Back to the Drawing Board

Not gonna lie here, I think I broke my dog.

I've been going to cattle every week and just doing chores with her and getting her to take them off the fence and fetch them, but she really doesn't want to. She'll fetch  once and then lose her confidence and stop trying.

I take her to sheep, and if it involves any distance at all, you're really iffy. I sent her out and the sheep pointed toward me and everything looked good, but then they drifted a bit left and I tried to correct it with a "Way to" because she wasn't and she just kept coming at me like the sheep were ahead of her.

Ducks? Yeah, I don't have much dog on ducks.

And I think it all comes down to something I saw on Doug Manley's Facebook feed about how Kathy had reminded him that sometimes an advanced dog needs a little "yahoo" now and again.

I don't think Rippa needs a "Yahoo" per se, but my expectations of her fluctuated so much in the last year and I probably started trialing her before I should have because I had to keep her ratcheted down so much that I wouldn't let her work and now she doesn't want to do basic stuff like gather and fetch cattle when before I thought we were some of the best at that.

And Rippa is a pretty soft dog. People were always telling me she was stubborn, but almost six years into working with her, she's worried and soft. Especially compared to balls-out Fury dog. All that yelling and ratcheting down has taken its toll.

Not to say there aren't good things going on, too . . . she's working more methodically now, she's got plenty of confidence to walk up on stock, she hits heels and heads appropriately most of the time. (She still gets a body shot on cattle, but that's more to do with her issues right now).

Today we went to the arena and I sorted out some heavier sheep that wouldn't run too much (we don't have heavy sheep) and I just walked straight up the middle of that two acre field. Rippa had an amazing time figuring out how to keep them with me, and I think I might crutch a little too much on the fence when this keeps her really working.

I also went home and set the chickens out and worked her with them. She's balancing up really well, learning that staying out and off the stock helps control them . . . I feel like this is just something I skipped in favor of . . . trialing.

So, back to the drawing board. We have to work on short works, confidence builders, and eventually start asking for distance again, because I definitely broke it. Good news is, she's starting to learn to drive again . . . but I'm not going to ask for much because I need that fetch back. She seems to be more comfortable behind the stock now than an in front of it . . .

Bad bad bad Kristin, I knew better, and this is my just desserts for not believing in myself.

Oh well  . . . we'll keep plugging along.

That said, MY GOD THE FURY! She has been a bit slow on stock lately, so I took her in for an acupuncture appointment. At nearly 13 years of age, that little sucker bounced back with all the power, and, dare I say it, fury, that she had when she was six. Distance fetches, no problem. She was so damn eager to work that we had to have some serious words about her stays . . . I ended up letting her learn how to control the sheep without a lot of input from me by standing in different places and letting her figure out how to get them there.

It was a workout for both dog and sheep, lots of breaks to catch ovine breaths, but by the time she got it out of her system, I had a dog picking sheep up off the fence and balancing to me and cruising around a bit, something I haven't had for SO LONG. She's currently begging for a Frisbee session. That little thing does NOT quit.

Open mind, but time to apply heavy filters . . .

I haven't been able to be regular about lessons thanks to work and bouts of health stuff, but such is life. I won't be competing at the trial I suggested I might try, mostly because Rippa has lost most of her confidence on cattle in one fell swoop.

And whose fault is that? Mine.

So mine.

Here's how I know . . . as many excuses as I want to make . . . yesterday Mike Canaday, sheep trialing champion, cattle dog man, and Rent-A-Goat master told me something that made it kick in.

I was giving him a compliment about his protege', Robbie. I met both of them about a year ago at a trial they both put on in Coalinga. Robbie had a 16 month old dog bred by the Woods and my jaw dropped. This dog was amazing. Like . . . better than any finals Aussie I'd seen (in person, at least). And it turned out that Boo was Robbie's first real stockdog, and everything he'd learned, he learned from Mike.

And that means a lot to me because here's a guy who is now just tearing up the cattle dog circuits with 2.5 years experience (of course, lots of stock handling experience helps) that took everything Mike said and made it work for him.

And here's what Mike said when I told him that he'd done amazing work with Robbie:

"Well, unlike a lot of people, Robbie listened and soaked it all in like a sponge."

And yeah, he're right. Lots of people don't listen. But, why is that, I asked?

"They think they know better."

He pauses.

"I've got thoughts about your dog but you won't listen to me."

I told him like hell I wouldn't. Tell me.

......

So what was I doing there?

A week ago, Shannon took me out to a new place to work bull calves at a cutting horse ranch. She turned out probably ten calves and said she figured Rippa would benefit from a lot of cows and I agreed. I had her video tape everything but what was good and bad didn't matter. What happened was that a couple things happened: I yelled at Rippa a lot instead of encouraging her, Rippa got really good and trampled for probably the first time ever (a kick once in a while, yes, but not like this), and I kept trying to go and working on uncomfortable stuff with her.

By the end of the session, she was still trying to work, but quietly, sadly, and definitely not going to head to turn them. She literally would look back at me, put a paw out and say, "Help. Help help help."

I took her the next day to work sheep and her heart wasn't in it. If it required her to move fast, she gave up. She might have been hurty, but she wasn't motivated to run through it, either. It's not something we haven't been through and she bounces back, but there was a strong vein of thought thinking, "OMG, this is what you get for going to other people to train with. Kathy had specific stock for specific dogs and you have what you have. Kathy knows Aussies. None of these people know Aussies. You're ruining your dog."

And then Robbie invited me to a fun day at Mike's in Coalinga. I didn't really know what to expect, so I asked Shannon, after telling her how she did on sheep and she said to go, they'd have goats at least. And after some hemming and hawing about not wanting to leave a bad impression about my dog, having other obligations, and having Rippa really sullen about the whole thing with me in that mindset, I decided to go.

