Ben Means Video–Get It

So, I said if the video was any good, I’d check back in. Here I am.

There is a WORLD of difference with Ben Means the clinic and Ben Means the video. I feel like a lot of what he said and what we saw was completely off base of what his true message is, and I think most Aussie trainers (or any stockdog trainers) can get something out of it.

I just finished the whole thing and I sat down and wrote a check to Ben Means for my own copy because it belongs in the library. Shut up and take my money! Here’s a link: http://www.theperfectstockdog.com/Videos.htm

Okay, here’s why: The principles of “circle jerk” as he calls them (I can’t even call it line vs stick training because he GETS A STICK after a week and gets rid of the line) are exactly the same as his line method. It’s just the first couple exposures that look really different. Those exposures have a contrast in thoughts:

• “Circle Jerk” Start = Getting the dog to get around and to head, learn flanks, balance up. Dog tends to start out a little mellow then ramps up the energy as confidence grows – or, starts out really confident and then it’s up to the handler to take that confidence and push the dog off the stock.
• Ben Means Start = Don’t worry about building confidence: teach two things – 1. Calm down around the stock (no biting or rushing allowed) 2. Be in control of handler (learns flanks, learns stop, etc)

I’m sitting there watching the DVD with this in mind and thinking back to how The Fury was when I started her and this kind of thing was my instinct to how to train but that I shouldn’t. And, I’m not saying I should have . . . I didn’t know anything. I do know now. I know how to tell the signs of a stressed dog or if I’m putting too much pressure on it, etc, and I know better how to read stock and time stuff. I couldn’t do that back then.

And I’m watching this dog who’s, you know, SO different from an Aussie, except HE’S NOT. He cuts in, goes to head, goes too hard, doesn’t have a lot of natural balance, and then by day seven with Ben Means, he’s staying out, balancing up, and light years ahead of where I am with Rippa.

Timing is everything. Reading your stock is everything. But more importantly? Knowing what you want the outcome to be is everything. Ben sets dogs up to earn their freedom, just like you do with puppy training for everything else. You get control, then you give them control. I like it.

I take back that you can’t start some of this mid-training, too. Ben doesn’t go backward because he doesn’t have to. But some of that stuff in the DVD and in his clinic you can use mid-stream. You can work on that control and give it when earned. You don’t have to keep progressing if you keep sessions short and rewarding. I’ve been working cows and sheep for up to an hour and a half depending on what we’re doing. This is why Kathy has short sessions until the dog can handle more. I do like those long sessions for putting mileage on . . . but . . . you might not NEED mileage that builds confidence and self control if you instill it early on.

Do I think that jerking a keen dog and being heavy handed will work? Yeah, it actually might. What will work better is reading your dog. If your pup is turned on and you reward their responsiveness with some control on their part, they’ll keep it up. The key is finding the balance.

I think to be really effective with this method, you need major groundwork where you understand dogs, you understand stock, and you understand your goals. City slickers wanting to take their dogs out for a good time will have a hard time, and yes, shut down their dogs . . . but I am 100% certain that there’s something to be learned here – but paying attention to your dog’s cues is job #1 in that early start. Handler mistakes are more forgivable for dogs using my current “circle jerk” method because mistakes still reward the dog with stock (aka, your timing is off, then the dog gets to zip in and bite or go to head). Mistakes with handling with Ben Means mean shutting your dog down because you’re putting too much expectation on him or her.

Real Ranch Work for the First Time–kinda . . .

I told Shannon and Dustin about my goals and how I was very eager to join and help them in any way possible at their Parkfield ranch, and so a date was set (last weekend). I didn’t know much about their property or the intended experience except that I figured it was going to be a gather, some vaccination and care, and loading up some cattle to go to market.

First, you have to understand my expectations. When someone describes a ranch in Parkfield, here’s what I think, having driven by a few times:

Pretty, right? But like . . . rolling hills, wide open expanses, not much.

I also heard that they had a Basque shepherd tending the place, and from my experience there, this even more doubled my expectations, because my experience about Basque shepherds in California is remote, bland hillsides and run down little trailers.

I’d seen some field work Shannon had done with the dogs via video and there were some trees but I was NOT truly prepared for this:


And that’s not even half the ranch in view.

There’s this:

And that still isn’t all of it. I think they said 5000 acres – enough to get lost in. Enough to lose 200 head of cattle in, that’s for sure.

I wanted to know what real ranchwork in the West took and how dogs fit into that, and know it, I do. This isn’t Scottish Border Collie land with big, wide pasture, no siree bob.

Oh, and that trailer I was imagining that we’d be staying in?


This is its front patio. No big. Sleeps 22. There’s a Viking range in the kitchen.

Now, before you think that the Woods are super fancy all hat, no cattle, this is a family hunting ground purchased by his parents and uncle that he took 8 ragged little cows and built up a herd on, putting in improvements on the way. They are super blessed to have had the land to start with, but they’re hard working, visionary kids . . . and they’re younger than me.

In fact, everyone on this trip was younger than me, which was a first. It’s also really interesting because being super aware of this, the vision they had for the future surely was a bit different with regard to the stockdogs than the “old guard” tends to put out.

