Okay . . . so hopefully this blog hasn’t been TOO whiny for a while now, but the long and the short of it was that trialing stressed me out for a number of reasons, some of which I didn’t really understand until recently. When I entered the CVASC trial, it was because I’d given some real thought to why I wasn’t successful last trial and my friends (like Carol and Pat) were telling me I just needed mileage and to get good at trialing as that takes practice, too. I was a little mad that there was this whole other element to it that I hadn’t factored in, but time, experience trying other approaches with my dogs, and my husband’s encouragement to fork over big cash and miss the first weekend of construction on my new climbing gym meant something to me.
And so, I entered Rippa in all four trials this weekend, on all three types of stock. I got an email on Wednesday that there were spots open, so I entered The Fury in ducks. I was tempted to do sheep, too, but I haven’t put her back on them since her surgery and figured let’s wait until she’s better conditioned to try trialing. (Good call, she definitely seemed a little lame by the end of the trial and it wasn’t anything more physical than she’s been doing lately.) I also sent the notice to Shannon, and they decided to come out on Sunday to support me (2.5 hour drive one way support!) and enter their two year-old pups on cattle (they were tempted to do everything, but they were worried they’d get DQ’d for biting as they don’t work to make them not bite stock – that’s what people want from their dogs).
So, up and at them at 4:30 am, we were on the road and the dogs were annoyed. I promised them they’d like it.
We showed up and I was instantly very happy to be there. It was a laid-back atmosphere with people being nothing but supportive. Sherry Baker saw me and was like, “Wow! You pop up in the most random places!” I’d never really thought about it, but she’s right – I think she only sees me at Aussie nationals usually (sitting somewhere around her or sorting stock) and I took a lesson once when I was up her way with The Fury . . . and periodically think I’ll board a dog or two with her on extended trips to get boarding AND training, but it always falls through. We’ll get to it in a minute, but I’m easily intimidated by people like her because I know who she is and her rep and very much admire what she’s doing, but I’ve never had so much as a conversation with her – I was honestly shocked she knew who I was. That first little “hi” set me completely at ease at this trial and that was so cool. The little things, I tell you.
This trial they wanted to move fast and had two rings going at once: cattle, and ducks and sheep. Being in started in everything meant that I was constantly trying to remember who I was going up after, much less what the course was (course D for sheep, which was seriously like an agility course to me – I said something like that and Sherry was like, “It’s not agility! It’s pasture gates!” Yeah, well, at least they have clear fencelines for me to figure out where to go if they’re pasture gates.) Both times I DQd on sheep? It’s partly to do with me getting turned around with which made me lose focus/confidence and then set up bad stuff for Rippa (who then would go too hard, chase a sheep, and make people yell, thinking she was going to get them). Oops.
Here’s course D (drawn in blue for the open course – started I don’t have to do the pen) - apparently the far left panel isn't actually there - but there was a tree there so I assumed it was, oops:
Both judges had to help get me through the course. This is why I kept being like, “This is me second trial in years. Be gentle.” I’m standing there after the first panel, heading to the top left and they’re like, “uhhh . .. that way.” Ack!
Okay, so, I am conscious of the fact these blogs are long so let me try to make this short.
Betsy and Feather and Rippa and I were in contention for the silver buckle for Most Promising Started Aussie, but the best part about this whole weekend was that I wanted to not worry about that stuff and just get what I needed out of the weekend. In fact, Betsy is so cool and supportive that I made a game with her that high fives happened before each run as a way to take pressure off of both of us. There was a time when I wanted to debut Rippa at the Bullet or Nationals and get myself a buckle, but I’m pretty good about altering goals when need be and right now? I need to learn how to CHILL OUT and have fun.
Part of that meant not worrying at all about what people though about us and making sure I didn’t make the mistake of undoing anything we’d been working on in training, like letting her blow commands or whatever in favor of getting a qualifying score. Shannon and Dustin have worked on timing me on runs and I have found that the ASCA max runs are PLENTY long to take care of business if it’s going well so not to worry about it.
