Went back to cattle today. Shannon and Dustin had some very easy calves this go round, which was perfect for Rippa. They rotate their stock out when they get too easy and so dogs get a pretty good exposure to different behaviors as they go. I love this. It's got to be a lot of work to find calves to switch in and out (it used to be going to the stockyard auctions, but they got a hook up with a local cattleman), which again shows me how awesomely dedicated they are to being, well, awesome.
Anyway, I decided to go into the cattle the same way I did with the sheep. Big stick, no expectations, eyes wide open.
I told Shannon we needed to work on chores because I'm starting to get that I've been pushing for obstacle training and it's been shutting Rippa's confidence down big time.
Jobs today for her: get the cattle off the hill, put them in the obstacle/pen and hold them, and put them away. I was going to try to not be too involved with the whole thing but correct her for mistakes and praise when she was right.
We never talk about the handler when we talk about how good the dog is, but man . . . I have said this before and I'll say it again, I gave myself SUCH bad habits. It's hard to break bad habits, but if the me of now sees how far I've come in mindset and habits compared to the mindset of me ten years ago in regular life, I can overcome this. I just know I have to. At the end of the session, when I put the cattle back with Rippa, I was like, "I won't take the stick, I'll just let her do stuff." Shannon: "You sure?" Me: "Yes." Shannon: "OH MY GOD KRISTIN YOU FRUSTRATE ME SO MUCH!"
I thought she was talking about setting something up correctly and helping her, which I didn't want to do. I wanted Rippa to naturally figure it out herself. She was talking about the stick. The stick made such a big difference today because I didn't need to use aggressive body language to get her to mind and she was much happier.
Which brings me to zen and the art of stockdogging. I don't tell many people but I do a lot of selfwork. Meditation, work on negative self-talk, working on non-judgement and non-attachment. The latter two are ESPECIALLY challenging on stock for the reasons I outlined last time.
So here's my plan of attack with that. Since I am no longer in the cozy busom of Australian Shepherd land where I'm comparing my dogs to other Aussies, seeing Aussies work, and having different expectations, I have to stop thinking that my dog needs to be a border collie, work like a border collie, and progress like one. I totally see how while I guarded against that at first, it sucked me in.
1. I need to learn a lot more about the job of an Aussie and why its loose-eyed upright style is good for it compared to the stronger eyed, wide running Border Collie. I want to see both work big herds without a lot of training. I want to see both in their elements. I want to talk to stockmen and see what they use them for and why. And I will. I asked Shannon that next time she turns her young dogs on a lot of cattle, to please bring me along. It's one thing to see her perfectly finished dogs like I did at the ranch, and another to see newbs. How do they work for them at first, what does all this arena training do? Etc. I also need to find ranchers with Aussies, which is a bigger job. A lot more travelling for sure.
2. I need to look at my own dog with non-judgement and non-attachment and evaluate her and my performance on that, not on the yard stick of others. It bothers me that it has taken a long time to get where I have with her, but I think a lot of it is me and not her - but only a new puppy with a new foundation will prove that one. What we have right now is what we have right now, and it's plenty enough. In my apprenticeship of stockdogs, whatever Rippa lacks, I can make work for sure - whether it's fixing myself or learning how to help her.
So, going into it, here's what I got out of the session:
What Rippa does nicely:
1. Is very interested in helping me get jobs done rather than make stuff up for herself.
2. She is hitting heads and heels pretty evenly and not totally superflously. I've said before that it seems like in trial land you don't want them hitting at all, but I'd rather her develop her hits over time than not do it at all. She's been favoring the head hits a lot more and I was thinking she wasn't balanced, but today she hit heels when she was driving them sometimes and it was nice and low on the heel rather than high on the haunch like how she was when she started. And she clearly is making choices about when and who to hit. He hits to the head I like a lot, too. She gets right in there and makes deliberate choices. She doesn't go for the nose, but for the poll, which I'm not sure is good or bad. For really rough stock, I think you'd want the more sensitive nose, but she doesn't need it on any of the Woods' cattle, so maybe it's there and she doesn't need it, or maybe it's not and that's something to know about her. Either way, it's nice. It's nice to look at for sure. It's nice to have, too, because I know that in addition to dogs not willing to hit at all, most tend to favor one or another. The fact that she's got both (like her mother) is nice.
3. She really, really minds the stick now and is able to balance the cattle to me and fetch the way I've been wanting but not getting before.