Besides Shannon and Dustin, there were the Valdez brothers, whom Dustin has known since elementary school. Luis was the big talker, Gilbert and Abel the quiet ones. I loved when Abel said at some point, “I don’t talk much, but when I do, it’s the truth!”

Anyway, Luis is a professional horse trainer, and he had along four border collies that were quite different from the Woods’ ones. “They’re all rejects – given to me,” he said. And his approach to how to use them was different. I never got to see his dogs work because they’d gone up ahead of us to gather because rain was in the forecast, but from described, they do group work that’s a bit Western, but controlled.

When we got to putting Rippa on cows the second day, he was MORE than impressed with Shannon’s dogs, whom she was controlling on command and with them both together flanking in opposite directions like a perfect brace.

He watched me work Rippa and when we were talking about all the things running in my head (and if you read this blog, you don’t need a synopsis), he put it this way:

“It’s like horses, right? You can have a $200 horse or a $20,000 horse and they cost the same to feed them. It just depends what you need them for. Of course, you can take the $20,000 horse and win back the money.”

Luis’s dogs were free. I don’t know how much she paid for Cat, but let’s say it’s closer to the $20,000 horse range in this scenario. Where’s Rippa? Somewhere in the middle.

So, let’s get to that.


The first day we were there, we set to counting out the weanlings and putting them through the chute to vaccinate and treat injuries or what have you. Once that was done, everyone loaded their trailers full of cattle and drove 45 min one way out of the ranch to load into pens for the semi to come get them in a couple days.

When we got back, Shannon suggested I give Rippa a shot at moving the cows that had been separated from their calves out of the holding pen and out to the field where the guys had dropped hay.

What this means is that the cows were pretty much headed that way anyway so as long as Rippa had herself under control, it was going to be a successful job.

I don’t need to go into details, but we got it done and she was pretty nicely receptive to everything I asked from her. Shannon was on one side helping until we we got further along the fenceline toward the hay and up the hill where she couldn’t see us. This part, of course, was the best. By this point (we’d been working 5-10 minutes) all the cows were going the right way and Rippa was thoughtfully looking after the stragglers and pushing them in the direction of the rest of the cows. It was a really good work. I could see that she’d be really useful doing this kind of work right away. When she got to the top of the hill almost out of my sight, she stopped and waited, and I saw that she’d gotten them all down to the feed hay and was waiting to see what was next.

”That’ll do.” I felt pretty good about that.  I can definitely drive cattle along a fenceline with her, and even make a couple mistakes and clean the up as a team, without help from Shannon or her dogs.
The next day we had a rare and light rain storm, but had to wait it out because the mountain soil is bad for driving or doing anything in, really. Once it cleared, everyone went down to the pens so that Rippa could have a shot at open field work. Shannon and Cat got a herd of 20 or so together in the hay field we’d left them in earlier and Luis sat down and we went to work.

It was like a roller coaster. Rippa went out, but cut in too tight, got them together, then lost me and went through them, if one cut off, she’d go hard after but then kind of come up short and drop them . . . and the draw to the holding pens with the rest of the cows was pretty strong, too.

Shannon would use Cat and Zeta to set them up, and then we’d kind of mash through them like bowling pins. I got really frustrated. This wasn’t cool. I got exasperated and Shannon said it looked like her driving instincts were kicking in instead of the fetch.

Luis said we should stop trying to direct stuff and let her just figure it out.

And here is something I’ve been working out all this time, right? Somewhat resolved for me.

I think Luis is mostly right. If I hadn’t been hell bent on not breaking my dog and getting nice outruns and good commands, and just let Rippa work it out over a period of time, she’d probably figure it out. But it’s a period of time and a sloppy job. And I’ve ben training for a non-sloppy job right off the bat. I can’t let it be sloppy midway through and wreck my arena training.

But that’s totally good enough for this ranch hand, right? I mean, Luis actually did some impressive work according to Dustin.

See this range here? Apparently they were missing some pairs, and Luis had a dream they were in the canyon on the far right of this shot. He went out there with two dogs at night and sure enough, they were. But, the way the land was, he had to drive them across all those mountain faces and THEN down to pasture land and the road. While Luis likes to talk, I have no reason to distrust Dustin on this, and if he did it by himself with two dogs, those free dogs were good enough for me.

And, honestly? Again, we go back to how dogs are raised and used, but if I had a need like that, I know that Rippa and I could get ‘er done. I know this because this kind of terrain is what Fury and I would lose Doug MacDonald’s sheep in all the time, and even though Fury’s kind of ruined for trialing, she did that job just fine. It wasn’t perfect and I didn’t have a lot of control on it so it took more time than I’d like, but it got done.

I think about Nathan, too, from Adelaida Ranch with Maya? (Remember when I went out there and they set up a round pen for training but the sheep weren’t broke enough for me to get anything done?) He doesn’t have any formal training on her, but he figured out how to use her and loves her.

Okay, back to the work.

Because of the draw and how things were going, I couldn’t really get to Rippa on foot to push her back and get her out, so I suggested taking it to horseback. They worked out a spot to try it all at that was flat (right in front of the cabin) so we could do good work with Rippa.