First up was cows. I am the most confident on cows because while Rippa still tends to freak a little and stir things up, she is allowed to bite when she freaks and so I don’t have to worry as much. That first run, however, I could feel my heart racing and I was totally like, “Calm, calm, calm.”
I do this thing that I learned from the Woods, in which I face Rippa out away from the stock to start. Everyone was starting on the side of the center pen nearest where the cattle came out and I decided to not care about what everyone else was doing and keep doing what works. Facing her out and on the other side meant that she couldn’t key in to the stock as much and that she’d have to start with an out around something, both making her slow and making her think.
I also knew from the week before when we switched arenas for cattle that Rippa can freak out in a new environment (she totally lost her head, barking, chasing, literally making cattle fall over on a slippery part), so I babysat her on this round. She still got kind of rowdy periodically, but as Dustin said, it makes for good photos.
Look at that. She hits SO right on and deliberately and calms down after that I’m cool with her still freaking out a bit. A few months ago she was too intimidated to do that and she’d be hitting side flanks instead.
I wanted to try just fetching her through everything, but after about four tries, I could tell I was messing with the cattle and decided to let her drive them instead. I haven’t worked a lot on driving so I generally don’t trust her to handle it 100%, but she did great. Q.
Sheep was up and as I said, watching the runs, Sherry was talking to people about stuff and about how her sheep will go where they need to if you point them right. She told me the started sheep were her lesson sheep (and they had collars, which you can see in the photo, and that’s cute) and all you really need to do is make sure your dog circles and they’ll point at you because that’s what they’re expecting. Well, okay, I said. That’s the plan.
So, I went into the arena – and let me tell you, course D? That’s not just walking around an arena and repenning. No sirree bob. You Q on course D and you’re worthy. Even if you don’t get lost. I have to admit it was more fun than the standard old course, but also very intimidating. I was not expecting to do well here because the Rippa does not feel balance to me well. I suspect this is largely my training both from what previous judges have said (remember John telling me to fetch until I wore out shoes) and also because Rippa would much rather default to thoughtful chilling because she doesn’t like intense, futile pressure, and she does if I give her enough time. I also think she has the same thoughts about sheep that Fury does – that I won’t hold my end well enough . . . both of them tend to try to over flank for that reason and Fury will cut in where Rippa tends to quit me if I suck. So . . . yeah.
I’m standing out in the arena waiting for the sheep to settle and I can see that they’re not going to. They’re like Stephanie’s sheep who will see the Fury and start heading for the hills. Since the first obstacle is smack dab in the middle of the field, my usual tact of kind of driving them slowly until Rippa feels in control isn’t going to work, so I focus more on making sure Rippa understands that I don’t need pushy or speedy. At one point in the trial, the judge asked if I was moving on to another panel, but what I was doing was trying to establish that circle thing Sherry told me about with a calmer dog. Every time I Q’d, doing that plus heading toward the right panel meant Rippa had enough space to take pressure off.
How much space?
So much space you couldn’t take a decent photo:
The panels and me are well behind the tree.
Every time I didn’t Q – I happened to head for the wrong panel and not get Rippa lined out enough and balancing. I’m not going to lie, that course and sheep in general freak me out. Rippa CAN dial back the power, but it’s a fine line between her quitting me and going too hard and she doesn’t like sheep that much so there we are.
I feel like I get gold stars here for remembering Sherry’s words and using them as well as figuring out to line her out like that. It took me telling her no and correcting her hard (including running up and growling at her), but not caring what other people think and not letting my dog’s skills erode because it’s a trial was worth it.
I wanted a dog with a little less edge than The Fury and I thought I got it, but I still have it in Rippa, I just know how to control it more (and it didn’t come out until we had some miles on her).
