Gratitude and Getting There

So I haven’t written in a while because I needed some processing time. After the trial, I was SUPER sore. Like I had an epic workout. I was also emotionally drained. The husband was like, “Well, duh. I expected you to stress and you did. You put a lot into this.”

We went on a big work trip scouting for a race we put on right after. The dogs LOVED it. The Fury was about 5 weeks post her big surgery to fix her leg and, you know what, I admit it, we let it ride. She was able to come along on hikes with us and we watched it carefully but no issues. We got cleared a week later and he said she looked phenomenal, especially for her age, so I don’t feel bad. I happen to think my huz and I are pretty good at understanding our dogs’ health.

Plus, they got to see snow. Rippa spent a lot of time post-holing in it, both of them eating it, and the Fury, well . . .

In the middle of the week, I had a lot of time on my hands because I was shuttling my husband on his bike because the dogs couldn’t come and sitting in the car a lot. I kept thinking about that trial. About how I couldn’t qualify after all this time and it didn’t seem right and really, if that’s the case, whose fault is that? Maybe Aussies really are crap after all and I should give it up. I mean, really, what I really thought was that I was probably crap and things weren’t ever going to get better because I KNEW what to do but I couldn’t seem to grasp it.

So I asked about it on the Internet and my friends helpfully suggested lots of things, but when the people at the trial chimed in, the message was “You did good. It takes practice to trial well. Calm down.”

I have been talking to a friend fairly new to the breed and she was saying she wish she’d gotten into it when she was as young as me (I was 12) but getting into it that young also messed me up a bit – I REALLY care about stuff. And as much as I get annoyed with “dog fanciers” and their competing to know more intellectually without actually knowing it common-sense/experience-wise, I’m one too. I have to stop WORRYING about what it all means and trust myself that I probably know things are fine.

So, I couldn’t WAIT to get back to stockdogging after the trip. I took everyone’s advice to heart. Maxine said that I needed to let her take control to start and then trust my dog and she’d be night and day. At the time I literally couldn’t understand that. Couldn’t put it into practice. A couple people who agree with her (okay, EVERYONE agrees with her), suggested I muzzle her when I work so I can relax because I just HATE it when she hurts the stock. I looked around for my muzzle but couldn’t find it in the move and decided that I could do what Maxine (and everyone else) said without it.




Wait for it . . .

 

Wait for it . . .

 

HOLY CRAP, IT WORKED! I stopped worrying about what Rippa looked like doing things and just went about my business. I put her into the take pen with the sheep, didn’t care how it looked, let her bring them out, didn’t look to see what was happening behind me and closed the gate. Rippa had gone out, collected them, and brought them to me. No cheap shots.

I walked out to the alley-way across Stephanie’s field, opened that gate, walked the sheep through, when they tried to run, Rippa stopped them, held them . . .

And then we worked on just getting out in tight quarters a bit, and every time I said “No” she would back off.

We opened the gate to the bigger field, did some fetching (heeding John’s advice that I just do fetching until my shoes wear out) and worked on “out” and outruns, then put them through another fence with a HUGE draw to a gate, and the Rippa bear caught them, brought them back. I walked toward the gate while Rippa went to head and then behind and head, behind, then figured out where to be to hold them along with me and stayed there.

Ladies and gentlemen, there she was. That was it.

No cheap shots, no handling by me . . . Rippa just taking care of business and being cool about it. I understood what Maxine said about kicking her out and letting her get control now. She can do it, and so can I. I get it. For some reason I just didn’t.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a little clip I made to show friends what the heck I do.

Pretty nice, yeah?

When it came to cattle – I had been thinking long and hard about this because I thought I had handled well at the trial and then didn’t qualify because of control points. People ALWAYS think that Rippa is stubborn but time and time she proves me right that she’s more of a thinking dog. If she doesn’t get something, she gets sullen and will quit working hard until she figures it out. It can be frustrating and easy to judge, but I specifically wanted more thinking when I picked her site to breed to the Fury who is like, “GO HARD ALL THE TIME!” and sometimes can’t think because she’s too committed to just doing something.

With Shannon and Dustin, we’d been working on responsiveness and tweaking. Putting her in the right place and getting the job done. And that’s what I did at the trial mostly (not all of it was pretty, as I said). But now I think I understand where the BC/Aussie difference is. Rippa doesn’t need to be put somewhere, she just needs to understand the job. So, I told Shan when I came back that I would rather just work on fundamentals because she clearly felt out of control during the trial. I needed to stop telling her what to do and let her “feel” her stock out like she was doing with the sheep (and ducks).

What we have been working on is outruns and fetching.

The Woods have two places for cattle to go in their backyard. One is a smallish arena with obstacles set up and then there’s this “L” shaped alley way that’s wider up top and on a hill.  Shannon and I work on her outruns up there. It’s a little annoying sometimes because the cows will go down the leg of the L we don’t want them to if the pressure’s not right, but the exercise is neat and it works.

Here’s the setup:

Cows                       Me                                               Shannon                Rippa

Shannon generally has to place Rippa because her pressure is sometimes too much for the dog. Boss lady intimidates her. So what we do is lay her down, and both of us post up by the fence line but letting Rippa still see the cows (not blocking her view).

And then:

So, we send Rippa away (Shannon says it), and then walks toward the other fenceline to keep her out. When/if she cuts in, I am then there to walk forward to kick her out and then she’s nice and out when she comes into the cows. Then we fetch backward.

It’s working really well, but the fetching needs a lot of work. We moved to the arena and the job changed from just this exercise to navigating around the obstacles and just much harder so Rippa got slower and crankier and wanted to quit. We got her to do some stuff and left it. I get really frustrated with that, but I also think with time she’ll get it so I need to stop judging one go like that. She just doesn’t feel in control on cattle yet, and I was taking what control she did have away by worrying more about her obedience.

So anyway, that’s where we’re at. Pretty happy. Definitely planning on entering the next trial – even though I thought I wanted more mileage. I think this time I understand it.

I thanked Stephanie today for having faith in me and letting me make all these mistakes so I could eventually figure it out. It takes a brave, trusting woman to let my dog take cheap shots on her sheep and know that it will come out okay eventually.

When I get my own stock someday, I’m definitely going to remember the value of working stock away from a watchful eye and trusting people to figure it out on their own. I’m also just SO grateful to the people that made sure that Rippa’s ancestors had all the instinct they needed. Being able to sit back and let her work and make the right decisions is so key in MY development and if she were missing something somewhere, I couldn’t be in this phase of learning.