It went as well as could be expected, I think. Rippa was psyched and felt a little out of control, she wasn’t used to me placing her on horseback (so next time I ride with the dogs, I need work on my obedience) and my horse was a little squirrelly under me (Shannon says it’s me, and I believe her, I haven’t been riding a lot lately and only just started again after a 20 year break), so if I did get close enough to correct her, the horse was going to run her over. :/


“Away, out!”

I asked Shannon to let Cat and Zeta help her like Kathy used to do and Betty did with Spur, and that got Rippa in the right frame of mind after a bit.


Here’s why stuff didn’t go so well down below and here – it illustrates flight zone SO well, too. There’s Rippa on the right, and she’s heading straight at the cow’s eye – which isn’t stopping her, but pushing her, and she’s heading hard. Zeta, to Rippa’s left, is watching the eye and arching out to catch it in front of the cow. Cat, way left, is heading WAY out of the scene to back up Zeta.

Rippa basically ran this cow off and then gave up when she knew she couldn’t catch her.

We had some good stuff, too, though:

Here’s Rippa headed out to the loose cattle there to tip them back in.

And now here’s Rippa heading back, the two strays heading in the right direction . . . but wait, why are those cows going the wrong way? WHERE AM I, ladies and gentlemen? Behind that tree, pushing them that way. Poooooor Rippa.

You know what we’re good at? Driving – with me out of the picture.

Of course, I was so worried about Rippa, I stopped worried about my effect on the cows and was basically just running them off, like a boss.

I’ve GOT to abandon the training mindset with this stuff and just think about where I want the cows to go and show Rippa I have her back. Shannon tells me this all the time, and I think it’s what causes Rippa to give up when I don’t.

So, we put Rippa up and Shannon suggested I try to work Cat, but she wasn’t having it. Luis volunteered and so we took them through a course as a team. He was the one taking photos so we don’t have that. Luis was a nice dog, I tell you what, but I was a much better handler, too. The courses aren’t like ASCA, though, right? It’s more about using eachother, so I was affecting the cows on horseback as much as Luis the dog was.

Then Shannon suggested I do it just myself and the cows and had me on a course so I’d be watching them and thinking about that.

In the end, it was interesting hearing Luis’ opinion as an outsider with a bit of a different perspective than Shannon’s, though pretty much nothing different from her’s:

“You will do really well if you can stop worrying about your dog so much.”

This led to some interesting discussions:

How Shannon thinks you really need to start with a broke dog (aka, finished) and learn how to handle that way so you have good habits and understand the picture, vs being a beginner multitasking (me worried about the horse, the cows, and the dog). I think she’s absolutely right. It would not have taken me as long as it has had I started learning how to handle and whatnot with a finished dog. And you know what? I had the opportunity. Kathy totally let me use her BC/Aussie cross Stingray for lessons for a while when I first showed up with my dog Dusty who had no instinct, but I didn’t get what the point was then and I don’t think she told me, so I quit and didn’t go back until I had the Fury, who was a LOT of dog for a beginner anyway.

That’s kind of the point of me handling Cat before we go to work with Rippa in the arena now. To get me in the right mindset. Rippa does really well when I’m not super worried about the outcomes.

I have to be honest, I was so upset about how that work went, but I also had to remember that Rippa’s never had this opportunity before, I didn’t know what I was doing, and . . . yeah, all the excuses in the world, I know, but I think they’re valid. Most trial Aussie people don’t do what I was trying to do until their dogs are WTCh’d or in finals.

Oh, and let’s go there for a second. I always knew that Kathy was training you for a totally useful dog rather than the trials, but it wasn’t until this trip that I realized WHY I had to stop letting us cheat on some things like wide outruns. Because you need them. In an arena setting, I can let Rippa go straight to her stock and start driving. She doesn’t NEED to go out wide, nor do I think it does anything at all to help her.

Does she have instinct to go WIDE? Errrr, yes and no. Fury has always worked WAY wider, so no, there. Will she work wide? When Rippa calms down, she backs off. So, my job is to give her confidence to calm down. I didn’t do a great job of that starting her because I was all nervous about her. I’m only just now learning to trust her, and in this case I didn’t and THAT didn’t work, DID it.

So, could she be naturally wider? Yes. Can I have messed it up a bit? Also, yes.

So I talked to Shannon about what her dogs look like when she gets here and puts them to work for the first time, and she says they’re pretty useful right away. “Whatever you see in the arena, you generally see it here, too.” Which, OMG lightbulb, right? Thinking bigger picture when evaluating your stock and now I see what the point is.

Of course, why are they more useful? They don’t all have a natural instinct to stay off stock more – I’ve seen a lot of her started dogs and while they have a different style, the main difference to me is in the biddability/training.  (Shan may disagree.) That’s not an Aussie thing, though. Fury is super biddable. The more confident Rippa becomes, the more biddable she is. But her dogs also got trained by someone who understands the bigger picture completely when she starts, she’s trained more of them, she’s more consistent with less bad habits.

OMG EXCUSES! I hear it, I know!

But here’s the thing Shannon and Dustin have been in this game for only five years and they win. And their dogs are nice. And their dogs do real work. And people underestimate them because they’re all in and they’re successful this quick. So, baby, Shannon’s got a point.

So what’s my takeaway?