So, on to ducks. Sherry’s ducks were reeeeeeeally nice. They’re all the same color and they’re all drakes. My ducks, I suspect, are all females, and they’re pretty good, but they weren’t as honest as these ducks. She works hard to make them nice, I can tell. If you and your dog were good, you were going to Q. So, did we Q? Mmmm . . . my dogs were mostly good but the ducks got hung up on the center pen and I didn’t know what to do. At home, the dogs figure out how to get them off, but here? 1. The ducks don’t know me or the dogs so they’re a little more freaked 2. The dogs and I are more queued up.
So, we did a lot of putting them back on the back fence with me trying to keep the dogs behind them and holding them. It worked once with the Fury (Q!) but the other three goes that day got a little rough when the dogs got frustrated and duck bowled a bit. (PS, I knew they wouldn’t kill/hurt them, so I was more chill than usual, but one time the whole crowd “Hey’d” and it was a little freaky. I told myself they were doing that to correct the dog and not yell at me and got through that little ego kill okay.)
So . . . end of day? Rippa has all the qualifications to put a Started cattle and sheep at the end of her name and we have a bunch of shamrock towels for the bathroom!
I was neither sore, nor did I feel like crying afterward, so I think I handled the stress pretty dang well! I got invited to go to dinner with everyone, and I spent some time in the cattle pens with Denise and . . . the conversations there were super supportive and real. Talking about life, about the stuff that freaks me out not being real, and stuff in the past (Denise’s daughter Leslie was a junior handler with me).
The next day, I got up and took my time, not even bothering to do my usual meditation stuff because I was feeling good and just wanted to get going. Dustin and Shannon were there with their kiddo whom I love and is the most happy, sweet little guy ever. It was like having home come to me. They had driven all that way mostly to support me and that’s more than I could ever ask for. They always ask me how I’m doing during trials and they’re just awesome friends. We talked about stuff and what I learned and got going.
A couple things: Roland, whom you’ve heard of before because he goes out to Stephanie’s with his dog, was there trying to finish his dog Jesse’s WTCh. One advanced cattle leg. No go the day before, so today was the big day. I told him he had to have a winning attitude and forced him to high five me before going in (it was cute, he was so hestiant about it – 70 year old guys can hug, but high five?). His run was really good, right up to the point where he was penning and got in a hurry and pushed the cattle out before he could close the pen. He came out demoralized and I was like, “No, it’s about control, right? You only lost 3 points on that happening!” Lawrence warned him he thought he’d crossed the handler’s line (50% off score = no Q), so Roland was pretty sure it was a failure. We’ll get back to him soon.
So, the night before, Pat had been talking to me about Feather and Betsy and stockdogs and everything in general. Remember I said we were in the running for the most promising award? Well, we DQd three times the day before – and Feather stays off the stock enough that she won’t get DQd, so we were down around 300 points. Go for a buckle or go for Open experience now that we had started sheep and cattle?
I had talked to both judges after the trial the day before. This is also a key strategy for me, I think. Basically – what does Kristin get intimidated by? People who judge her. At the last trial, I timed with both judges and it was easy to talk to them. I didn’t get to this time, so I was reserved until I had the right questions.
Marie suggested I stay in started for the experience and Canby, who I talked to at dinner, told me about how he used to be so nervous he puked (obviously making him a lot less intimidating than he started out being) and told me to go for open if I thought I was ready.
Since Betsy and Feather were likely going to Q in everything, I figured I’d move Rippa in to open cattle because nothing was different except the line (and since I was driving her, the line wasn’t very hard to cross) and penning which I’d been practicing with the Woods. Open sheep? On course D? HELL NO! I talked to Betsy to make sure she wasn’t moving up (and also forfeiting the buckle), and she wasn’t, so as long as she got her 9 Q’s, YAY Betsy and Feather and WELL earned. She’s such a cute dog with a lot of talent. That also took pressure off me because there was no worrying about a buckle.
Look at that – how could Betsy and Feather NOT win?