4. She's brave enough to pull them off the fence by going between them again. She did it once and it didn't totally work out so I helped her a couple times, but this was a strength she got at the Betty Williams clinic and we'd lost it a bit there for a while.
5. She stops really nicely.
6. She'll take most of her "outs" though it doesn't mean really get out wider, but stop working the flank you're working right now. That's okay. See #1.
What Rippa's not doing nicely:
1. She does not feel good working independently. When we were putting them away, I asked her for an outrun to the end of the arena to bring them to me and she went about halfway and stopped, waiting for help from me. Given that she was happy to do this earlier, this is probably created by me training for trials and doing fake drives during the trials themselves by calling her in to me and then sending her again instead of having a good drive. Fixable, I think.
2. No there, no walk up. I definitely broke this, and I think this has to do with #1 because that's it. She'd rather go to head than get behind them.
3. Rating herself. When she has them on the fence and starts parallel driving with me, she'll get excited and start pushing them too hard and I have to either verbally slow her down or send her to head. I think she WANTS the opportunity to go to head but I don't want her to do that. She's pushy. She gets right up their butts if they'll let her, so while some of that is training, some of that is her.
What Rippa does differently than the Woods' dogs:
1. She does not like big, wide outruns. She'll cut as much as she can and come in directly on the flank to get behind them. Like I said before, this does actually work. It's not stylish, but if she's not trying to make trouble and not going too fast, it's fine. I was reading about this on the Internet - the loose eyed dogs will work closer, but slower than the eye dogs that do fast, wide work. Like, **click** - I've been worrying that Rippa's slowing down and paying less attention while never getting wider and . . . duh. She's being loose-eyed. It's her thing. It's what she was bred for. STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO THE OTHER DOGS.
2. She's not crisp on her commands. Shan and Dust both can put their dogs exactly where they want them and they will do that all day long for them. Something I know from Kathy and everyone else is that if you stop the Aussie from working, it's like a punishment. On your feet, always working, don't take away the job. Rippa's busy thinking about stuff and is going to question what I want, ESPECIALLY because half the time I'm too slow to know what I want when I'm handling the cattle because I'm too busy looking at her and not the stock.
A really good article about the differences is on WorkingAussieSource by Jeanne Weaver. In it, she says, BCs take pressure off easily and rate more naturally, plus they're better at seeing the bigger picture for those big outruns. Aussies aren't meant to be good here. They have power to move really tough stock up close. In fact, in Rippa's case, she has too much power to work light stock up close - I go back to the one trial where we had to do ASCA started E course and I had to get her lined out from the back of the arena to fetch through the panels because she just can't dial back the presence (at least yet) of sheep that aren't used to her and they want to be as far from her as possible.
Anyway, I think I'll have a better time staying true to my dog if I just look at what she's got and refine that within limits as well as get a better understanding of how she's different from the dogs I see all the time and how that fits into the equation. After all, if you're going to sell people on a dog, you need to be honest if it's the right dog for them.
Do I think I'll kick Border Collie ass at horseback cattle trials? Probably not. Moving a small head of stock through finite panels is not going to be her forte'. Can we do it for fun? Sure thing. Do I even think I'll kick Aussie ass at trials? Honestly? I don't. Low qualifying scores are fine with me. She's a fine little chore dog and if I can get past the confidence stuff, we can say whether she'd make a good ranch gathering dog - right now it's lacking there, but I wonder how much of that is me making mistakes all this time so that her confidence is shot (she's a sensitive dog to me for sure). It would be interesting to go to the Woods' ranch and try to gather in some of their cattle out of the hills and brush - would she have the go juice to do it or would she say, "This is hard and I don't feel good about it?"
One of the things I feel like watching her today is that if I get the confidence thing licked right now, we might have a very different essay soon. Having trained her to do a lot of things at this point, she's been very serious about being right. When she learns something new, she gets really cranky about it, sluggish, not excited to try it. But as soon as she "gets" it, she GETS it and the energy comes back 100%. Part of the time off things we did were training things and I have been teaching her formal fetch. I do positive clicker-type training and she will stop offering behaviors or look like she's bored (or try to just get the treats) but if you hang in there long enough, she'll have a break through and you'll get REALLY happy behavior offering. In fact, she's REALLY fun to train when this happens.You just have to realize she's a sullen learner.
Hey, we're all different, right? Good thing I'm also a professional teacher. Take them where they're at, find what ignites their heart, and take them where you want them to go.
Non-attachment, non-judgement, and understanding the differences that exist. Ohm.
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