Collies try to corral top spot
By IDA M. PEASE
VIRGIL — Shepherding sheep is not an ordinary sight here, but for four days it takes on national importance at
Fetch Gate Farm on Babcock Hollow Road as handlers whistle and give commands to their border collies and the
dogs corral and manipulate sheep on a hillside field.
Heather and Roger Millen, the owners of the farm at 1804 Babcock Hollow Road, just off Owego Hill Road, host
the sheep dog trials, which test the dog’s ability to herd sheep.
Heather Millen said Canidae All Natural pet foods sponsored the event, offering food as prizes for winning dogs.
This is the second annual sheep dog trial at this farm.
Professionals competed in the Open Class, the highest class, on Saturday and Sunday. Amateurs compete today
and Tuesday. The trial is a qualifying run for national finals, scheduled this year for September in Gettysburg,
Pa.
Millen said in the Northeast on just about any weekend from April to October there is a trial going on someplace.
The closest ones to Virgil are in Hop Bottom, Pa., and Cooperstown.
Jim Murphy, a handler from Portland, Ontario, Canada, said the top 150 dogs from five trials go on to the national
competition.
Millen said while the event is open to any breed, border collies are natural herders and all the competitors
Saturday were border collies.
“Border collies live to herd. They love going out to work,” Millen said.
She has a flock of 100 Katahdin Hair ewes that rotate into the field, three at a time, for the 83 dogs that competed
Saturday.
“My sheep are rather challenging,” Heather Millen said. “If they (the dogs) can move three sheep, they can move
a flock of sheep,” said Millen, noting sheep are on heightened alert when they are separated from their flock.
Millen said she decided to host the trials because she and her husband compete too and “because we have this
beautiful field, we give back to the herding community.”
Millen said most of the help at the event comes from competitors volunteering their time when they are not
competing. The set-out man, whose job is to keep the sheep calm at the top of the field while waiting for the
competing dogs, is paid. The set-out man, J.P. LaLonde, is a full-time shepherd from Sydenham, Ontario, said
Gene Sheninger, who competed with three of his border collies and is from Boonton, N.J.
He said the set-man is important because it makes sure each run is consistent by keeping control of the sheep.
Sheninger said he got into border collies when he was helping care for a neighbor’s field that was up for sale, but
because it was steep he kept tipping over the mower. A sheep-owner, he put his small flock up there to do the job.
When no longer needed, he went to pick up his sheep. “It took the whole day. It was a mess to collect them,” he
said of the sheep.
He then bought a border collie puppy and continued purchasing dogs and sheep. He now has a flock of 350
sheep on his New Jersey farm that is 35 miles from New York City, within sight of the former Twin Towers.
Sheninger has six dogs that compete. “I have three competing here,” he said.
“Give them sheep and they’ll love you,” he said of the border collie.
Sheninger said some dog trials attract a lot of spectators, including his and the one in Cooperstown, both
attracting around 1,000 people.
Advertised for the first time, the Virgil event attracted mostly the competing dogs and their handlers.
Sherry Halladay, of Virgil, and two of her family members came out to watch with their 7-week-old Australian
shepherd, who was napping. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said.
“This is fun. It’s too bad there are not more young people,” she said Saturday. She said she was considering
coming back Sunday with her daughters.
Murphy, whose dog had already competed, helped the three Halladays understand the competition.
He explained that if the handler gives his or her dog a command during the outrun — when the dog is running up
the length of the field to the sheep — or if the dog stops, points will be deducted.
He said if the dog bites the sheep, it will likely be disqualified.
Murphy said he has eight dogs and has been going to trials for 10 years now. He called the process of raising
border collies for competitions a “slippery slope,” a process that starts slowly, with borrowing land or sheep and
starting with a tent and builds up to buying a farm and a big camper.
“It’s better than beating a ball around a golf course,” Murphy said of his hobby.