NEWS BULLETINS
It’s
a beautiful day!
(Heteren, August 30st 2009)
After the summer
break, the Van der Zweep trialling team went to the first trial to
prepare their most important dogs (Lass, Jim, Tweed and Eve) for the new
competition year. This was also a nice opportunity for Ellen to ran her
brand new young dog Bill
in class 2. The first trial for them, so of course exciting.
The course of class 3 was impressing. It was so
big that you could hardly see the driving gates. That was going to be a
big challenge! But the worries were for nothing! Our faithful dogs kept
on doing the good work after their lazy summer: Jim 2nd place (97 pts),
Lass 3th place (95 pts), Tweed 5th place (93 pts) and Eve 10th place (87
pts).
Also
Bill had a good start of his trialling carreer. He started with a good,
wide outrun and a smooth lift. He listened very well on the nice course.
The sheep were pulling towards the outletpen the whole course and that
made it quite a struggle. But Bill was very strong and kept the sheep on
a straight line. The result was amazing and above all unexpected: he won
with 102 points out of 110 and left 37 dogs behind him!!
Bill is a young, honest and talented dog. He is
a good listener, makes nices outruns, is very powerful but he can also
handle sheep very gently. In the last International Sheepdog news you
can read more about Bill
’s
father Aidan Gallaghers Cain. Next to Bills working ability he is a very
nice and friendly dog.
This Sunday was beginning to become a beautiful
day. And it became a beautiful day! Because the 2th place of class 2 was
for Gwen with her new owner. After winning the National Novice, Gwen was
sold and kept on showing her fantastic top trialling qualities! We were
so proud!
News Bulletin - June/July
2009
Topdogs Part IV – Gwen
ISDS 281000
(July
5th)
Since
spring this year Serge is trialling in the novice class with his new
young talent Gwen. She is only three years old and appears to become
Serge’s
new trial topdog. In so many things Gwen is reminding of Serge’s
old Lynn with whom Serge won the National, Continental and the first
World Championship in South Africa in 1995.
Gwen is a fantastic lady, with good, sharp
flanks, she is stylish and fast and above all she listens very well.
Serge and Gwen are becoming a real team already and the results in their
first trials are fantastic. Gwen is hipscored and eyetested and she is
DNA CEA clear.
Serge and Gwen reached the third place in the
National Novice organized by the Dutch Sheep dog Society and they won
the National Novice organized by the Border Collie Club Nederland!!
TOPDOGS
PART III
Today
(June 28th) the Dutch Sheepdog
Society (associated society of the ISDS) organized the National for the
Open Class. Serge and his topdogs Lass
en Jim
were still in good form after winning the first and second place last
weekend.
Although
the temperature was very high, Serge could keep his concentration and
his dogs worked excellent for him.
The result leaded to an unexpected new chapter in our Topdogs serie:
1st
place Jim 102 points out of 110
2nd place Lass 97 points out of 110
TOPDOGS
PART III!! CONGRATULATIONS!!
TOPDOGS
PART II
(21-June-2009)
SERGE AND
LASS DUTCH NATIONAL CHAMPIONS AND WINNERS OF THE SEMI FINAL!
SERGE AND JIM DUTCH NATIONAL RESERVE CHAMPION !
Dutch
National 2009 Final
1st place Serge and Lass
2nd place Serge and Jim
3th place Henk and Jane
TOPDOGS
PART I
(14-June-2009)
This
weekend an OpenTrial was organized by Border Collie Club Zwolle to test
if the dogs who will run the Dutch National next weekend (20-21 June)
are well prepared for the most important trial of the year for The
Netherlands.
On
Saturday there was a big rough qualification course and the best 11
handlers ran the double fetch final on Sunday.
Serge’s
Lass won the qualification! Lass, Serge’s Jim and Ellen’s Tweed all
ran the double fetch final on Sunday.
The
result made the Van der Zweep family very happy:
first
place for Jim, second place for Lass
en third place for Tweed!!!
