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)
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