Circles and Circles and Circles

I haven’t had time to digest the video yet, but I know some people are waiting on Rippa Puppy updates. This past weekend we did three solid days of training.

We worked on Rippa’s outrun (she’s quit splitting them for the most part, and quit doing that “change direction thing” that I talked about earlier that was hard for me to figure out how to manage), on her obedience (she still doesn’t stop before pushing the sheep past me), on her outs, and on my ability to hold the sheep.

First thought is: why do *I* run more than everyone else at lessons? I forgot to ask Kathy about this, but I think it’s partly that I can (when other folks are retirees or injured or just not in shape) and partly that I have more high-powered dogs than some. You gotta MOVE to keep ahead of them. Kathy’s pretty nimble herself and she gets out there, but I think timing has a lot to do with it, too. I need to hustle to get where she was two seconds ago.

Second is, MAN, am I tired of saying “Out.” The thing that you have to understand is that our dogs were not developed to work 3-5 sheep. They were bred to work a huge flock. That pressure is really important because when you have a huge flock, the front animals don’t feel the dog’s pressure, but they certainly feel the pressure of their compatriots urgently pushing on them. So, at this stage in the game, you’re trying to teach the dog to stay out so you don’t end up with a mess. Rippa listens for the most part, but there’s only so much she can take. She’ll get up, control herself and then . . . munch! Those lamb hocks are just too tempting that close up! MOVE, sheepies! Rippa is very pressure sensitive, both with stock and people. I think this makes her a nice cattle dog, but we’ve yet to see. She does not like a lot of pressure up front.

I’ve been dutifully chucking dog food at Rippa at feeding time after she lies down at a distance and Kathy says she sees improvement, but she needs to learn that lying down is a good thing. She just doesn’t want to. She looks really guilty when I ask her to down and go to her. Funny little dog.

The outrun issue, for the most part, have been fixed. She will take direction indications (ie, my body and stick placement), but she still runs pretty fast and flat at them. I have to run to keep her out around them, but I can feel her getting more control of it as time goes on.

Overall, good improvement over the three days. I started not being able to figure out what to do and Kathy stepped in to get Rippa right for me. The difference is night and day. She balances up (walks straight along with the sheep) with Kathy handling her, and with me she wears back and forth (what it sounds like, checks the outside eye of one sheep, runs back, checks the other, repeat). Why? I have a hard time holding my sheep – which is also how I broke Fury so badly. The sheep get past me because apparently when I run out to her to push her out, I run into the sheep’s flight zone and Kathy manages to stay out of it, so the sheep stay pointed toward her instead of going wide around me. We’ll see in the videos soon and hopefully get a clue as to how to fix this.  

Happy sheepsies in the mean time!