I am 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗷𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗿, married with Kora and we live on a little farm next to the river Rhine close to Arnhem. I am a retired facility manager and feel honoured to be invited again to judge this North Germany Open Sheepdog trial in Nordstrand.

Some Thirty years ago I bought my first Border Collies. I have a small flog of Kerry Hills and Hebrideans which I use for training and teaching starting handlers and their dogs. Nothing more relaxing than training dogs and getting the sheep exactly where you want them to be.

I competed in several Continental and World Trials, but most time I am involved in the organisation of trials such as, the qualifiers in the Netherlands, all the European Nursery Championships in Heteren , Pre Continentals, the Continentals in 2004 and 2012 and the World Trial in 2017. I judged several major and qualifying trials in the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and Germany (for instance last year’s North Germany Open Sheepdog Trial). Furthermore, I have gained a lot of experience as a course director. I absolutely loved the World Trials in Hoogwoud in 2017, where I was the coarse director during the qualifiers, semi-final and final.

I am looking forward to judge this tremendous trial and hope to meet you all in Nordstrand

With kind regards Thijs Gottmer

I started working with sheep early on. This was a herd of 1500 Texel sheep and a herd of cattle. Quite different from what I do now. I did this without dogs for a while. My neighbor gave me the idea that a dog could do the work of 6 men.

He was right!

I bought my first Border Collie from Paul Andreoli, this was in 1982. I called her Sita, she was an active and smart lady. Since then I have never parted ways with Border Collies. In 1990 I got my job as a shepherd on the Hijkerveld. I’ve managed 800 sheep and a herd of Scottish Highlanders there. I herded this flock of sheep with my dogs and for the Highlanders I also used my Western horse.

I started my own business since 2004. Now I have a herd of Schoonebeker heide sheep for ecological management in Zwolle. Together with James we roam between three different boroughs. I often take the other dogs with me to train them here.

As you can read in my intro, Border Collies and sheep always keep me busy. Thats also why I am an active participant in the national and international sheep herding competitions.

In 1986 my first training course was of the Border Collie Club Netherlands. I did this one with Sita. Here I found out there were a lot of nuanced whistle signals, while I was only shouting 3 commands. My buddy Paul Andreoli insisted that I continue training. Which had a good result, I became first at the Dutch Championship with Sita! (1987 in Rheden)

In recent years I became European champion three times with different dogs and Dutch champion twice. I train my dogs on whistle and on voice commands. Keeping the dogs personality in mind we always have to wait and see how quickly a dog picks it up. Keeping them in good shape, mentally and physically, I accomplish this by training in different circumstances and just walking.