Cattle video and being watched

Most people, I think, only post shining star videos of their dogs, but let’s be realistic. Nobody gets any good without failing and sucking, first.

Not that what I’m about to show you is fail and suck, but it’s not “Wow, THAT is a great cow dog and handler pair.” Which is the exact point.

1. When I work under someone else, even if I’m not worried about them, I handle like crap. I worked Rippa on sheep today and everything that I “learned” yesterday I found myself naturally doing today. I know better, but if someone’s watching me, I seem to fall apart. Going to be hell when I trial, but a good way to work on myself.

2. It’s as much about handling cattle as it is the dog. The clips I show you I purposely selected to show you – the first set up is bad and it doesn’t go well. The second is right and it goes fine.

Videoing is so good – I can totally see how much I need to shut up (I thought it while I was out there – my default losing control mode is yapping, that’s why I joined Toastmasters, to get it under control) and where my handling is really lacking. I’m asking for too much from Rippa for how I’m setting her up. She’s been on cattle once at Kathy’s and at a clinic last summer after not working for weeks, and now this, I think, is our third time out since then. It’s pretty good – I’d say.

Also, the way I walk in this video creeps me out. I’m having my physical therapist look at it – hmm.

Anyway, enjoy!

I also took the dogs out today for sheep – Rippa did nicely, as usual, and Fury did, too. Both managed to get loose during the other’s run and come join me in the field, but neither messed with the sheep when it happened, so that was happy. They are whining, crazy fools when the other works, but I figure they’ll get used to it eventually . . . I can’t correct and work at the same time.

Fury got a short work because she’d pick the sheep up and then because she doesn’t know how to balance well, we’d do a lot of hard running in record heat – not good for anybody, sheep or dog. I had really wanted to get her feeling settled, but she was taking pressure of the stick really well and not pulling anything cheap so I thought that was enough for her first formal lesson back. She put them away nicely, too. She is just ALL GO JUICE compared to Rippa being more tentative about new things. It should be fun working two very different dogs with power at the same time.