gave the other the chance to stop and eat. When we almost had gathered all five sheep together Flint was getting quite tired and crossed between the sheep. That had cost us quite some points on the drive. Further on we could continue how we started and lost only 6 points on the last 3 parts (3 points per judge). Eventually we ended with 175 points.....
The next day the weather was very nice and calm and everyone expected that there would come some runs with more than 200 points and that one should have at least 180 points to get in the finals. BUT this didn't seem to be true at all. My run on the day before seemed to be good enough to end up as number 10 (out of 77 runs) and so I was sure of a start permit in the finals on Sunday.
The finals were very difficult and Flint wasn't experienced enough to fetch two flock of sheep with so much distance in between. I tried a few times to send Flint back to fetch the second flock of sheep, but he kept on going back to the spot where he found the first flock. After trying 3-4 times I decided that it was better to spare Flint and to give up. I knew in the back of my head that this was too much asked of Flint and it would not be fair to continue and confuse him more....
But still I'm very proud on my Flint and the fact that we made it into the finals is maybe promissing for the next summer. All the finalists has earned a start permission for the World Trial 2005 in Tullamore, County Offaly in Ireland....
Flint's pedigree.
When you want to find out more about these lines, you can have a look in The Border Collie Database
Parents
Grandparents
Great Grandparents
Great Great Grandparents
NHSB 1515866
NHSB 1650185
NHSB 2029859
NHSB 1775734
Eur. Sheep CH 1992
NHSB 1850567
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