Duckies coming and taking a step back to see the progress

Well, me taking a cue from everyone who’s been telling me I’m not handling my best definitely helped. Rippa is just killing it on stock these days. Every single lesson is a leap forward for us in one way or another.

I think I told you that CA Sharp sometimes comes with me to start her dog  in the round pen with Stephanie while I train mine in the field. Well, last time, Stephanie asked if I could handle sorting off the sheep CA needed and, well, duh.

Rippa is a most excellent pen work dog. Calm, controlled, takes her commands, totally gets what I need. Makes me think that Farm Trials should be our forte’.

Anyway, once we sort off the heavy sheep for Kira (CA’s dog), I think, you know, it’s not like the sheep are going to run for the hills, I bet I can use Rippa to take them from the arena to the round pen.

And you know what? I can. How we did it also kind of settles in my mind that Rippa is a strong driving dog. I haven’t trained her formally to drive, but she tends to do it in situations like this – we pushed them through the gate and Rippa got them bent the right way, away from the draw of the rest of the sheep, without my help and ahead of me, so I just followed and warned her to ease up periodically.

I think the job would have totally gone perfectly except 1: CA had her dog there, and had to open the gate and the sheep were like, “Noooooo!” and me, being a stupid handler. I pulled out my phone to get a video to show you how sexy our chore work was and me not paying attention to the dog situation ahead and help Rippa out made me lose the sheep. They ran into Stephanie’s barn and it was more than a little complicated to get them out. As I’ve said, the “flow” of her setup is less than ideal, but it also makes it pretty fun to try to figure out how to handle those situations.

I was proud of me for knowing how much pressure I could put on dog and sheep at the right times and it was pretty fun and rewarding.

Stuck with spazzy lambs, we had a hard time getting started but Rippa is getting it – her outrun is widening and she’s staying off them when she’s fetching. Thinking about past times I’ve felt like we might not be able to even work in the arena with the heavy sheep bouncing all around, I’m feeling really good about it all.

And then duckies come in the mail next week and we start that adventure! Even Fury will get to work them.

I am so confident in Rippa’s talent at this point that I think it’s time to invest in all her health clearances. I still don’t know if we’ll breed her, much less to who, but good to know at this stage if it’s even a thing. I don’t expect any issues to come back, her lines seem really healthy from my experience and conversations. Exactly what I want.

I definitely know a goal of my program is to capitalize on that calm, quiet control. I’ve seen Aussies at finals be heeling fools for no good reason and dogs rodeoing cattle for the fun of it (which, totally, Rippa does), but after having seen the red border collies at the Woods’ house absolutely kill it, my program has to absolutely be based on confident power rather than showy power.

Rippa started out a little tentative on cattle, but she’s grown into herself now and I don’t see any hesitation at all to do what she needs to do. Fury started out all fire and power but never added the calmness to it instinctually that I’ve seen Rippa demonstrate – with more experience, she should be a great dog. One I’ll be able to take to cattlemen in the area and show them what an Aussie can do.

I hope.  Could be kennel blindness, too, but we’ll see soon enough.

On another note, I’m taking the kids to an agility/obedience trial next weekend. The real point is to finish Fury’s CD. Rippa might do it, but not with a very high score. She can either be totally on or totally distracted. Today she was sure she didn’t know what “Stand” meant, much less that she should sit when heeling. Both dogs weren’t awesome at agility, either. Fury is a lot slower these days – not because she’s getting older, I think she just doesn’t care and my handling’s gotten bad with no practice (which she always gets mad at me for).  I think I might stop kidding myself that I’m into all the venues because I have no problem driving an hour round trip twice a week (I’d do more if I didn’t have to work) but can’t bring myself to spend 20 minutes training them.

Oh well, wish us luck anyway!

Goats and Cattle and Bar WD

Well, that didn’t take long. I’m a firm believer in the concept that things will come together when it’s time for them to come together (though I do let myself get disappointed when it’s not on my timeline), and this week has been an example of just that.

