Entries open for Southern Indoor Charity Dog Trials

Quentin Whitehead, of Gore, and Sam, work as a team to pen the sheep during last year's Southern Indoor Charity Dog Trials at Waimumu. Photo / Southern Rural Life Files

Entries are open for the annual Southern Indoor Charity Dog Trials, which will be held at the Agricentre on the Southern Field Days' site at Waimumu on August 9, 10 and 11.

Entries close on July 15.

Organiser Mike Joyce expected the event would attract more than the 130 entries of last year as many trials had been cancelled because of Covid-19.

They included the New Zealand and South Island championships, which were to have been run by the Southland centre at the Greenvale Dog Trial Club in May.

However, the centre will hold the national competitions at the same place next year.

About $10,000 was raised for Hospice Southland at last year's indoor trials, although there would be less of an emphasis on fundraising this year, Joyce said.

"We are not going to push the charity side quite so much because of two things — we had the flooding around Gore and, with Covid-19, businesses have been hit pretty hard."

It was the fifth year the event had been held at Waimumu and entries had been received from as far afield as Cheviot and the West Coast.