I went to school to be a vet or be involved in animal production. For three years I took classes that taught me how to feed livestock, catch them, breed them, etc, etc and I also took all these science courses.
I’m bad at math. Science is a lot of math. So I switched majors.
And I switched trajectory. I played lacrosse and found passion there. I learned to climb and devoted most of my life to it. And, while I did poke around with dogs and animals, I never really got into it. I think most people had no idea that my first love was livestock, that I rode for years and years, and generally, nobody asked.
I think it’s really interesting now that I’ve found some success in the climbing industry and other places that I’m able to circle back to what I love, which is, really, animal husbandry. (Though I like a tiny bit of farming, as evidenced by my garden and slight obsession with landscaping that came with buying the house.)
My husband went away last week to work an event in Nicaragua. And I was pretty jealous. Nobody invited me to do it professionally and I didn’t get an opportunity to see a new place or practice my Spanish (I’m proficient and I love it). But, interestingly, as soon as he was gone, I realized I was pretty dang happy with the dogs and working the animals, gathering eggs, weeding, and working on our jobs.
While I was doing that, Kay Spencer emailed me and asked me if I wanted to take over Working Aussie Source as she has decided to move on from Aussie stockdogs. She suggested including my right hand gal, Amy, on the project if I wanted, which I wanted to. Amy and I have found a really nice balance to eachother’s skills in developing dog community and I like sharing the wealth.
Kay giving this project to Amy and me allows us to take our energy and do some good with it while not having to worry about politics, clubs, or being on the right side of the fence. It’s also going to allow us to move fast and have a great impact if we want to. This is awesome.
And then, icing on the cake, Kay boxed up her library and sent it to me.
A complete set of Ranch Dog Trainer magazines, a couple books, a bunch of DVDs with stockdog footage . . . tres magnifique! I cannot wait to go through it, post the good stuff she hadn’t gotten to, and share it with the world!
Honestly, I think it’s good to walk away when you’re not getting enough out of it, and I am always teetering on that edge, but then again, something like this happens and I leap right back in. I’m a dork, what can I say?
Thank you, Kay.
And so, here I am. Dorking out with all these books, with a Woods goat in my backyard for a few days grazing down all the weeds that I can’t get under control myself.
Because Rippa was such a jerk last week and she’s in full blown standing heat (along with the Fury, which is a first that they came in together – and my vet was assuming she didn’t come into heat anymore), I decided to lay off ducks and sheep this week despite a trial coming up. She can be cranky on cattle, that’s fine. Instead, she was totally fine on cattle, but if I slowed the action anywhere near where a boy was tied up, she felt the dilemma of “cow? or sex?” She picked cow, but any release and it was like, “Well hellooooooooooo nurse.” Accidental DSW Bossies wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but let’s not.
Ever since I quit working on obedience objectives and just kind of let Rippa feel her out, a lot’s happened: she is reading her stock more, not cutting in, not taking cheap shots, and I’m able to watch the stock more to improve my own handling. In fact, on the cheap shot department? She’s a pro at hitting those heads now – and she’s getting more and more powerful as her confidence comes around. She will heel, but generally waits to see what they do first so not as much as the heading. She’s definitely a heading fool.
At the end of the session, I was feeling pretty good. Shannon said I was going to do better than most because I really, really put in the time and energy to understand things and told me that while she gets why I’m not putting much obedience on her anymore, I really need to watch two things:
1. My tone of voice. I can get excited and start yelling commands as corrections. Nope. Bad, bad Kristin.
2. I let Rippa blow commands sometimes because she’s watching her stock. Shannon points out that while she gets that, there’s going to be a time when you’re working pairs or trialing and one cow gets away and you DON’T want her to break her stay to fix it. So she says, work on those outruns and making sure she gets to get “all of them” but when we’re fooling with stuff, she’s got to mind the commands.
I haven’t been working on driving or anything because I really want both of us to improve our headspace with this new method, and I think that’s fine for now. I think I was focused too far on made-up goals when if I just give space to Rippa to learn to manage her sheep and me to learn to handle better, we’ll bet better for it in the long run.
So that’s where we’re at. Happy Valentine’s day, friends.
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