Once I decided to go for it, I talked to Jennifer, and ducks have been ordered. The huz and I are trucking out to Creston to build out the duck living area tomorrow, and in a few days the ducklings should arrive and be ready to raised by Jennifer’s teenage daughters.

In the same day, I asked my husband to ask his acquaintance about cattle, but it didn’t work out so he asked a mutual friend of ours that grew up on a cattle ranch here if he had any leads and . . . of course he did!

We went up the grade to north county today to do some agility warming up (the owner there, Eileen, is kind enough to let me work my dogs in her field without taking lessons  - we saw her there and she razzed me for my tendency to only train the weekend before a trial – this time it’s three weeks away so I’m doing good!)

And then, we headed a few minutes out to meet Shannon and Dustin Wood of Bar WD. I didn’t know much what to expect except that she was in a couple Facebook groups other dog people I knew were in . . . but let me just say that I was impressed.

The Woods run cattle out of Parkfield, an area more in the central valley, but they have a training setup in town. Sheep, goats, and cattle. Eileen said she’d heard they had puppies, so one of the first things I said was, “I hear you have puppies!” and was ushered in. Eeeeeeeeeee. I like puppies, what can I say?

The Woods were happy to just let me do my thing, encouraging me to try goats first, but I took a cue from Kathy on this and asked them to work their dogs first so I could see what they expected. This works really well because I get an idea of their expectations, where they are coming from with their dogs and handling, and whether I’m getting into trouble.  It also helps me figure out if they’re going to be cool with the power I’ve got on the dog with grip and such or just know if I’m in a situation I shouldn’t be. But nope, this was more than fine: it appears to be perfect.

The Woods dogs are NICE. A couple of them fetched a big purse at the Red Bluff stock sale auction ($5000 and another at $10000). And, they’re all red dogs. I laughed because Stephanie told me that the BC people who trial on sheep all think red dogs can’t work. He was like, “Show her a picture of my dogs!” I agree. Being biased and all . . .

Moreover the Woods “get it” from a stockhandling perspective. Low stress, efficient, replace the work of ten men with one dog doing good work. “I don’t need dogs that bark because my dogs will just bring them back to me – I don’t care where they were, but they got here, so what do I need barking for?” Dustin had me watch the cattle closely, and as he said, “Watch the beginning, not the end.” See the beginning of movement of both dog and cattle and I’d respond faster and be more effective. And I totally, totally get it. I’m also glad to be working with somebody that’s not just trialing as a hobby – I really want to make practical use out of my dogs (and recognize it if I can’t get that for any reason) so staying with people who do it will help me keep that perspective.

It came our turn to do it and Rippa has never worked goats in her life and she LOVED them. Way too amped to do much thinking and I tried to wait her out with half moons, but she was ready to MOVE THOSE GOATS by all her power. Eventually I called her off and we moved to the cattle. Shannon quips, “They work like cattle, right?” I didn’t really feel that – like light sheep/lambs, but I think Rippa did. The enthusiasm was sky high compared to the sheep.

They have a couple Holstein calves, which he said he likes because they are better for working – the meat cattle will just sit (I think is what he said). I know a lot of people who don’t like dairy cattle because they aren’t as gregarious (don’t group) because of how they’re raised, but I did like them when I trialed them in Idaho, so to each his own. I’d be more interested to learn about cattle breeds and stockdogs – it seems I know enough about sheep, and even ducks, but not cattle.

I started Rippa like I have been taught to do at Kathy’s, just seeing what she does and trying to keep it easy and keep myself out of it and Rippa definitely dropped any semblance of hesitation about cattle – heads, heels, it was all good to her. Dustin and Shannon called  me in and asked me to put some more control on it and push her back like I did at Betty’s and in no time she was driving them up and down the fence line and turning them quietly. I was very proud of her for taking her flanks and commands like a champ.