- Rippa doesn’t suck. She wasn’t the golden God of stockdogging, but it would be stupid to expect it. She’s not a $20,000 horse. But she’s not the free horse, either. I have to admit having Luis watch us do it was intimidating, but I wasn’t embarrassed by what she did – she had power, bite, speed, she had instinct and didn’t fear the cows . . . and that’s a lot of what’s missing in Aussies that people complain about, and in other dogs, too. I’m pretty damn happy with her because the longer I do this, the more I see the handicaps involved, too. I feel like a lot of what’s lacking is because of training and experience, not necessarily the dog herself. AKA – I have not been convinced that I have to switch to border collies, despite all the encouragement that way. Shannon always says I’d be SO much farther along and how fun would it be to have the lines to breed together and etc, but you know what? I like being the underdog. I got Aussies because they were rare at the time. I got working Aussies because I wanted to know what that is about. And I am trying to focus on ranching Aussies because that’s where the need is for this breed. I want every Rancher who likes Aussies but’s given up on them to know there’s an option and no need to give up. That’s the goal. And I’m ready to say that, yes, I am excited for the next generation to start that way and get better and better. And I want to use Rippa to get there.

- Is Rippa more a driving dog? Was Leslie Means right that Aussies don’t have a strong fetch? There are books that say they are, and there are breeders/trainers that say so, too. Are some lines specifically more driving than not? Or is it all training and experience? I think I need to see/work with more dogs to say.

- New, clearer training goals: I have got to fix Rippa’s outruns and effectively get her calmer when she feels out of control. I’ve been working more on controlling her speed and it’s working, but now I need to go back and fix those two. Doing that will help with trials, but it will also make her a more useful ranch dog. Once I get that, I think we can get the balance we need. I don’t think Rippa has a lot of natural balance to her – that’s a big difference in Shannon’s dogs and my own dogs that I’ve handled. That’s something I need to bring in genetically. Not having to train that would help with both of these things.

- I took these lessons well and have already applied them. When we got back and I was waiting for the huz to pick us up, Dustin suggested I go work Rippa with the arena cows and it looked really really good. Dustin caught sight and shouted that it looked that way, too. Part of this was due to the Ben Means video, so an update on that is coming up. Part of it was also all the lessons on when to trust her, when not to, and to work on outruns and stuff. But she was pretty dang nice in there.
And, finally, in the beginning, I said that I was in a younger crowd and that the mindset about stockdogging was different than what the old guard presents. The old guard thinks the use of a stockdog is waning, but Luis and Shannon were talking about how it has the potential to get bigger – with the trials and the more and more refined training techniques, how obvious it is to have a good stockdog and how much cheaper in the long run it is . . . this is your next generation cowboy and cattlemen, and they get it.

If you’d like to see more photos from the weekend, I have a public Facebook album.

Ben Means Clinic

When we got there, we sat down and tried to make sense of what we were seeing . . . and I leaned over to Shannon and said, “Wow, I guess that’s where ‘kick your dog out’ comes from . . .” because there was a cowboy in there with his dog on a lead trying to teach her flanks and kicking her in the side and saying “out.”
This was day 2 of the clinic and we were just there to audit, so obviously missed the point of this . . . and spent the next half hour or more watching this happen for some time while trying to figure out what was going on.
Ben’s wife, Leslie, came over to us and introduced us to Ben, saying we might have questions. No dogs, me and my trusty little notebook, he smiled and went back to the dog in the pen. I started to ask Leslie what was going on and found that what I was seeing was quite possibly what “that other method” of training that Aussie people do with lines was.
She told me that Ben and Bob Vest trained together a lot, not mentor relationship, exactly, but training buddies. And so this line work thing I was seeing was likely related to what Vest outlines in his book, and how other people who learned from him likely train. It was in stark contrast to the “circle jerk” method (that’s what Leslie calls it) that I current employ now.
Here’s the basic pitch that we got from Ben about what he does:
Give him a dog that’s totally raw – even not leash trained so he doesn’t have to fix that – at a year to a year and a half in age and in 30 days, he’ll hand you a finished dog.
Aside from the poor introduction when we first arrived, Shannon and I got kinda excited about that – because I’d been told that people using this line method are “light years ahead” of what I will forever call “the circle jerk” method, and if you recall, I was really unhappy with how long training was taking and how impractical it was.
30 consistent days of short works and you’ve got a finished dog? One that won’t run to head for fun, who will monitor speed, and respond to commands? That is amazing!