Topdogs………!
News Bulletin - April
2009
LLANFARIAN
BORDER COLLIES GOES ISRAEL!!!
This
Easter weekend (april 2009) Serge and Ellen van der Zweep had one of the most special
experiences with their Border Collies ever.
They were invited to give a demonstration of how they train their dogs in a big
football stadium in Tel Aviv (Israël). There were at least four thousand
spectators giving our dogs a big hand for everything they showed. It was
overwhelming!!
Hereby
we thank the organization for inviting us.
Click
here to see pictures from Israel.
News
Bulletin - March 29th, 2009
Today
Serge had his first qualifier in 2009 for the Continental 2009 (singles and
brace). He prepared his best dogs Lass and Jim very well for this tough trial.
The course was hard and as soon as the dogs
came too close to the sheep, they turned and it was very hard to
convince the sheep to walk again. Many dogs were disqualified because of
gripping and extreme good handling was something you desperately needed in this
trial. Serge, Lass and Jim did a superb job, specially under these
circumstances: Lass won the first place and Jim the second and they also won
the brace!! Congratulations, a wonderful start of trial season 2009!!
------------------------------------
World
trial Competitor profiles.
The organisation of the World Sheepdog Trials has taken the
effort to compose wonderful profiles of their competitors and published them on
the website.
We are very proud to present to you below a copy of the
Competitor Profile of Serge & Ellen van der Zweep, as showing on the
official website of the World
Sheepdog Trials.
-----------------------------------
News Bulletin 19
& 20 July, 2008 - Exloo Trial
A
lovely weekend for The Van der Zweep’s!!
Last
weekend the Drents Open were held in Exloo. A nice, open, competive and heavy trial.
The
field was rough with heather and high grass, some bushes and ditches. It was
hard to push
the stubbarn sheep from the grass into the heather and the dogs
had to give everything to
complete the course. There were 32 competitors.
For
Serge and Ellen this trial was a good test in their preparation for the
Continental (Serge with
Jim and Lass) and the World trial (Serge with Jim and
Lass and Ellen with Tweed).
This trial really tested the condition of the dog,
your own concentration and specially the
teamwork between man and dog.
The
result was one we dreamt of: Serge and Lass had the first place with 92 points.
Serge won also
the second price with Jim and 86 points and Ellen and Tweed were
4th with 75 points!
Four of Ellen’s sheep walked into the pen, but
it was time before the last one walked in.
The
dogs worked fantastic for us and were in a good condition! The feeling that
they gave us
during this trial was amazing. Happiness over all!
View here
the trial pictures.
NEWS BULLETIN June 22nd, 2008 -
DUTCH NATIONAL 2008
In the weekend of 21th and 22th of June
the Dutch National was held. Serge qualified with Lass and Jim for the semi
final on Saturday and Ellen qualified Tweed.
Both Tweed and Lass were placed for the final on Sunday were the best 15
combinations of The Netherlands ran to win the National.
Serge and Ellen won the two most beautiful prices they could get:
SERGE AND LASS 1st PLACE DUTCH NATIONAL CHAMPION!!
ELLEN AND TWEED 8th PLACE & BEST FEMALE HANDLER!!!
Wow what a trial and what a dogs Lass
and Tweed are!
For Serge and Ellen there is already more than a dream complete with these
impressing titles, besides their membership together of the Dutch National team
for the World trial (Serge with Jim and Lass/Ellen with Tweed).
NEWS BULLETIN January 29th, 2008:
"Good news for the
Llanfarian breeding program"
We have DNA tested our main breeding dogs and
bitches for CEA.
Tweed, Jim, Glen, Lass and Glenda are all "Normal". This means that
these dogs will never develop CEA/CH.
NEWS BULLETIN December 10th, 2007
The weekend of 8 and 9 December was the most important weekend of this year for three Van der Zweep’s dogs: Lass, Jim and Tweed were placed in the semi final of the Dutch National.