When we tried to lift them off the fence, however, she got less confident and started trying to do stuff on the inside flank.  She doesn’t do a real good job of staying back on the fetch, instead over flanking and coming to the cow’s head and getting it mucked up and scary for the cows – not releasing enough pressure. I’m not worried about it  - Rippa spends most of her life EXTREMELY EXCITED by the sight of cattle but unable to work them (we do a lot of off leash hikes and rides in the hills here) so her brain probably freaks when she’s finally allowed to do stuff and wants to just turn them in circles for the sheer adrenaline of it. I’m sure it will settle with time.

Dustin had me handle the cattle myself and start reading the cows rather than worrying about the dog. Simple stuff, stuff I know intellectually but not instinctually. I spend a lot more time worrying about the dog on cattle, and that’s what made me a bad handler on sheep – worrying about the dog on sheep – so it should make sense, right?

Then he showed me a couple ways to get Rippa to not slice the top on her outrun on cattle – setting her up and using the panels to kick her out and balance at  the top. She did this a few times really nicely, a few times not. I wasn’t intending to do real work with her today – just see where we were at but I figured it was a good sign they were pressing me to improve and work her, so I was really happy with what we got.

He observed she’s got a side, for sure, “she’s left handed” (meaning she takes the go-by –clockwise- command better and will choose it, given the option). Kind of interesting because in early training I felt like she was the opposite. I used to have to urge the go by (if you remember that from a few months ago) . . . anyway, you fix that by just working the weak flank a little more, so we will.

When Rippa wouldn’t go to the outside flank against the fence (when she had plenty of room), I employed Betty’s method of me manually getting the cattle off the fence and then sending the dog – doing it once fixed that pretty well, so . . . tools in the toolbox!

All of that went pretty well and by the end we had pretty good control of the calves, enough to direct where we needed to go. The sheep training definitely helped her solidify “the point” compared to when we were at Betty’s.

Then he suggested we go back to the goats because she’s been drained of all that initial energy. Shannon showed me some stuff with her dog about how to train Rips – off stock – to move off the stick (something I don’t do but have thought about) and suggested we do some obedience off-stock work before we work to take the edge off (I agree, you’ll remember I did do this in earlier training days . . . I think I just got so lazy on my own).  And then she had me do some half-moons with Rippa, but this time really paying attention to my “out” and reinforcing it as a real command. Again, I definitely got lazy.

By the end there, we were working goats pretty well.

The Woods definitely have put the time in and understand it. Shannon says they’ve been at this five years only, but they’re quite successful, and as I said – I’m very, very impressed. I feel like a relationship with them is going to skyrocket my stock handling skills and goals. They go to all kinds of associations to trial as they figure being well rounded will make them have the best dogs and I love that. I’d never even considered other venues because I’m such an ASCA person, but that door just got flung wide open as a possibility.

I’m super grateful that everything appears to be working out. The Beez worked for like two hours without quitting, on different livestock, and I was quite proud of her. I saw some really good dogs work, too. And some really talented and knowledgeable handlers.

Just so much good rolling down the road – I’m really getting an education and so grateful to all these people for being willing to provide it.  There is a Jewish teaching that you should not learn from only one great scholar, but from many. Maybe not at all once, but over the period of your lifetime. I’m definitely feeling that happening now – there is so much out there to learn and I’m ready for it.

My huz was with me, and he’s been a casual observer of all this stuff for a long while – he timed Finals in Bakersfield and comes along periodically to clinics and lessons. At one point I asked him to video some and he said, “But then I can’t see what’s going on.” That’s a first – he actually cared. On the way home, he was actually excited, talking about how we’re going to go out there and kill it in trials now with the help of these two, what good trainers they were, how well the explained things, how well they handled, how awesome their dogs were, about their trucks, their nice setup, and just . . . I think he finally got it.

Yeah, feeling quite blessed and excited.

