Want to give your friend that special gift of lessons with Gordon Watt? Gift certificates now available $75/lesson.
Lessons are at Nippersink Hall. Certificates can be for any number of lessons, whenever you want.
Please contact Gordon for more information.
Over the winter we will be hosting two series of double lift and shedding clinics. This is a great opportunity to get yourself and your dogs ready for the up- coming trialing season.
Gordon will be on hand to teach you and your dogs the correct way to turn back your dogs. This will consist of 3 sessions on look backs and shedding. The 4th session will be a double lift course to put to practice what you have learned. It would be beneficial if you could attend all 4 sessions.
Cost is $25 per session.
First session will be Saturday December 10th, 8am-12pm or 10am-2pm (tentative). We have indoor facilities if weather is bad.
Dates as follows:
December 10, 17, 31, and January 7th
January 21, 28, February 4 and 11
Contact Margaret Lass-Gardiner for more details
email: info@nippersinkhall.com
What a fabulous weekend was had by everyone who attended the stock management weekend.
Saturday was a day of information and demonstrations by Gordon. I think this was a big hit with everyone, they learned so much about sheep. After lunch everyone watched Gordon demonstrate how to set sheep.
Sunday was the day for putting to practice what they learned on Saturday. We started off in the morning with everyone taking their turn on setting sheep, with Gordon on stand by to help anyone that needed it. Everyone did a great job at this. Pretty easy when someone points you in the right direction. After lunch everyone was hands on and had a job to do. 80 lambs had to be dosed and some ewes needed to be injected with multivitamins. Everyone took turns of putting sheep in pens with their dogs, injecting, dosing and checking teeth on the ewes.
Well done everyone! Great weekend.
We are hoping to hold another stock management weekend in October.
A great weekend was spent in Iowa with a bunch of lovely ladies doing a clinic. The clinic was well organised and perfectly run. The weather was on our side if not a little too much but we coped well with the heat. The ladies provided ample of shade for dogs and students. Wonderful food and plenty of drinks to keep everyone going.
Over the 3 days students and dogs learned from each session. By the last afternoon everyone made so much progress, everyone went home happy, both dogs and students.
It was nice for Sophie making more new friends. Looking forward to our next visit in the spring.
Thank you Ladies
Returning home after a great 3 days trialing at Cedar Stone Farm.
Gordon taking home both Open class wins with Huthwaite Storm having almost perfect runs on both days and also achieving high combined score.
He also took home first prize in Pro-Novice 2 handling Merry Russell’s Nell.
Congratulations to Patti Sumner and Shay taking first and third prizes in Pro-Novice 1 & 2 and best combined score. Patti is one of Gordon’s first students since moving to Wisconsin. Living just around the corner from us, Patti is able to take lessons on a regular basis and it really showed in her runs on the weekend. Patti and Shay are now ready for Open. So much progress in a sort time. Good Luck to Patti and Shay in her first Open.
Also many more students made great progress over the weekend. I saw lots of happy people. Keep up the hard work everyone!
A big Thank You to Merry and Rick for their hard work and making it such a lovely trial.
Gordon Watt was born in Ireland in 1964, to a family of shepherds. His father is William Watt, a legend in sheepdogs. At an early age Gordon became interested in all aspects of sheep care and sheepdog training. When he was 15, Gordon and his first dog, Chum, won second in the Irish Nationals and it was on from there. In 1999, he was Irish National Champion, and in 2005, Gordon became World Champion, after also winning the English National Championship with his dog, York.
Gordon’s current main trial dogs are Huthwaite Storm and Huthwaite Moss. With Storm Gordon has won Northumberland League Nursery, numerous Open trials, and was fourth at the English Nationals in 2015. Moss has won many Open trials, and was 3rd in the English National in 2014 and on the English team in 2014.
Gordon has maintained his York line in Flo and Reba. Flo goes back to York’s mother and Reba is Flo’s daughter. Storm and Moss are outcrosses. Their pedigrees can be seen here at this website.
When choosing a sheepdog Gordon likes to see “an ability to work sheep properly”. By that he means a dog that uses its brain. Also, the nature, the personality of the dog has to be very good. “Power” is not the dog that scares sheep, but rather the dog sheep trust and can move them.
He likes to show young dogs sheep at about 8 months. At this time he feels it is possible to evaluate an individual training program for a dog.
Look at the calendar on this website for training availability, upcoming events and lessons at Nippersink Hall Farm. Lake Geneva Wisconsin is located near the major metropolitan areas of Chicago,, Illinois (O’Hare airport) and Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Mitchell Field), as well as the interstates 90 and 94. Gordon is also booked for clinics in the Midwest and elsewhere in the upcoming months.