They ran on Saturday with 33 other dogs and had to qualify for the double gather Final next day.
It was a rough course, a nature area and there was a lot of water surrounded. Because of the heavy rain of the last week there were big wet spots in the course and with the stubbarn sheep,
it was very challenging.
Serge ran Lass and Jim and his wife Ellen ran Tweed.
This weekend was even more exciting because it was the last chance to get selected for the
NationalTeam for the World Trial next year in Wales.
All three Van der Zweep’s were doing very well.
And after their results of the semi final, they were all three sure of a place in the National team!!
They also qualified for the best 15 dogs who ran the double gather Final
on Sunday, the Dutch National. Ellen and Serge were already very pleased with
their team membership, but they still wanted to do the best in the Final. They
both prepared their dogs very well for this weekend and the result was super:
Serge won the Dutch National with Jim, Lass became second and Ellen with Tweed became fourth!!!
Final
results Dutch national
WK
Selection
NEWS BULLETIN September 23rd, 2007
CONTINENTAL
SHEEPDOG CHAMPIONSHIP, DRAMMEN (norway)
SERGE & GLEN REACHED SECOND PLACE!!!
23-Sep-2007: This morning 8:00hr Serge and Glen were the first team to run in
today's finals. Their performance was marvelous! Glen showed great
outruns, beautiful look-back at once, good drive, shed was impressively perfect
and the pen was very exciting. This great performance has lead them to a
place on the podium!
Final
Results
NEWS BULLETIN June 25th, 2007
Last
weekend the 23th and 24th of June 2007 Serge and Ellen had a very exciting
weekend. On Saturday 23th June the semi final of the Dutch National was held.
The best 40 dogs in the Dutch competition Open Class were placed. Serge placed
Glen and Lass and Ellen placed Tweed.
They
all did very well in the semi final, so they all were placed in the final where
the best 15 dogs ran. We were proud to have 3 dogs in the best 15 of the
country.
For
Ellen it was extra exciting because it was the first time she ever ran an
official double gather final. Also this is still the first competition year of
Tweed and Ellen and in this year they promoted to the Open Class and reached
the Final of the Dutch National.
For
Serge it was even more exciting because he and Glen were the current National
Champions and until Sunday, Serge and Glen were reserve for the National Team.
This Sunday could change this all.
We
were all very well prepared for the double gather final, but there would be a
strong competition between the 15 finalists. During the splendid final run of
Serge and Glen, Glen took a little bite of a tail of a sheep and was
disqualified. This never happened him before in a trial! Dogs keep on
surprising! Of course a small moment of disappointment but that faded away
quickly because of the memory of a perfect working dog in a very difficult
course.
Lass
did also a very good job with Serge. She worked as hard as possible on the
continuously grass eating flog. She kept on being very flexible and followed
every command of Serge smoothly. A real team to enjoy.
Tweed
and Ellen worked also very hard on the rough course and for them it was an
impressive experience to compete on this high level for the first time.
The
final results were terrific!
Tweed
and Ellen reached the 8th place in the Dutch National Double Gather Final and Serge
and Lass won the Final!!!
New
National Champions Serge and Lass
Because
Serge and Lass already had a place in the National Team for the Continental
2007 which will be held in September in Norway, Glen’s reserve position in
the National Team was save and he is a full member of the National Team now.
Glen
and Lass both in the National Team for the Continental in Norway in September
2007
NEWS BULLETIN May 27th, 2007
Again,
an amazing day for Serge and his dogs.
Not only did Serge perform excellent today with his dogs Glen and Lass by
reaching 2nd and 3rd place. But also with his new dog Jim, Serge
managed to rank very high by reaching 5th place in today's qualifying
trial !
-
Glen
- 2nd place - 94 points
-
Lass
- 3rd place - 90 points
-
Jim
- 5th place - 88 points
NEWS BULLETIN April 15th, 2007
Update
of Serge and his best dogs Glen and Lass
In the weekend of 14th and 15th of April the 4th qualification trial for the
Continental was held in the east part of the Netherlands, Zwolle. It was a
challenging course on a rough ground.