The Chain of Positive Thinking

Well, I think that the chat with Stephanie and my huz worked. Today, Rippa and I did our thing and it was mostly glorious. She’s getting out when I ask and not shaving the top off like she was. She pens spectacularly. We did some arena obstacles (free standing pen and some panel work), she fetched for me and kept pretty balanced up, she drove a couple feet, and her outruns are getting better – I’ve actually gone back to standing in between her and the sheep (which I couldn’t do for a long time because she’d dive in and fight me) so that front looks like it’s going to progress. And all with the stock stick and not my big ol’ bottle pole.

But, yeah, I definitely can handle a started class in ASCA at this point, so long as I hold it together and the sheep aren’t awful.

I’ll talk about my driving technique next time probably, but I wanted to muse on this a bit.

I have a Kindle and it comes loaded up with a book called “The Flinch” – its premise is simple: we wait for our showers to warm up before getting in them to avoid “the flinch” – being uncomfortable. He says, “No! Get in right away! Get used to the flinch. Embrace the flinch!”

The flinch is that tiny push out of your comfort zone, that, if you do it enough, becomes within your comfort zone. I tend to live my life this way in general, but the dog stuff had me stagnating. I finally got my sheep, and then when I got into the arena, I was like, “No way can I do this, these sheep!” and then today, it all came together.

Our sorting wasn’t great to start, but we got ‘er done. We had mistakes and hiccups in training and handling, but yeah. And I realized that I’d pushed out enough by going to Doug and reminding myself that I have to get out of the comfort zone and work to HANDLE that dog and it came together. This made me realize that my comfort zone of “we’re just learning, not yet” isn’t cool.

It’s why I haven’t actively tried to get my duck setup and look for cattle to work. Yesterday I went out to the Best Family Farm and we looked over the setup and got a plan together – I think the huz is looking at next week to build out the duck housing area and it’s time to order my little runners.

On the drive home, I realized I should also probably act on another thing in my head – getting Rippa on some cattle. With all the cow-calf pairs out there, it’s soon to be weaning time and  that’s when I get some nice calves to work. I had my husband write an email to a friend of his that does rodeo work, and I have a couple other ideas for that, too. But better to line it up now than sit on it.

Because sitting on it avoids “the flinch.”

That’ll do, reader. That’ll do.

Video goodness and is it really time to trial?

So, today I had the husband in tow for training. I thought I was going to be on my own (no Stephanie, even) so it would be a good, mellow time for huz to learn to see what I need him to (stuff you’ll see in the video – handling things) and tell me I am doing that from time to time.

No such luck. Another gal was there with her two dogs, and Stephanie had been working one of hers when I arrived.

We really only have one set of lesson sheep right now as the others are lambs or lambing, so by the time I was up, the sheep had been worked at least three times. I was nervous about this because I don’t like overdoing it with them, and there was a baby lamb in there. Steph just told me to pull the lamb out if we had troubles.

The previous lesson person had left the sheep in the middle of the arena, so my usual system of “sort sheep into the arena and then get them set up” wasn’t in play.

Oh, side note . . . here’s the area I sort out of:

I think you should give me props for being able to use a young dog and have her go around that thing and set them up on the gate there in the far right and sort out three or four sheep out of twenty.

Let’s have it. Now.

Okay, THANK YOU.

Anyway, so they are there in the middle of the arena, and as I told you before, these sheep don’t like to stay put. Rippa doesn’t have a beautiful big, wide outrun on her, so I have a choice to just send her and let her get them her way or try to set up a nice outrun.

Stephanie and my husband were both there, along with someone I’ve known for years from working at Kathy’s. Which do you think I picked? The latter. Because I wanted to show that I was well behaved, not because it was best for us.

As good ol’ Norm Andrews would have said, “It should have worked!” But it didn’t. So ugly. Me chasing dog because I can’t get to the sheep in the arena, sheep running full out for the gate. I pick up my dog and Stephanie is like, “You need to get over the fact that I’m here. This is going to happen at trials.” You think? Yeah, I do.

