I try to write every time we get on stock because it helps me solidify thoughts and feelings, and it’s pretty realistic to look at the archives and see how much work/how many sessions have gone into this. I skipped a work on Friday.
After the nice session we had in the round pen, I decided it was probably time to move to the arena to give her more to do, work on outruns, and not let the small enclosure become a crutch for us. I thought it was a good time to take a lesson with Stephanie to transition, so signed up for one. Her style is very different in some ways, but the changes she’s encouraged have made a world of difference in our partnership so I think it’s a good idea to have her involved when I feel ready for it.
When I showed up, she had sheep in the round pen for me and not in the arena like I wanted, but I went with it. She said she’d seen me using the flag wrong and wanted to fix it. “You were moving into Rippa – but with the flag, you have to move away. And you can’t use it too much or it will become a crutch.”
So, back to the stick. That went fine, but she started throwing lots of new things at us – she critiqued how I started my outruns, and after a bit of confusion which riled me and the sheep and the dog up, I had to stop and find out what exactly she wanted. What she wanted was completely the opposite of how I’ve learned to teach outruns (go between the sheep and the dog, then transition to slingshots, then move further and further), but was more about trusting the dog to learn to pick the sheep up while it makes mistakes. I kept trying to do it, but it was really, really difficult. Eventually I figured out a hybrid of the two that worked for us all – which is that instead of slingshotting, I walk in the direction I’m going to send Rippa and then send her. It keeps her out wide when she starts.
Then Stephanie started trying to make me send Rippa on her flanks but I know that we’ve spent time just trying to get easy flanks and she really doesn’t take flank commands yet, nor do I expect her to. So Stephanie was like, “Well, then, lie her down if she doesn’t take them and make her.”
It was just a lot of change for both of us, and my handling started to fall apart and then Rippa stopped covering her sheep, and then . . . I admit . . . I started crying. I haven’t cried doing stockdog stuff (at least during a lesson) that I know of ever, so I thought it was a good sign that I was comfortable with Stephanie’s reaction to the crying to allow it, while also being just REALLY frustrated.
Everyone tells me that Rippa is stubborn or spoiled, but I do know my dog and I’ve been training dogs for years so when I say I know how she learns and “make excuses for it” I really feel I do know. When Rippa shuts down, she does it because she doesn’t know what to do at all. Stephanie was like, “Just make her do it” but my inclination was to just go back to what we knew to reinforce us both. It’s frustrating taking lessons from people when you have your own idea about how things work. I need to work on one thing at at a time, and I think Stephanie may be a bit eager to have me improve in leaps and bounds and thinks I can take it, but I can’t. And I cried.
So we took a break and she moved me into the arena and said to just do what I normally do and forget everything she said, and we did. And we did pretty well. Rippa behaved well and you could see her learning how to manage the sheep in a larger arena, but definitely we had work to do.
And so here we are today. I am taking off for an entire month of travels next week, and I was pretty booked but I wanted one more lesson in the arena before we took the time off so she could think on it (yeah, I do think they do, because they seem to always come back a little better after time off).
So, I just rented sheep. I brought the flag and the short stick and here we were. Rippa has some eye to her, and some power, so we spent the first couple minutes just following the sheep to let them settle after we went into the arena. I started out with the flag because I have no confidence (see me thinking hindsight here) and she picked them up a little sloppy, so that was what we worked on. As soon as it was nice, we started trucking around the arena (the goal for a bit here is mileage and letting Rippa learn how to balance to her sheep in this environment with minimal “training” from me for a while), but she got too close in so I started trying to push her with the flag. And then I remembered what Steph said about the flag and put it back, picking up the stick.
And from there, things went well. I used her method of starting the out runs and then trying to take walks into the arena. Rippa would do really good, then put some pressure and lose her sheep, come back and get them, etc. Eventually she started to settle and handle things a lot more evenly – without much guidance from me except some stick and pressure and then, more importantly, taking it off. She was like, “Why yes, sheep can walk” which was pretty awesome.
We’d get about halfway and then this one particular sheep would peel off and return “home” to the gates and I would take the opportunity to leave the parked sheep and encourage her to “look back” and get the sheep. She built up her confidence on this task and by the third time, she wasn’t carefully following her and looking back at me, but charging after her to stop her and then backing off as she turned and headed back up to my other flock.
She also started doing distance gatherings with me far away – slow, easy approaches, I could see her “outing” herself along the fence and really reading her sheep. She’d take it slow and easy with me a 100 meters out and seeing which way they leaned, fixing it, and bringing them to me. Once they got to me, she’d balance up and we’d take a walk. Eventually she’d push too hard, and we’d have to start cleaning it up again, but I think probably just mileage and confidence will help there.
I started trying to do Stephanie’s out-run flank “down” thing that I talked about above for a bit, but decided this was way too much new stuff and to leave it be.
I saw some really good stuff today. Calm, thinking, and I think she’s going to have an easier time learning the drive than most dogs I’ve seen start because of this. I remember when we first started and Trish made a comment after working her that she was a “finals-quality" dog that really got me motivated but I haven’t really felt that way about her until today.
All that battling and her going hard and all I needed to do was take the pressure off and she’s gathering sheep up half a field away without ever doing it before like it’s old hat. Her stopping and listening to my commands without me having to yell. Me just being pretty sure that no one is going to get harassed and injured enough for me to just stand there and watch what happens.
We’ve both come a long way in this. I was terrified to do anything on my own without someone “who knew” watching me, but I am starting to really feel that I do know, especially when it comes to my dog, how to do this.
I don’t think we’ll make it to finals – I just don’t have the years of experience trialing, and I honestly don’t love the trial atmosphere and never really have, so I probably won’t get the experience you need. Like that book I was really excited about says, to be a champion takes real sacrifice and I’m not motivated to do that.
But I hope when I’m ready to go for this, that we do well.
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