So here we go -
Ben said repeatedly, “I’m here to give over everything I have. If you have questions, please ask them. I’m taking my character to Heaven, but my career has to stay here.”
It was only a few hours, but here’s what I got:

• You shouldn’t start, or even really expose, a pup using his system until a year to a year and a half. Why? Because he says that his system is rigid and if you try it early, the puppy will remind you he’s just a puppy and roll over and give up. Fair enough. Emotional maturity to handle the line work was key.
• Dogs should not watch other dogs work, dogs should be all business – out of crate, working, back in crate, no cuddling, no socialization.
• You start in a small, square pen – say 10 ft by 15 ft and two head of cows (or sheep or whatever) in it. You want square corners in the pen to teach his commands.
• You need to watch the commands – you want to give them somewhat in a surprising manner so the dog doesn’t form the habit of looking back at you for direction.
• The dog doesn’t move out of this small pen into a slightly bigger space until he or she can:
• slow down on “easy”
• get out on command
• get over (this is why square corners) which means move laterally along the fence rather than trying to get “out”
• take a “there” (aka, face stalk, walk up)
• But: if the dog starts to get bored with this work, you have to move on to a bigger space. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be known by the dog.
• When you move on, you double the pen size – until you get into arena and pasture work, at which point, you’re done. I really, really wish we’d been able to see this, but all we saw was the first step in the tiny pen. Shannon bought his 30 day training video so hopefully we’ll see what day 30 looks like and how that progression goes.
• What you do in that pen is put them on a choke chain (“I don’t use pinch collars because I’m too heavy handed”) and then you let them approach their stock. If they are “neutral-minded,” aka, not thinking about rushing in or biting (and man, one dog was air snapping while this happened) and not pulling on the lead, you’re good.  They can move cows out of corners, keep driving straight, whatever.
• BUT, if the dog does get close, you basically use the line to snap them in the other direction with a flank command. The kicking out thing helps them square the flank and keep a good arc. It looks really bad if you don’t have good timing, but this guy got it down by his second work that we saw:
• And then you’re starting over again, with your dog flanking out around you. You want them to hit the fence with the “out.”
  
• If the dog comes in harder than a snap and redirect will work, you spin him around quickly and “recycle” him as Ben called it – aka, he’s lickety split back where he started.
• You’ll start with a lead rope, go to a 16 foot gold line, and eventually wean off, when you get to a bigger pen in a few weeks’ time.
• At that point, you’ll let them off, but only when they’re hitting the fenceline on those flank commands, and let them go to head, but only a little before you’re back to having them drive again.
• He says training a dog to fetch is like trying to train a bird dog to point – it will come, no reason to bother with it. All this restraint and driving training will transfer.
• When the dog is off the line and fetching them to you, if the dog drives them past you, she’s not allowed to go to head to get them. He says dogs create situations where they can go to head so why reward that, especially since he was probably wanting the cows to go that way anyway.
• Instead, you call the dog to you and wait for the cattle to slow up and stop (they will, at least training cattle), or you hit them with a “there” and let them keep driving that direction past you.
• He doesn’t believe in going backward – you get it right and expect nothing but forward progress.
• He uses long commands for stuff like “look back” aka, “You’re missing one” because it makes the dog think instead of instantly react to what he’s seeing (the herd he’s in control of)
• You don’t let them work on their own unless you know they’re thinking what you’re thinking. This leads to less commands to get a job done.

My big thought on this is – OMG how frustrating for the dog! The reward is walking calmly on a line behind the cows? I can TOTALLY see why this would shut down Aussies and why he doesn’t take in Aussies for 30 day training with this method.  Not gonna lie, I’m pretty sure every dog and handler trying this were frustrated to the gills, but much of it is for the same reason people get frustrated in any clinic: not totally getting “it,” not having good timing or leash handling, and not being used to it – especially if the dog had a start on him or her already because suddenly the rules had changed.

You clearly cannot just give this method a try mid-stream. It’s completely based on not allowing the dog to build bad, or any kind of other habit for that matter. It definitely doesn’t let the dog do that – but I think you have to have the right kind of dog that forgives the heavy handedness and the right timing to be effective.

I think you could use this to help square flanks out on cattle, because it’s really hard to do fine tuning work no cattle since they’re bigger than you and often scared of you. These cows asked for scratchies from me. They were cool.  If I had the right set up, I have a feeling The Fury would tolerate this kind of handling, but I’m not sure that it’s going to fix years of bad habits from me at this point – better to stick with what I know works.
Another thing that I thought was interesting was that his take on all of this wasn’t really developing instinct like how I see the “circle jerk” training – it was simply controlling the speed. Everything he was doing was focused on that. He was talking about how he didn’t like dogs to wear because then they were just going at the speed they wanted, but behind the stock. Obviously, wearing is important in the right situation, but not with  a couple of head.
I also love how he emphasized your body English in controlling the dog – being aware of what you physically are doing because the dog is reading that. So true.

Thank Shannon for a lot of this. She knew the right questions to get all this out of him.
Final thoughts?
Last time I posted, I said that I thought the key to getting dogs to working early and up to their potential was “raising them right” – aka ranch raising, being around stock, and letting them play good and early so they’re not intimidated. Shannon and Dustin’s year-old pups went to the CVASC trial and won started. So, the 30 day thing is pretty cool if you’ve got your timing right and the right dog (I do not think many/all Aussies could handle it because of how heavy handed it is and how they’re bred to think for themselves, and the Woods’ dogs seem the same way), but if you have to wait a year – is it any better than what we’re doing if you’ve got a setup like the Woods? In this case, the dogs would just be beginning training, whereas DSW dogs already have that foundation in place and they’re ready to at least trial.

I think we have to see this video of his to see what the finished product at 30 days looks like, too. But that’s my big thing there . . .

But if you don’t have set up like they do? This might very well be pretty awesome, but again, timing and skill in execution are key – and 30 solid consecutive days of being able to work are also key. Not too many people training at home in their spare time can make that happen.