I get so hung up on what I think other people should see that I make bad choices sometimes. Twice, I will point out, twice. Finally, the second time, I let Rippa just get them her way (powerful, straight, and fast) and Stephanie’s like, “Don’t let her kill them by running them into the fence!” and I yell back, “She’ll balance up when she gets up there!” Which she does, get’s out, runs them up to me, and then eases off when the sheep are in contact with me. It’s totally fine for ranch and chore work, but not so much for trials. Going to take time to get that right, and it’s okay.

But that little lamb is not keeping up so, in front of everyone, I’ve got to sort her off into a side holding pen (you’ll see it in the video). Stephanie’s like, “You want me to?” No, I say. Rippa is an excellent penning dog.

And so I ask her to walk up, lie down and try it. The older sheep take the open gate bait, but not the baby one. Steph says I need to his Rips with a “way to” and push them up more.

”I can’t yet. She won’t take it.”

”She will.”

”Way to.”

What do you think she does?

By golly, that dog does a beautiful baby Way To and puts herself in exactly the right spot and I get that baby lamb in the pen with no stress and go right back to work.

So proud. She is SUCH a nice dog. I am really proud of her. I get more and more proud the further along we get.

So then we fool around on the hill and I work on that “out” round  me thing I talked about in the last entry. This eventually bores the crap out of Rippa so I have to watch it.

It’s at this point that hubs  decides to shoot some blurry footage, so now you get video!

Anyhow, I get out of the arena and Stephanie asks me when the next trial is. “Not yet,” I say. “You need to trial to get over some of your being nervous about me. Besides, you’re ready. That dog could win in started.”

Sparkle. But also not. I try to protest as Stephanie says, “Your problem is you – all of that, it’s you. She’s a nice dog.”

”I know, I know.” Then my huz chimes in to agree.

”Just enter.”

”It’s expensive.”

”You two make enough money to trial. What, it’s $150.”

”But I want to do all three stock, that’s not cheap,” I look at my husband in protest. He’s quite supportive of this stuff and doesn’t care, despite other pressing financial issues.

“Heck, she could probably qualify in Open right now.”

”But I don’t have a drive on her.”

“You could soon.”

Anyhow, as much as I protest, hearing it from the huz and Stephanie, I have to acknowledge how scared I am to actually trial. I don’t get it for any other dog venue or anything . . . but this is stone cold serious time. People will judge me if it goes badly or I handle badly. People already liberally judge me and my dog to my face and I hate it. If I do this, the dog needs to have the best chance at success she can.

So, here’s the plan: I get my ducks and I get Rippa a baby drive. I get at least one lesson on cattle from someone so I can tune her up on them. Then I will trial.  Okay?

Like, maybe fall.

Here’s a photo of sheep the huz took:

Laziness, new places, and meditation on power and presence

Over the weekend, I went down to this competition thing for work, which afforded me a morning at Doug Manley’s “Pasture” where and a number of other friends work their dogs.

Doug took me on a tour – the many holding pens, the different sheep, the ducks, the geese, etc. It was a nice little setup in the middle of an agrarian suburban neighborhood. I was about to go into the arena and just do what I always do, but then it occurred to me – no. I have a set of eyes now, and I have something I want to work on.

That thing is Rippa going in and “slicing” off the top. Something I can’t work on well at Stephanie’s is the outrun because we have this huge arena to work in and the sheep start to take off if I get too close to set Rippa up.

So, that’s what we did. Doug put Kathy’s “flower” method (I’ve discussed in early entries) into a new and useful perspective for me – he says it’s more like thinking about it as the dog wanting to orbit the sheep and the orbit degrades. My job is to teach the dog to want to widen the orbit. Okay. Cool, I see that. Less flower, step in, step in, more consistent “out.”