If a run went less than how Betsy hoped, I kept reminding her there was literally a silver lining so WHO cared? It was awesome. High fives, baby. I like my Rippa bear, but we’re gonna have to plan on a DQ now and again because running wide and staying out of trouble are not our forte’. I think I’m trying really hard to stress that she didn’t win it by default – she was going to win over me anyway because they were just better than we were this weekend. I hope you get that. I bring up the choices I made because I felt like “yeah, starting to understand this trialing game” and I was proud of myself for deciding to try to move up and get experience rather than win something and put the pressure on when we weren’t in a good place to try doing that. I’m learning to get that ego in check!
How’d open cattle go? Not so great. I think the pressure of being in open made me handle badly on the first run and on the second, Rippa had spent an entire weekend getting commanded to do stuff and doing nothing she considered fun and being tightened down, so when she got into a stupid spot because she had to overflank and go to head, she got kicked in the head. I’m sure it hurt, but she also decided that was it and stopped really trying. I mean, she definitely tried, but all her power and willingness to do distance work with me were gone. She seemed a little lame, too – too many goatheads in the arena? Too much emotional pressure? So, on the second run, I just repenned the cattle so she could end with something fun (out run and a clear point). That’s cool. I would have been terribly spoiled to go into open from this weekend and Rippa tried so hard for me when normally she would get mad with all that commanding and changing my mind and not being in control and didn’t quit me until she got clocked pretty good.
Even when she was a bad little dog, I figured she was tweaking more because of me and never walked out of the ring without telling her she was wonderful, which I think she is. My theory on Rippa is that when she gets out of control, it’s more out of lack of confidence than being a jerk. She really, really tries to do good – and her best work is when she knows what I want and I don’t say anything, so I know she’s trying to help me. A great example is with the chickens. She’ll run the chickens pretty hard if I’m commanding her to do something, but if I open the front gate, she goes out slowly to find them and brings them back at a balanced walk so long as I don’t say anything. I get her. People were always saying she is stubborn, but she’s not. She just needs to feel in control of the stock, understand what the point is of what we’re doing and she’ll be super helpful. I have a feeling that with enough mileage in trials, when she learns what they are, she’ll be pretty good.
Ducks? That morning I thought about how helpful Sherry’s advice was on the sheep and how she’d offered it so freely that I wasn’t too worried about asking her what to do with the ducks. Again, I loved how she approached it, almost exasperated that I didn’t know what to do – kind of like, “You know how to do this – you don’t have to keep your dog back and you know they’re headed that way so let your dog go out to one side and pick a side to keep them off. And you can use yourself too!” So, okay! I love how she put it back on me that I knew what to do but still told me what to do. The result? Sunday’s runs were 3/4. (Fury duck bowled a little (just got a warning) but by then she’d earned her started title and I was going back to back on runs and switching dogs while she’d not had any time out of her crate except that duck run so I said, “You rule – we’re done!” and called time on myself.)
Every single run, they got stuck on the center pen anyway, but this time I just had my dog on one side and used myself to keep them off until the dog had enough space to pick them up and go in the right direction. Having my own ducks helped me here. The last duck run of the day (Rippa), the ducks seemed to have figured out they weren’t allowed to get eaten and if she took pressure off, they RAN at her. Well . . . ha ha . . . that happens at home, too, so call her out of there and have her circle around back at them and . . . ta daaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Final score for the weekend? Rippa STDcsd, Fury STDcd (she had cattle) and a much more confident Kristin. We even got some first places in there with actual competition.
I think I might be totally over the nerves thing. Like, it was that easy.
Here’s why –
1. My theory is that I’m old hat at trialing. I’ve been showing conformation and agility for a while and I do not get nervous there at all. I seldom walk into obedience rings, but when I do, it’s also fine and I make sure we have a good time. Stock is different because to a lot of people, what I do and how I do it makes a big fricking deal and I take it to heart. THE FUTURE OF THE BREED IS AT STAKE is how I feel. All I needed was some perspective and a shot of confidence and I could go into normal Kristin trialing mode where I’m fairly successful despite all the complete devotion to the theories and consistent training – in fact, I probably would do better since I DO spend a lot of time on both for stockdogging.