For
Serge and his family it was an exciting day, because Serge and Glen did not run
one single qualification for the Continental until last weekend. The reason for
that was that Glen’s hind leg and tail became paralyzed in the summer of 2005
because he stumbled in the field while just walking there.
Several
vets were consulted since then and they diagnosed that Glen had a neurological
paralysis in his back. There was no solution at hand to let him walk again on
four legs. It was a very bad period for Serge and Glen. Glen was just lying in
his basket and could not walk. Also his tail was just hanging down, no waggling
anymore. There was no feeling in his hind leg and tail at all.
We
went to a vet who was specialized in acupuncture and Glen started at the same
time a treatment by a chiropractor. Glen had his treatment four times a week.
After two weeks the point of Glen’s tail started to waggle a bit. We thought
a miracle had happened.
After
six weeks the vets told Serge to start training again, because Glen was losing
all his muscles and even his coat was not looking good at all. Glen was so
unhappy by just lying down. Serge had to move Glens hind leg in the water
everyday and he had to walk Glen very slowly to teach him again to use his hind
leg. This process took finally more than a year.
All
the time Glen was in very good hands of the vets who treated him. After two
months the vets gave green light to run Glen on trials again. They diagnosed
that Glen had a neurological disorder which is impossible to repare with a dog.
So, we had to get used that Glen would always have a strange skip while
walking.
In
the meantime Glen started running his trials again and had (as before!) good
results (he won the Continental 2005 and the National 2006 and was also
teamcaptain in 2006). But, unfortunately a lot of people reproached Serge of
running a dog that looked unable to run in trials in their eyes. It would have
been very much appreciated if people had asked Serge personally how things with
Glen were going. It was and still is a pity this never happened.
To
eliminate the negativity about such a wonderful dog and his proud owner, Serge
went to the two best orthopedical vets of The Netherlands to ask their opinion
about Glen. Their final conclusion was that Glen would never walk smoothly
again because of a neurological painless disorder after his paralysis, but that
he is more than able to run trials again and to train, even in the most extreme
cicurmstances.
So,
Glen and Serge only had three more trials left to qualify for the Continental
2007 in Norway. They both prepared very well for this trial and the whole
family wished Serge and Glen, after all this bad luck, all the best.
Serge
and Glen where the last to run but it did not effect the pair. The result was
like in our dreams: they became first with 104 points out of 110!!!! The return
of Glen!
With
this amazing result they immediately reached the 9th pace in the
Dutch competition!
Serge
also entered Lass in the same trial. She already gained points for the
Continental and she was on the 2th place in the competition. She did very well
on the qualification trial in Zwolle and got the 7th place! With
these points she reached the 1th place in the competition. So Lass and Serge
are currently leading in the Netherlands!
We
hope that Serge, Lass and Glen will continue their quality so we can see and
enjoy them all three on the Continental 2007 in Norway in september.
NEWS
BULLETIN June 25th, 2006:
Sunday
June 25th Serge and Glen qualified for the double fetch final of the
Dutch National.
It
was a well organized trial with a good competition. All handlers were very
sharp and the dogs listened very well.
As
always Serge had his nerves very well under control during his run and Glen was
in a very good condition. They worked very hard and it was a splendid run to
watch. It looked like Serge needed even more time to recover after their run
than Glen.
With
only 11 lost points out of a total of 170 Serge and Glen won the National!
This
was the 9th time that Serge won the National and the 3th time with
Glen. Not one single handler and dog had this statistics before in the history
of Dutch sheepdogtrialling.
NEWS BULLETIN June 23rd, 2006:
Glen
and Lass qualified for the National Team!!!
After
five qualification trials our Continental Champions Serge and Glen were leading
the Dutch competition. They earned so many points that nobody could beat them
from the first place. The last qualification trial on June 18th
Serge and Glen again were unbeatable. With these results they became captain of
the Dutch National Team and they are going to compete in August in Austria for
the Continental title.
