Barking, Arenas, and Sweet Videos of Me Working with a Sling

So, this time, I thought, “Hey, this whole working with an immobilizer on seems to work,” so I brought the video camera for Thursday’s lessons.

The first work of the morning, it was only me and my neighbor, JoAnne (she lives down the street from me) and it would have been too much for her to shoot video so I just set it on a post. You won’t get much video from that work, and it’s okay.

So I get there, and Kathy’s like, “Well, you can’t use the duckpen because Cindy (border collie local) needs to use the geese to get ready to trial in August, so let’s use the arena.” And I contain myself and very studiously say, “You sure the time is right? I can wait.” She goes, “Nah, let’s do it.”

And I am right back to when I first showed up at the ranch and thought the arena was the be-all and do-all. I am thrilled. Although, truth-be-told, I also had just sent in a deposit check for her Repeat Offender’s camp, which involves horses, cattle, and using the hill. I am hoping Rips will be ready by September, if only I can stay in good control and maybe get ahold of the Cattlemaster I keep mentioning and he is game.

Anyway, so I go in there and I am nervous. I watch Rippa at my side as she slinks in. I love how both my little dog ladies get super focused on the approach and slink kinda border-collie in and then lie down as solid as rocks until it’s time to go. No bouncing around like idiots here.

And away we go. You cant’ see much in the video, but she comes in hot (expected), and I push her out, and within a little bit, we’ve got them balanced and I can do pretty much whatever I need to.

Things I learned or thought about today:

I really need to control where I hold that stick. I notice in the video it’s way up when it should be pointing more down. I do like the sheep and how they help me with that because these new sheep are a little lighter and less likely to smash into me.

It’s time to move to the arena when your dog has control of the stock and itself (and you do, as well). The duck pen is useful in that, just like the round pen, it’s simply easier to catch and get control of the dog. Some training methods use leads, but Kathy’s is more about using yourself to handle the situation, and I like that. Fury has always been very good offlead because she knows if she messes up, that I will go and definitely get her.

I have a very big problem of walking into heads when I push Rippa out. It’s like I think the sheep stay put. I push Rippa out and then I go back to where I was in parallel with where Rippa is, which makes her unable to get around, and then makes her bitchy and quit trying.

Kathy is super annoyed by the brace because I can’t really effectively use the stick to get Rips to slingshot around me because of the arm placement. She always was like, “Now that you’re in the arena, it’s time to learn take pen, but you need full use of your arms!” Hopefully when I get to the doc in two weeks, he will say I have the right to bare arms.

Other dog thoughts . . .

- Barking. There was a new dog at the ranch for lessons and two women were outside talking about how the dog was barking a ton. “Does he bark normally?” “No!” she said suprisedly. So I kind of mumble something about how when her dog figures out what its doing and focuses, it will stop barking. Which, right about when I say it, it does.

Stock people really don’t like barking dogs, as I’ve said before. I haven’t thought about it lately, but there’s a good reason for it. I think the majority of barky dogs don’t have as much instinct as I’d like. They are usually like, “Wow, it feels kind of good to rush these animals but . . . I don’t know what to do!” Just like I thought Rippa would bark a lot because she barks a lot in person, she’s dead silent. And how many lessons have we had and she looks good. I’m really happy with how she’s turning out.

- Stress training seems to have worked. That same dog was having a hard time not chirping when he wasn’t on the stock and it reminded me of how Fury was totally unable to self-sooth at the ranch for a long time, she would dance around and chirp and all kinds of things. Now she settles right in for a nap, but it was obnoxious for a bit. Rippa has always been real easy to self-sooth. She is asleep under the picnic table while I grade in the interim, or napping in the truck. Fury used to shiver when we worked in the pens for trials and setting out sheep and I doubt Rippa will. She seems a lot calmer. Could be a personality difference, but I do think “puppy torture” that I did when the litter was little was helpful.