Description
Clete is a three year old, male Border Collie, out of Faansie Basson’s Finn, also running here at Soldier Hollow. Ron raised him from a puppy and enjoys his energetic personality and devotion to him. Even though Ron has worked with quite few dogs over the years, he says that Clete has presented him with a new set of challenges — a reminder that there is always more to learn about training these dogs. Thanks to Faansie’s help, Clete and Ron have worked through most of these issues and are looking forward to their future competing together.
Ron and his wife (of 55 years) and have lived in south central Texas all of their lives. Ron began his journey with the sheepdogs in the late 1990’s with a half Border Collie and half Kelpie and a book called The Farmer’s Dog. At the time, Ron had a herd of goats. Ron managed to get his dog to bring the goats to him, but could not keep him from doing so whenever he chose. Once he even brought them in the front door of Ron’s shop. Ron got a second dog, a Kelpie, and later heard about the Texas Hill Country Stockdog Association and went to one of their play days. That is where he first heard about dog trials, was quickly hooked and soon had a Border Collie. He started trialing in the novice class with these two dogs. By the time he got his third Border Collie, he was on his way to this great adventure he never could have imaged at that time. He ran in his first National Finals in 2002 and has only missed two finals since that time. Ron has been fortunate enough to be able to travel all over the United States with his dogs in the last 24 years. Ron and his dogs have made the double lift competition in all of the major competitions around the country. In addition he qualified several times for the World Trial held in Europe and competed in the Netherlands in 2017 and in Ireland in 2023.