Honestly, I don’t love how it looks on the dog end – dogs keen on stock really will put up with a lot, but it definitely doesn’t feel like the kind of training I like doing. Stockdogging requires being hard on keen dogs from time to time, and this definitely sets up consequences for them, but I’m not sold, at least not from what I saw. If the video is illuminating, I’ll check back in. Would LOVE to hear opinions from those who do Means-method training! taraaussies@gmail.com

Update: See my comments about the video.

The Houses of Shammai and Hillel

I’ll write a post about my specific experiences with today’s audit of a Ben Means clinic, but I thought I’d get this part out of the way first, for context.

You may or may not know that I’m Jewish. And not super casual Jewish, but fairly observant, keeping kosher, etc. This past Passover (it started the same weekend as Easter), I decided I would kind of “reset” life and make it a priority to try harder in this department, so I started reading some books. The current one I’m on is called Yearning by Irwin Kula. The best way I can summarize it is that it’s basically a book about life and our expectations and approaches with a Jewish filter on.
There are two parts that resonated with me with regard to stockdogging:
1. Absolute vs momentary faith, truth, and doubt
Kula says we seek absolutes here, but the reality is that everything is momentary: you can’t have faith without doubt and it all has to do with momentary consistency rather than absolute consistency. Expecting absolutes is setting yourself up for disaster.

I very much feel that in stockdogging (as in much of life), that you’re encouraged to take an absolute view on everything from how your dog does something to what lines and to how to train it, and you’re expected to take other people’s words for it.

Wisdom is hard won, but I honestly don’t think that taking people’s word for it is a fair expectation unless they’ve impressed upon you that they’ve been there and done that and they’re trying to save you heartache rather than keep you from straying the path.
2. The house of Shammai and Hillel.
So, Judaism really, really loves rules and laws. But, just like secular ones, such things are generally open to interpretation, and Judaism loves that, too. When the sages were trying to sort out the official stance on things, they looked to the two houses.
Shammai looked at the situation, ruled (often the more strict one), and let it be.
Hillel, however, looked at Shammai’s ruling, attempted to fully understand it, and then ruled itself (often differently and more leniently).

Which house won most, if not all, of the arguments? Hillel, simply on the merit that they’d taken time to examine the opposition equally as their own opinion.
I feel like that’s where I’m at with all of this. I’ve been indoctrinated in many beliefs and now I’ve got questions that I know other beliefs have other answers to. I’m sure some people think I am a heretic or a turncoat for looking into what the other side says about the subject rather than taking everyone’s word for it, but my belief is that if my original stance is solid, I’ll come back to it the better for it – or have a slightly modified understanding of the solution or situation.
Open heart, open mind.

And that’s why I went to a Ben Means clinic that was comprised of all border collies. I chose only to audit it because I know that trying to change things up midstream can really mess you up, and I don’t really feel like I need help there. I just really wanted to see what this was all about.
In immersing myself open mindedly into these kinds of worlds, I’m definitely seeing first hand that people have absolute opinions and don’t necessarily come by them honestly or fairly.

I generally don’t try to let people know I have Aussies at stuff like this unless it comes up, so I was pretty surprised that they got brought up a few times while I was there. And I will also say that I have been clearly wrested from the supportive busom of Aussie people who think Aussies are good stockdogs.

The first comment I overheard were how ASCA trials were a joke with the titling system and the judging. That’s fine, people can have opinions, and it’s not about the dogs.

But then a woman came up with a 3 month old Aussie pup and engaged Ben about Aussies somehow, and he proceeded to tell her that if you want a good Frisbee dog, get an Aussie, because if you have  Frisbee or a cow, the dog will pick a Frisbee every time. He actually spoke at length about this but I stopped paying attention. The woman he was talking to was someone I recognized on the Internet who seemed to be a know it all about working Aussies, but I'm not sure she's had one before. She seemed thoroughly convinced at the end of the conversation that she’d be getting a border collie because now Aussies were only for pets. I wanted to stab this otherwise helpful, sincere, and thoughtful man in the eye for perpetuating this whole thing about worthless stockdog Aussies and for doing it to a susceptible woman with a puppy at the end of the line.

And finally, I happened to ask his wife about why Ben wouldn’t take in Aussies for training and she said a couple things:
1. That Aussies tend to work for their owners and not others (fair enough, but Shannon’s dogs take a while to do that, too)
2. That Aussies don’t have a good fetch. When I asked her what she meant, she pointed to a hillside a couple hundred feet away and said that no Aussie she’d ever seen could bring a cow in. They just weren’t serious about it. This is funny to me because, well, dude, I’ve seen PLENTY of Aussies do bigger fetches than that – so who is bringing dogs to them? And should I be stabbing THOSE people in the eye for bringing dogs with poor instinct to stock clinics?
3. That they would get frustrated with their method (and amen, I do think that’s true, though as you’ll see next entry, plenty of Aussie people have had success there)
And then she’s like, “So, you must really like Aussies if you have devoted this much time to this and not switched breeds yet.” And, as always, on the defense, I said, “Well, I’ve been in them for 25 years and I’m not over them yet,” and her response was, “Well, you must really love them, because I was in Huskies that long and switched to Kelpies and found them much more to suit me.”

