May 4, 2026

Reserve Champions 2025 Meeker Classic
Fernando Alves & Mona – 5-year-old Female
Arlington, WA

Of the six years Fernando Loiola Alves has competed at Meeker, 2025 was his best showing. He and five year old Mona had a beautiful run in the double lift. His outwork for the two lifts was the best of the day losing only 15 points. When he sent Mona and saw how she handled the sheep, the preciseness of her fetch, Fernando knew it was going to be a good run. After dropping the first set of sheep, Mona did a perfect turnback for the next set – Fernando told himself it was going to be his fault if they didn’t have a good score. Smooth and easy they worked the rest of the course ending up with a score of 123.

Mona came to Fernando from Joni Tietjen as a yearling – she was started and new some of the basics. She is by Joni’s Dillon and out of Ruby. Fernando put the training and finesse on her to now. She is a very hard worker, she is easy to work, train and live with and has an excellent temperament and gets along with all dogs and people. She has nice feel, balance, cool head, and a huge heart.

A native of Brazil, Fernando started with border collies in 1996, training dogs for farmers who had both sheep and cattle. He started trialing in 2001 and between 2001 and 2012 was 8-time Brazilian National Champion between cattle and sheep. In 2012 he was invited to compete at the Soldier Hollow Classic in Heber City, Utah. There he made it to the Double Lift. That was also his first year of competing at Meeker.

Fernando immigrated to the USA in 2013. Since then, he has qualified for the USBCHA Finals seven times, making it to the semis five times and the double lift 4 times. Fernando doesn’t compete a lot, but when he does, it’s usually in the early spring and fall. He tries to hit the trials in Colorado, Utah and Missouri along with some local trials to give his young inexperienced dogs a chance to go to the post. He’s not been back to Brazil since 2013 but has two younger brothers and lots of cousins, aunts and uncles that all still live there.

When talking about dogs that stand out in his mind, that taught him a lot and helped bring Fernando to where he is today, he gives the first credit to a bitch named Bitsy that he had in Brazil. He was the first fully trained dog he’d worked and she showed him what was possible. In the US, Fernando credits Ben and Josh, both dogs he trained from the start.

On their farm in Arlington, Washington, Fernando and his wife Marla raise a mix of Scottish Blackface, Kerry Hill, and Cheviots – enough to work and train dogs on. A typical day for Fernando starts by sorting the sheep and training or working his open dogs first and then on to the younger dogs and the dogs that he takes in for training in winter and summer. He usually works anywhere from 6 to 10 dogs a day depending on how many he has in for the summer and winter trainings.

Fernando is entered in Meeker this year with Mona and a young dog Gary (Josh/Maid) who he bred and who is not yet 3 years old in the open class. This is his first full year in Open and currently has over 50 points in just 6 trials.

Meeker is one of Fernando’s favorite trials, not only because of the challenging sheep and course, but the people. He enjoys the company of the people of Meeker and all the volunteers and visitors that come to Meeker – it’s one of the classiest trials he attends.

2026 will mark the first year that Fernando will compete in Meeker as a United States Citizen! We congratulate him on that achievement and all the other honors he has! It was a joy to watch you in your Reserve Champion run in 2025!

Fernando has an impressive resume of winnings and experience. Since he immigrated in 2013, his accomplishments have been: Promising Young Dog at Vashon Sheepdog Classic twice, 2019 Vashon Sheepdog Overall Open Champion, Catbird Sheepdog Trial Champion two times, NW Championship Overall Champion three times, Sheep Thrillz Champion two times, 2025 He finished in 2nd place at the Meeker Sheepdog Classic and in 2020 he made The USA World Trial Team with Ben (but was cancelled due to covid). He has over 33 open wins on various types of sheep, ranging from farm flock, commercial flock and range sheep.