TALYBONT handler and triallist, Dewi Jenkins has topped the sales charts at a working sheep dog sale in Yorkshire yet again.

Quality well-bred fully broken dogs, notably those with impeccable Welsh bloodlines, were again keenly sought at CCM Skipton Auction Mart’s latest sale of working sheep dogs.

Once more commanding top price at the North Yorkshire venue as he has done many times in the past at both live and online sales was leading trialist Dewi Jenkins with a 7,900gns (£8,295) sale of his only entry, a 20-month-old black and white bitch, Aran Mia, by his 2016-born Clwyd Bob, related to multiple champions on both sides and himself a son of main stud dog Jock, the 2022 International Supreme Champion.

Dewi, from Tynygraig, Talybont, near Aberystwyth and undoubtedly the man of the moment on price in the working sheep dog sales world, has only had Mia for a short time – she is a daughter of Gwenno and was acquired part-broken among a litter of three from Alun Jones and his father, Bala, North Wales.

Now fully broken, the top price performer joined a past buyer from Norway, Jon Arne Sand, of Lier in Viken County, a 74-year-old sheep farmer who bought his first Border Collie in 1970 and has been using dogs in work and for trials ever since then.

His first Skipton purchase was at an online sale in 2021 when he paid £12,800 for a dog from another top Welsh breeder and trialist, Kevin Evans.

Jon is himself an accomplished trialist, winning eight Nationals and one Continental, also competing for Norway in the 2005 ISDS World Sheepdog Trials in Tullamore, Ireland.

Still trialing, but now on a minor scale, he commented: “My plans and hopes for Aran Mia are that she will work for me on the farm and on the mountain where I keep my sheep. I also hope to test her in trials and hopefully have a litter with the current ISDS World Champion, Petter Landfald’s Max.”

Petter, also from Norway, was crowned last September when the World Trials were also staged in Ireland in Co. Down.