I just found it so interesting how absolutely against Aussies people were instead of reserving judgment. It’s not doing anyone any favors, especially Aussies. It’s also why I’m holding off on the cattle trials until I can be relatively sure people won’t just file my dogs into the same category as these other dogs because of poor training, performance, or handling. If they deserve it, fine, but I am not going to keep perpetuating it.

I am not saying they’re the best stockdogs for every purpose, but they can be pretty good for lots of them and people get different breeds for different reasons, so it’s interesting how little respect we get with our breed of choice in such circles. I expected it, but I didn’t expect it be so cut and dry.
This weekend I’m going out with the Woods to “help” them bring their cows off the hills and get them loaded for sale – and Dustin wants to work Rippa there. The proof in the pudding will be whether she stands up to the expectations that she’ll do better on big herds than she will with 3-5 heads and we’ll see how it all goes down. I don’t want to hang too much importance on this exposure, but for me it will be a pretty big deal because if she can’t hang, these people might be right.
Open heart, open mind.

Maybe a little closer to understanding the answer to: why does it take so long to train stockdogs?

 

Is the answer that they simply didn’t start out as stockdogs?

So, hang with me a second. If you remember, I was having a crisis about this: you can’t sell a rancher a dog and expect them to take lessons for three years for them to get a good working dog, but that’s what it’s felt like all this time, right? And so I went trying to find the answers – like perhaps training is the answer, or better handling or . . .

But today at the Woods, Shannon brought out a dog she got that’s not related to her dogs that’s I think a year or more old and was saying they were kinda disappointed in her and wanted to know what I thought. So, rather than taking a casual watch – I paid attention.

And my thought was this: she looked just like every keen started Aussie I’ve ever seen on its first couple goes on cattle. Most of her dogs work like a dream right out the gate compared to Aussies I’ve seen start, so this was the first time when I was like, “No, wait, there might be more here.”

And every dog I’ve seen them work has either been raised as a pup from them or started by someone who gave them a lot of exposure to stock at an early age.

Like how early? Look at this great natural work by a very wee puppy – I haven’t been keeping track, but maybe 3 months old: https://www.facebook.com/Dswcowdogs/videos/vb.436216119850503/509926379146143/?type=2&theater

They wait for serious training and to put them on cows until later, but how many people that I’ve seen start dogs have had that kind of exposure on the regular since that age?

Most I see are like me: maybe they see cows on the hills hiking, but they’re hanging out being pets until you take them to lessons sporadically. I’ve always noticed that the people who have their own stock progress faster but I always thought it was training and handling experience.

But is it? One of the things I read in the Vest book was that you think of a dog like a drum of oil. Some dogs come full of confidence, some don’t, but if you take a dog like the one Shannon was working today, who didn’t know her own name and likely was just raised in a kennel and nothing done with her, and then start putting lessons on her and she’s not all in – you get frustrated because her confidence didn’t get built up. That’s your job now – not just training, but building confidence.

I always say this about “talent.” If you start early , put the work in, and keep doing it, in the long run you’ll be “good at it.” I learned to read early and got encouraged to write and read a lot and now I’m “talented” at it. I have a solid base so I can get good at it.

Why should stockdogs be any different? Maybe it’s not all the training and handling and it’s the actual start they get? And if so, why has this not been obvious to me for so long?

Like I keep saying . . . we shall see. Lots to learn still.

Head bobbles and border collies

I posted yesterday about my getting stuck with Rippa quitting me and it being because I am running the cows off and wanting to try the border collies so I stop trying to “Train” Rippa and just work on my handling.

It worked.

Shannon gave me Cat to work – her finished trialing dog. Right away my expectations were different than I expected: I figured Cat would do a lot of the work herself and automatically just fetch them to me wherever I went, but nope.

1. Cat is loyal. She had a hard time taking commands from me until she decided I was cool (I mean, she likes me, but not like as a working partner). I figured that was a defining feature of BCs – they work for anybody.

2. Aussie people always say that BCs work for themselves, but Cat was really mechanical with me. She didn’t want to do anything I didn’t ask her to do and when she wasn’t sure, she’d find a spot to hold them and wait.

I just didn’t expect that.

She’s a slow working dog with a lot of eye, and while I was expecting to have to do more handling while she held her end of the deal, this was more than perfect for me. I saw right away where normally I’d walk a fenceline ahead of the dog, it wasn’t going to go with these cows, I’d need a parallel drive.

At one point, Catty was fetching them to me and this one cow on the left would pop out a bit, and Catty would look at it, and it would pop back in, but MY pressure would pop it back out. It was slow and super subtle but I GOT it.

So, once we did a few rounds of that, I put Rippa out there and sure enough, got way more out of her than I have in a while. We were doing fancy obstacles and penning like champions and I went from feeling like I had a long way to go to be ready to trial again to being like, “Nah, we got this.”

Why?

Shannon said that I started the lesson with more authority than usual (maybe the confidence of my end of the cattle was that) and that I might just have to be laying down the law more because Rippa responds to it and it will probably make her crsiper.