2. Not only were people open and honest about me, almost everyone kept their mouths shut about their opinions on my dog, both good and bad. That meant no over inflated ego or deflated ego. Canby complimented her and that was great, but I heard nothing from my fellow trialers and that helped me not worry about the whole “people judging me” bit. I honestly don’t know how anybody felt about my runs or if they even watched – I think the only feedback I got was when Pat saw one and said, “Oh, they don’t all go well all the time” about a sheep run, but I actually felt good about it because my objectives we more training based than Q based. I had the space to feel good about it and I also knew Pat was just doing what she always does – encouraging me. Heck, when the duck bowling DQs happened, EVERYONE was there and I still didn’t care. Credit to all of them for not freaking me out or even talking about it.
3. All the really good people there with experience and well deserved recognition and famous and fancy doggies had runs that weren't perfect, too. Somewhere along the way, I felt like I shouldn’t be trialing unless I was perfect. I know lots of people said it would be okay, but it wasn’t okay to me. Bottom line? They’re really just dogs and dogs will be dogs! It’s okay!!
3. Dustin and Shannon were more than encouraging, and I did hear a lot of compliments on their own dogs’ runs (they won their started classes by a big margin). Two people were immediately asking after their runs, “So, do you sell dogs?” It was a great affirmation of something that I knew: that I had great friends and trainers in my pocket and despite not doing stuff with Aussie people, I was doing good stuff – and also that my estimation that their dogs were pretty awesome was right – because here they were in a context I could really understand. Roland told me he’d heard people commenting, “Now that’s how you handle cattle” and I figure if Aussie people appreciated it, too, well then, I am right in that they are the people who will be able to teach me what I need/want at this stage. Plus . . . can you tell how much I love them. Squeezes!
In the same vein, having their outside opinions on how things looked (they had no dog in this fight at all) were very favorable of me and what I’ve been working on. They said I didn’t yell much at all or inappropriately, and that I was handling well enough that in time I could be as good if not better than some of the best people they saw that day.
Pause: I’m not gunning for anyone, nor do I need to do that, but it tells my little heart that has a hard time evaluating myself objectively, that I’m improving in the ways I want to and that it’s in the right direction. While this trial was really, really fun, the reality is – I’m not going to be a top finals handler or a trainer in many, many years (I have businesses to run and babies to make and mountains to climb). But remember my post on “Best in the World?” That’s pretty cool that I am on that path at least. May we all strive to figure out what that means to us.
And, finally, what was the BEST part about this trial?
When they were doing awards on the final day . . . they called out Roland’s Jesse’s score . . . and she’d QUALIFIED! The WTCh was finished!
Roland has always been really supportive of me – he calls me to see how I felt our trials went, he lets me know when they open, and he’s also a lot to do with why Rippa and I are working well together. He’s given me some advice on chilling that has really worked.
So, when I called him after awards, I called him up:
”Hey Roland, just wanted to say I was so glad to see you this weekend.”
He starts earnestly and sweetly telling me the same . . . and then “NO I’M NOT. JESSE QUALIFIED. YOU GOT YOUR WTCH!”
And, folks, I had the honor of being there when Trish WTCh’d Duke, but you have not heard or felt the joy of a man who thought he had a ways to go find out his end goal had been reached. I don’t want to embarrass him, but he’s been trying so hard to play it cool and it was so awesome to share the psych that I’m still tearing up as I write this.
That’s why we do this stuff. It’s just dogs and them doing their thing. It’s not a be all and end all and you don’t have to earn your place to have a nice dog or do well. You just have to be cool and honest and try your best and that’s all anyone can ask.
What’s next? Work has me swamped until the end of June. I’ll keep up with practice and such, but no trials till Fall, probably. Maybe a roadtrip?
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