And everyone was really happy to have me, and I was really happy to be there, too. I didn't even feel like I needed a dog. Nobody cared. And I did prove that not all Aussies bark and bounce and that's it.

I decided that I should warm up on goats in the round pen with both dogs because of how Rippa was doing because I didn't want a big mess to happen in this huge arena with the calves and everyone watching.

First work: Rippa blows me off, but works intensely. Pushy pushy pushy.
Second work: Better, but I'm not ready to take it to the calves.

Side note: Fury was pretty much awesome. She is really learning to balance up. It's exciting. I even got some short drives out of her. :)

We had a BBQ that night and talked about raising and slaughtering lambs for the best tasting meat, etc. and then I went to bed.

The next morning we warmed up again, Fury was awesome again, and Rippa was really listening finally. Dustin had finished up working his dogs and said he was ready to go home and I asked him to go out with me and the calves for help.

Mike set the calves in the middle of the arena for us, and I sent her, and as soon as she got to like . . . 10 or 2 o'clock, she quit. Did not even TRY to go to head. After a couple of those, we aborted mission and Dustin went into the round pen with me and started working on Rippa on the fence and making her go to head. She got slower and more mad about it but he didn't let her quit (she doesn't like working around him, he's scary, you know?) and then told me that I need to do a lot more work on her to get that fixed before we go back to calves, and when we do, really dog broke calves. Which is fair. The calves at Mike's were not very workable. They turned and ran. Turned and ran. Dogs were working really hard to hold the line and unable to if the calves didn't want to.

And then Dustin left and I hung around a bit more to learn stuff.

Robbie said I should work on pushing Rippa out more, and I don't think he knows how much of my training is JUST that. But I heard him. Keep at it. Be more clear.

And then Mike said the above to me.

Here's what he said, "I'm going to tell you that if I had that dog, I'd be able to turn her around pretty fast. Dogs like that, you gotta tell them they're good more. A lot more. And quit using that big stick, she doesn't really react that much to it anyway, use a flag but make it count."

And I told him, as soon as he said it, that I sure as hell WOULD listen to him because that's also my feeling about her, and what Sarah has been telling me. There are people that think that working is its own reward, but Rippa is working for me and I know it.

He said, "You need to stop trying to tell her what to do with that stupid big stick and let her just go up and down the fence and not worry too much about it. I'm not saying don't tell her when not to do stuff, but also tell her when she's good and let her figure it out."

If you read the blog, I keep saying this is what I need to do, but I put so much pressure on myself on cattle to work on getting her UNDER CONTROL from the start that I end up only doing that.

And then he went on to talk to me about how it's good to go and learn from many people, adding to your bag of tricks and how grateful he was to have known some really great trainers as friends and travel around and learn something from every one of them.

It was reinforcing because that's been what I'm doing now . . . but as I'm watching Robbie give advice to others there with confidence, and Mike being quiet and letting him . . . I'm thinking that I really need to start shifting my thoughts about how stuff is going.

I have long felt like I don't know better. Like other people do and I need to listen to them. I have been waiting for the magical scepter of stockdoggery to descend and knight me worthy to train my dog how I see fit.

It turns out nobody's going to do that. Everyone has an opinion. It's up to me to grow up and start filtering them by being open to the opinions but also able to not take everyone's even if I think they're great trainers.

What's really frustrating about this is that I feel like I've said this a million times before but I haven't owned it. And I think that's 100% why Rippa keeps falling backward, to a point where she's pretty much where I was two years ago at the cattle clinic at Betty's (so sad). I can hear Kathy telling me I'm shutting my dog down by putting too much on her and she's right. The thing is that I keep self-effacing. Despite years of doing this, learning it, and watching people, I don't give my trainer or myself enough credit. I know things at this point that I should really start being able to make calls on. I shouldn't have thought I needed Dust out there with me and the calves. I've done it before him and I'll do it again. It didn't turn out well with him there (not BECAUSE of him), and it would have looked the same without him. I really need to start taking ownership of my own game plan and my dog's needs.

I KNOW Rippa's got power behind her. I've seen it. I walk into an arena and I'm not worried about the cattle not going in the right direction (or I wasn't) but as Bob Vest said in his book, I've got to work on filling her confidence barrel - above worrying about how she gets stuff done. She's naturally not a self-confident dog in life and I know that. And I seem to do a good job of draining the barrel but need to learn to fill it. Does she have the ability to do whatever I ask her to do? Yes, but she's a dog that needs to know that it's okay to do it. Do I love that? Not necessarily, but it's good for me.

I mused as I went home about how maybe I should just get another pup and start from scratch. And then I was like, "No. Seriously? How can you even begin to think you won't mess that pup up right now with how you're thinking right now?" And so . . .

And I keep going, "Well, people that I work with now don't know Aussies, I'm so screwed." But I'm an idiot. *I* know Aussies. I just have to dig deep and remember what I know instead of pretending I'm a blank slate.

And how do I do that? Who will tell me that? I can think of a thousand voices in unison telling me I don't know them. That I'm not worthy. But eff them. Those who universally do know Aussies had to tell themselves at some point that they did to breed or judge or train them.

It's my turn.

I hereby bequeath myself with the ability to be a confident trainer for my dog and not a student taking lessons. I am a peer working with others to look at things and get ideas. And so it shall be.

New plan? I agree with Dustin. Back off calves for a bit until I have confidence with distance and going between the fence and the stock again. Then make sure they're nice doggy calves.

And when I do? Take Mike's advice. And he even offered me to go back and work on it with him.

So many wonderful people out there. So grateful to all of them. I've never loved this pastime more than now.