That and at no point did Rippa feel like she was losing control of the cattle. Her drive was really quiet and thinky as long as I held my end of it with a parallel drive and helped her out with some commands to let her know what I wanted. Shannon said that one way to help her would be to have her “lose them” in my direction if at all possible because then I’d have it covered. But that’s the key, I have to have it covered.

Lots of nice things today – she kept herself calm and worked her stock, she lost one and got it without overly fixating on trying to yahoo it, and she pulled her punches and stayed back, watching stragglers, instead of running to head to hit something.

It was kinda awesome. I care a little too much about all this stuff, I know, but when it goes, it goes and I am proud of the little brown dog today. And me. I’m going to keep handling other dogs to feel those cows and those dogs and it will help Rippy bear out.

And so we pause for a commercial break (not really)

I recently got around to reading Getting Things Done, one of the great tomes business people cite when you need to get efficient. One of the pieces of advice that I got from it was this:

If it’s on your mind, it’s unresolved. Write it down, put it in a to-do pile or a resolved pile, or do something about it. Stuff on your mind will drag you down.

So I’m sitting in acupuncture today trying to meditate and make use of an hour of having needles in me with nothing to do, and one of the things that came up was: stockdog trials.

Like, there are about a billion happening this May, and while my job is taking a lot of time, and I still haven’t recovered from the financials from the last few trials (not a cheap endeavor, to be sure), I still think, well, should I keep up this momentum? And there’s at least one ranch trial happening memorial day weekend. Should I go for that?

And so we pause:

1. What this blog is about is the warts and all of things. I know that by saying my thoughts, I am revealing things that probably happen to all of us but few admit to it and that’s WHY I do it. I believe in being real. So the first thing I have to say is that I’m sorry that I was so haughty that I thought I’d walk into my first trial and get Most Promising Started Aussie and all my titles because I’ve been working so hard on training my dog and I don’t like trialing.

I don’t not like trialing after the last one, but I’d still rather be doing other stuff, that’s okay.

But here’s the deal. Everything in my professional life revolves around training and exhibition in some way. In the climbing world, you train to go somewhere, climb a goal climb, and go home because it was fun. In the event world, you can’t expect to win an event because there’s more to it than your savvy and fitness. I don’t know why I thought stockdogging would be any different.  It was arrogant and whiny of me and I’m saying it here.

2. Ever since the trial, Rippa’s been lackluster on cattle. She’s not quitting me per se, but she’s not giving it the college try. Like I said after the trial, I honestly think she got tired of taking all my commands and it wasn’t helping so she’s like, “Dude, what the hell do you want?” Shannon reminds me that that kind of thing isn’t useful on a ranch and won’t win over anybody for homes.  But I am pretty adamant that this is because of trialing and not just doing chore work – and I never said I needed a good trial dog for my goals, which she is always game to do, and good at.  I got really frustrated with it so I had Shannon video tape it. Her attitude is like, “Look, I don’t know what you want, so I’ll try a little – but, oh, look, this sucks. I  will do tricks for you, though, I love you, I’m sorry.”

I sent it off to Kathy to look at and asked, “Is this the dog or me?” Kathy says she can’t really see her attitude, but I was running the cattle off and even she didn’t know what I wanted Rippa to do. And I can see where at one point I was aware of it and then fixed it, but it was already too late. Again, I’m used to The Fury just trying again and harder whereas Rippa just wants to be right.

Here’s the video:

The quit is at 26 seconds when I tell her: leave it to the cow trapped in the pen. I can see about a billion reasons why she’s mad at me and why she doesn’t believe so I have GOT to learn to handle cattle better. I don’t because they’re big and I am worried about Rippa coming in too hard.

Here’s a minute before the quit, after about a half hour of work:

She gets a little fixated on the one she hits and we lose our thinking dog, but I’m always in the wrong spot.

So, you know, handling and stock sense make a difference. New plan? Borrow a trained border collie and figure out how to handle cows with a dog when you’re not worried about the dog’s end of stuff.  Let Rippa work  shorter sessions and don’t keep going until she is frustrated with me.

I’m off of sheep for a bit because Stephanie’s ewes were all bred so it’s goats and ducks and cows. She’s looking flipping AWESOME on goats. Just saying. She used to like them a little too much but she’s maturing into it. Like Shannon says, I wish I’d been able to start her consistently when she was younger, it would have been interesting to see what we got.

I took Rippa and the Fury out to ducks yesterday and the weeds are so high that it’s kind of hard to do it in spots. I had real low expectations but set up a pen course with some obstacles and I found by not saying much at all and letting Rippa just make assumptions about what I wanted by where I was standing, I got a lot done – and nicely – and that’s like . . . ENTIRELY what she’s for. So I need to learn to handle like that. Fury takes commands easier but doesn’t read her stock as well. Habits, adaption, etc.

So, will I trial in May? Probably not. Money + peak work season (like, Memorial day weekend is a week before my big race on the Eastside and will I really want to be gone that much like that? Probably not) + this little hang up . . . I need to be confident before I drop big money on a trial that I have a dog that will do the course and that I will help her out. We’re Open dogs now, and we have some limitations and expectations that weren’t on us before.

And there, now it’s out. I can finally stop thinking about it. I hope.