Rippa and I start to feel more in control!

We've had two really great days on cattle, in my estimation.

My new thought on this is that taking a methodic approach and saying, "She's her own dog" is important. It was obvious today, too, because I took Fury along and worked her on goats and she works so much more like the Woods' border collies than Rippa - wide outruns, fast movements, super snappy. It's really fun and they obviously like her more than Rippa, but it's okay.

I did a lot of reading on my break, and things like me expecting Rippa to go out wide, and fast and then turn in and be snappy are just wrong. Fury's just way different in that way. I like it, it's fun, but Rippa has her own positives, too. She's more loose eyed and when she's in control, she goes SLOWER, and I am starting to use that to my advantage.

So we've been basically working on two things - getting her "there" and "walk up," back (now that I know she understands it on other stock) and controlled outruns and fetches.

Rippa's got a lot more confidence again and she's able to cleanly fetch the cattle from one end of the arena and get them to me, but when they start to go past me she'll lose her sense of control and it falls apart, so what I'm doing is using that to teach the drive.

We have to train some more clear commands for her: her "down" means both "down" and "stop" so I need to get her to just stand, too. All I need is a pause . . . so obedience there. And then I also need to get her to slow her pace down on command better than I have. Obedience there. How? Dustin told me to go SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOW down to let her get ready to lay down. Problem is, I've been crutching on the "down" to slow her down so I need to get more crisp. Shannon suggested working on this with sheep and I agree, that's a great place to do it.

Anyway, she's making good choices and fetching in a nice controlled manner to me now. She's starting to be willing to walk up and drive away from me again, but I have to stay parallel and stop the action when the cows start to pick up speed as she hasn't figured out how to get ahead of their eye without turning them back.

Dustin says I'm the brake and she's the gas, but the current set of cattle are really light to people and Rippa's not so "broke" yet that I can watch the cows and be that for her. It's cool.

Looks like Robbie's got a couple cattle trials on deck, one of them IN San Luis Obispo in October that I want to help out at, but I also think I might just enter it. I'm at a point where I know I won't win, but she's got enough confidence to give it a go maybe and I do need to get more trialing experience, especially on horseback.

So I'm gone for two weeks on a road trip, and then I'll be back with a vengeance to see if I can't get ready for that trial. BUT, important thing here is to make sure Rippa keeps her confidence up and I let her work her cows. I definitely messed things up at that last trial and put a lot of pressure on her and she's back and happy again  - and so am I.

And Fury's ready to go back into started sheep to finish that one leg she needs, but . . . I'm definitely going to wait until Rippa's ready to drive without me breaking her in a trial first. The cattle trials are more about getting a solid fetch and then being there to help your dog do obstacles, so I don't think I'll break her. I think it will be good "real life" work for her. And everyone will sass me for having an Aussie anyway, so whatever.

But, I won't enter it if I think I'll do damage to her training or confidence, I promise. The nice thing is, if she gets western, it's not a big deal there so I don't think it will - I think all my ratcheting down on her at the ASCA trials was key to the confidence killing. I can get her to get under control and keep going without worrying about being thank you'd. Probably good for my confidence, too. But LORDY they're expensive, especially when you know you won't win. :)