He also showed me something I might have been missing with my “slingshot” outrun because I haven’t been working with Kathy since I started it – he calls it moving laterally. I set the dog up with me and the dog between the sheep, but I move wide out of her way and then when I give her the flank, and as she moves around me, I go to the sheep to hold her out on top. It doesn’t sound much different from what I told you I was doing but . . .

“You’re lazy,” Doug says, as he points out that when Rippa balances, I step in front of the sheep instead of have her bring them . . .

Yup. I started looking for cheat ways to get what I wanted to see and . . . there you are.

So anyway, back today to the regular spot. I remembered what Doug said and worked hard on the orbit and outruns. My sheep have gotten more easy to work with time because they know who my dog is and I’m able to sort them with very little stress because Rippa keeps calm and starts out good.

Toward the end of the lesson, I realized that maybe all my telling her what to do wasn’t working and since she takes pressure off pretty easy with a reminder, I would just look for her eye (she looks before she starts coming in too close) and tell her “no” when it happened. That worked really well. I was really happy with Rippa. It made her slow way down and just walk, which made everything go nice. For a bit.

The sheep reeeeeeeally want to get back to their gate, so if I so much as point that way or stop holding my end aggressively, they bolt and Rippa has to go catch them again.  So, if that happens, she starts to speed up – she has to, but I get really disappointed by that.

Stephanie was suggesting I take her out to the bull field – a space that’s like four times the size of the arena with access at the back of the arena – “out back” equivalent for Kathy’s training facility. I told her I didn’t think we were ready for that, but actually – it’s not like Rippa loses her sheep  - it might help the sheep  stop trying to escape if it’s somewhere unfamiliar – and that gate work should be good for the Rippa bear. We’ll see how things go.

And someone commented on my bite article that a dog doesn’t really need bite if they have presence. That could be true – I admit that a dog with confidence and power may not have to bite, but I like my dogs to have it anyway – it’s a tool. Given that the reason I do this is not to win trials but
to really get the whole point of these dogs (these cattle-bred dogs) and eventually have an influence on local ranchers with them – helping them have good dogs and preserving the breed’s utility.

Anywho – so what’s presence? Well, ask the sheep. When I first got into that arena, they were like HOLY NO! when we walked in. They were used to intense stares but not intense, direct movement toward them. A BC can be mighty scary to a sheep that has not seen one and only been worked by loose eyed dogs, but after a while, that events out.

Presence/power is a measure of intimidation, I’d say. When the stock sees the dog, they think, “I will not call this dog’s bluff. It is small, but I do not want to mess with it.” That’s why a dog can get away without bite. Kind of like some huge bodybuilder dude acting as a bouncer – do you really want to find out?

Fury, Rippa’s mother had it for being so tiny. I remember Kathy telling me that I needed to be careful with her on cattle or they’d call her bluff. She used a lot of bluster to make her point and it worked. I have this great photo of a cow that’s literally leaping to get out of the way of my 26 pound dog:

I love that photo.  Problem with being wee, though, is had the cow decided to challenge and she not be able to get out of the way . . . squish goes the tiny dog.

Anyhoo, part of the reason I decided that she could contribute to the breed gene pool is that she did not ever go squish.

And that’s a thing altogether to talk about – how some people think putting dogs on cattle is just mean because it’s dangerous. Sorry, but Fury and I had a deal and it extends to all of my Aussies henceforth: you were bred to do this and if you get hurt, I love you, but you should do it. I will not protect you from potential harm, but I will do my best to not put you into a situation you can’t handle.

I feel like that’s fair. I mean, sheesh, these dogs go nuts when they see cattle out in the hills when I’m driving around. Not horses, not sheep, not poultry, not even deer. Cattle. It’s hard wired in there. I want it, and I’m okay with us all taking some knocks to do what’s hardwired.

After all, I personally am hard wired to do foolhardy stuff for fun that other people never would, too.

Off to go look at photos from that trial because I do love the Fury dog and loved working her . . .  (you can, too, if you want)