Playing with the toys and it takes a village

So, in the last two weeks – it’s been raining a lot.

One time, the Woods forgot I had lessons with them in the morning and when I showed up (I usually check, but Shannon was totally like WE’LL SEE YOU WEDNESDAY, so I didn’t) they were gone. Happily they trust me enough to just go work the cows myself. We got them off the hill and into the arena and I didn’t really have too many goals with her except to just let her work cattle. We’ve been working on tweaking a lot of finite stuff so I basically just wanted her to have some mileage on them and get more and more confidence. About a quarter of the way into the work, I started trying to pen them in the middle and MAN that was hard.

These are calves and not SUPER human/dog broke so they’re not super happy about fetching to me or my pressure OR Rippa’s, so getting in the right spot to get them in was rough. Rippa’s not super sharp so hitting the sweet spot where she’s right AND I’m right was rough.

I was pretty happy because she’s working quiet now and without a lot of commands, she’ll read the stock and do whatever. Got some good hits in there (both ends – and more excitedly, she hit low where she needed to on the heels, which makes me feel pretty good about the body shots being an insecurity thing and not her real toolbox).

And then we finished up with just putting them back:

Pretty good – some stuff I’d like to go different for both of us, but as Shannon said last time – leaps and bounds! You like my angry batman voice? Hey, it works. I have to wean myself off it, though.

It’s been raining a lot here (yay) so this week it was just sheep and goats. I worked the round pen with Rippa and the goats to refresh her mind and get her a little sharper on commands as well as going to the fenceline to stay off them. My handling’s getting better, but definitely needs some improvement.

Took CA Sharp and Kira to sheep at Stephanies and Roland was there (remember him from my ducks) working through. When it came to my turn, I was stressing because when people watch me, stuff falls apart. Moreover . . .

TWO WEEKS TO TRIAL TIME.

We spent some time working on fetching and outruns and commands and then turned to the take pen. In the trial, I’ll need to send Rippa in to get her stock. I’m not worried about trialing on cattle at all – but sheep and ducks I am. She tends to bite (aka, THANK YOU – end of the show) in stress situations (aka, if I am stress or she’s feeling out of control) and I do NOT want that to be what happens first off. I’m in there trying to get that worked out and Stephanie’s telling me to get out of my side, stand up straight, and then Roland comes over and physically shows me like, STAND UP STRAIGHT and that works. I’m so busy standing up straight and not intimidating Rippa that she’s not stressed. So if I trial like I have a stick up my butt, you know what.

We’ll need to work a bit more on this before the trial for sure.

I’ll also need to start reading some more sports psychology stuff and staying with the meditation practice I have. And, if all else fails, there’s always shots.

I kid.

Kind of.

Here's everyone and their dogs.

Dustin sent me home with toys to work on, too, and it’s been fun. I build a little pen, shake them up, and then set them up as they end up:

In this case, I think a (counter clockwise) Way To is a good idea because the leader stock (cow and sheep are already facing that way, they just need a push.

In this case? A go by (Clockwise).

And then this one made me talk to my buddy Amy Bradley and look up the stockdog rules. If I left the dog there and stood behind the gate, they’d just pop out. Can I do that?

The answer is, yes, I can do that. it might not be ideal, but starting nice is better than not and then having drama the rest of the time.

I’m going to spend the next two weeks working on being the most quiet, trusting handler I can be. I watch videos of myself and cringe. I could get so much more if I just chilled.