Halfway
the qualification season, Serge placed his youngest talent Lass. With only
three instead of six qualification trials to go, there was a big challenge for
Serge and his Lass. Lass proved her talent with her first qualification trial
by winning it and with that earning the highest amount of qualification points.
Her second trial was less successful so there was only one more trial left to
qualify for the National Team. Statistics proved that only at least a 3th place
could bring Serge in the National Team with Lass. They trained for hours
everyday and the reward was a deserved 3th pace! With this result also Lass was
sure of membership of the Dutch National Team.
We are
very proud of our special dogs!
NEWS BULLETIN January 23rd, 2006:
"Willem Wever" is a Dutch educational childeren's program, in
which childeren can ask their most burning question, like: "How do you
train a sheepdog?"
No one else can answer this question better than Serge van der Zweep !
In last Saturday's show he demonstrated the childeren how this is done.
(video is no longer available on internet)
NEWS BULLETIN August 31th, 2005:
If you missed yesterday's interview with Serge at TV channel
RTL 4, or if you like to review the item, please click on "Editie
NL".
You can watch the news item by clicking on the video icon.
An article about Serge's championship is published today on the internet at "Dierennieuws"
(article is no longer available on internet)
NEWS BULLETIN August 30th, 2005:
Again the media is paying attention to Serge's performances!
Tonight at 22:30 local time, the Dutch TV channel RTL 4 will
broadcast an item on Serge van der Zweep during their news program "Editie
NL".
Tomorrow, on Radio Netherlands (wereldomroep) you can listen to an interview
with Serge.
Worldwide broadcasting, so check for your local frequency on wereldomroep
!!
You can also listen to a LIVE interview on Radio 1 (Dutch radio station),
broadcasted by the NOS tomorrow morning 06:45 local time !!
NEWS
BULLETIN August 28th, 2005:
It only happened once before that one sheepdog handler ended up first
and second place at the European Championship. The first time it was Serge van der
Zweep. Today, with his dogs Glen and Roy, Serge did it again! For the second
time he
became number 1 (Glen) ànd number 2 (Roy) of European's best sheepdog
handlers!!
~ Congratulations ~
NEWS BULLETIN July 15th, 2005:
More newspapers and internet sites have spent time and space on the
performance of Serge and Glen at the World Trial in Ireland.
The internet news site "Blik op Nieuws" payed attention to the
World Trial results.
They published an artikel, which can be viewed at: Blik
op Nieuws
(unfortunately, available in Dutch only)
Also the local newspaper "De Gelderlander" mentioned the
achievement. If you register to the site the artikel can be read on De
Gelderlander
(in Dutch only)
NEWS BULLETIN July 13th, 2005:
A festive home-coming was awaiting the best
sheepdog handler of The Netherlands when he arrived in his hometown Heteren on
Wednesday 10.00 a.m. Family and friends were present to pay homage to this
first-rate sportman and his dog.
Later that day the Mayor of Heteren visited
Serge and his family to congratulate Serge in person.
NEWS BULLETIN July 12th, 2005:
After his succes in Ireland, Serge was
interviewed by Dutch media. First he was interviewed by "Omroep
Gelderland", a local Radio and TV Station. The interview was broadcasted
on Radio as well as TV.
Today's afternoon, commercial radio station "Radio 538", showed
interest in Serge's performance at the World Trial and aired a live interview
during the radioshow of Ruud de Wild (sorry, audio item no
longer available on internet).
NEWS BULLETIN July 10th, 2005:
This weekend, over 200 dogs and their handlers,
came from 32 different coutries to Ireland to compete for the title of World
Champion 2005.
Today, Serge van der Zweep made it to the finals of the World Trial with both
his dogs, Roy and Glen.
With his dog Glen, Serge reached third position of world's best sheepdog
handlers!!!
~ Congratulations ~
