Repeat Offender’s Camp, Day 1

So I showed up to Kathy Warren’s Repeat Offender’s Camp this morning at 8 as the email said I should and no one was around. I literally heard the crickets. And then I found out it’s customary to take your dogs out on the hill, even though she’s not there. Oh. So I sat with Carol Norris and Doug Manley and waited for the show to begin.

Repeat Offenders is for graduated of her 100-series camps. Having excellent notes and also having done this for years, I thought that the opportunity to get on the hill, work cattle, and have five days in a row would be good for the Rippa bear as she’s been kind of off since surgery and no money and no lessons available.

I still need to set stuff up with the goat man, but yeah.

So anyway, the first thing all of us did was use today as a “warm up.” Rippa and I were back in the duck pen to make sure she got good control of herself and I managed things okay on my end.

I totally brought the video camera, but I guess it was full so I did not get any footage, sorry. It didn’t look too different from what you’ve already seen, though. I need to give more time to Rips to straighten up on turns and stop walking in circles, and she needs to stop checking out when I do stuff wrong. But overall, she looked cute.

Tomorrow I will be at the ranch bright and early at 7:30 and I’ll be paired with Marilee Mansir for my very first foray out “on the hill.”

Basically, at Kathy’s you progress from the round pen, to a bigger duck pen to the arena to “the hill.” “The hill” is an open space with no fences to help you. Your dog has to stay in control of the sheep or else it gets messy fast, but the real goal of training at Kathy’s is not to put your dog through the motions trialing, but make it a real, useful stockdog by working on the hill.  Fury never got enough control because I broke her, so in the ten years or so that I have gone to Kathy’s, this is a big moment for me and my puppy. I’m excited. I’m also happy that I am doing it with Marilee as she’s been around long enough for me to take her ribbing and know she’ll take good care of me and be patient if I screw up.

And then it will be Rippa’s first exposure to cattle if it is cooler than it was today (in the 100s, first time all year). Well, first official exposure to cattle. I’ve had accidental run ins since she was four months old that all ended quite well and I kind of think Yishai “lets” her work the cattle on the hills around her when he takes her running because he is always adamant that she is good at cattle. In an almost worshipful way. So we’ll see. I kind of expect good things from her because she has no fear but a good measure of self control and balance from what I’ve seen.

Today was a lot of telling people to go through the sheep to correct outs and a lot of “use your stick to hold the sheep back” which has been kind of a thing lately. Having been around a lot, I don’t know if Kathy has just figured out that this is something that needs to be taught, if I just never noticed it before, or if everyone is just in some kind of stick-misuse cycle. :hrug::

To day 2!