Of all the sports in this record, sheepdog trialling has the clearest published mechanics. The course is described phase by phase, the distances are given in yards, and the points are printed as a scale. Once you have those three things, a run becomes readable.
The standard course, measured
The International Sheep Dog Society writes its rules specifically for the National and International trials, and intends the principles to be applied more generally. On that course the trial is run on five sheep, three unmarked and two collared. The gather is 400 yards from the handler. The fetch passes a set of gates seven yards wide, 150 yards from the handler, in the centre of the course. The drive is 450 yards round a triangular course through two more seven yard gates, with the first about 150 yards out; if the fetch is shorter than 400 yards the drive is lengthened so that fetch and drive together come to roughly 850 yards. The shedding ring is 40 yards across. The pen is nine feet by eight, with an eight foot gate, a six foot rope, and a gate that must open to at least 170 degrees. The time limit is fifteen minutes, with no extension.
The scale of points
| Phase | Points |
|---|---|
| Outrun | 20 |
| Lifting | 10 |
| Fetching | 20 |
| Driving | 30 |
| Shedding | 10 |
| Penning | 10 |
| Single | 10 |
| Total | 110 |
Driving is worth thirty, which is more than any other single phase and nearly a third of the course. That is the scale telling you where the difficulty is: pushing sheep away from the handler along a set line, with the dog on the far side of them, is the hardest thing on the card.
The scale changes with the course. The brace championship totals 140, with two outruns, two lifts and two pens and no single at all. The Supreme Championship totals 170, run on twenty sheep gathered in two packets from around 800 yards each, with gathering worth 100 of those points, and again no single.
What each phase asks
- Outrun. The handler stays at the post throughout. The perfect outrun takes no command beyond the one that sends the dog, and should be the shape of one side of a pear, with the blunt end at the far end of the field near the sheep. The dog must not stop before reaching the point of balance, which the rules define as the place from which it will lift the sheep towards the first obstacle.
- Lift. The dog either comes to a full stop or merely slows. The approach must be smooth, cautious and steady, and the dog takes control in a firm and quiet manner, without rushing the sheep or hanging back and needing to be told repeatedly.
- Fetch. A straight line from the lift to the gates, then a straight line to the post. No retry at a gate is allowed, ever. At the end the sheep go around the handler and behind the post, as close as possible.
- Drive. Begins the moment the sheep pass behind the post. Turn immediately after the first gate onto a line to the second, then as neatly as possible onto a straight line to the shedding ring. The handler stays at the post until the first sheep is in the ring, and the drive ends when all the sheep are inside it.
Shedding, penning and the single
The last three phases are the ones a newcomer misreads most often, because they look like handling and are judged as control.
- Shed. Two unmarked sheep are separated in the ring and the dog must show control of them, inside or outside the ring. The dog does not have to come right through to the handler, and the sheep do not have to be driven away.
- Pen. The handler goes to the pen and lets the dog bring the sheep; helping the dog move them from the ring to the pen is not allowed. The handler holds the rope at the gate, must not use the gate as a lever or touch the sheep with it, and must close it fully within the time.
- Single. One of the two marked sheep is separated and worn to the judges’ satisfaction. The rules are pointed about this: it must be the dog and not the handler that comes in and cuts the sheep off.
How points come off
The society describes its own system plainly: a maximum is allocated to each element and the dog and handler lose points for faults as they go round. A crossed outrun costs at least eighty per cent of the outrun points, with further deductions for commands on top. Every command on the outrun costs something, because the perfect outrun has none, and a dog that stops is penalised more heavily than one that merely takes a redirection. A missed gate costs a minimum of one point per sheep on the standard course, and half a point per sheep at the brace and the Supreme. Bursts of speed followed by stopping on the drive are undesirable and should be penalised.
Two rules cut across all of it. Nothing is awarded for a phase not completed within the time limit, so an unfinished pen is not a partial score but a zero. And a dog that grips may be disqualified on the spot, in which case it forfeits every point it has earned, although a dog defending itself from a sheep that attacks it is deemed not to have gripped unless the response is excessive.
Where this comes from
Course dimensions, phase descriptions, the scales of points and the deduction rules are in the International Sheep Dog Society Rules For Trials, 2026 edition, at rules 5.2.1 to 5.2.10 for the standard course, 5.3 for the brace and 5.4 for the Supreme, read on 5 September 2026. The description of scoring as subtraction is on the society’s own about trials page.