My self work is paying off with the dogs, and I'm becoming a mother . . .

If you don't know me that well, you probably haven't heard that my husband and I found out a few months ago that I was pregnant with TWINS. I have known that at some point the fun and games would end and it was looking like that a couple weeks ago when the doctor put me on bed rest for a bleed and because one of the kids was looking smaller and they worried it was a complication.

I went in a week later and the stress of the small kid is passed, but the bleed was still there so I'm supposed to "take it easy" for at least two weeks after it stops. It stopped a couple days ago. That, paired with this oft spoken of second trimester wind finally hit me last week and I've been raring to go and suddenly feel like a superhero after months of malaise and vague sickness.

Shannon texted me last night and said she was taking a break from cows to focus on growing her own kid (I think she's gotta be 7 months at this point?) and so that's done. But I thought, hey, if I'm doing my job right, sheep and duck handling is "taking it easy." I shouldn't be running all over the place, so I went back to Stephanie's and the Best Family farm after a bit of a hiatus.

Rippa has also been a royal pain in the butt so during this time she's been on doggy bootcamp.

The break and the bootcamp must have made a world of difference to her because she was pretty much a dream to work on both types of stock. I know I'm in a better frame of mind myself, and I've done a lot of reading and thinking and talking to people about stuff since our last works, but it was AMAZING.

Ever since declaring myself Queen of my own Stockdogdom, things have been improving. The last cattle work, Shannon had Rippa go into a larger arena and while there was some yahoo work (there were cattle going over horse jumps in this big chute I couldn't safely get into to stop the action), she worked quiet, honestly drove and fetched them, did everything I could have asked for, especially considering that she was all but shut down a month ago.

The same thing with sheep. Stephanie's sheep today were pretty light and I really wanted to work on her ability to circle while staying out of contact (especially on the way-to side because she seems to cut in and mess her life up and get frustrated - and I think this is my handling because The Fury does the same thing), but I couldn't get them to settle. Not that it mattered. What I did get was everything I DID ask of Rippa - little drives. Downs when I asked, balanced fetching . . . we went into the bowl field further from Stephanie's house because one of her dogs was fence running and there were neighbors watching us. She messed up her outruns a couple of times (because of lack of confidence in a new place) but I never had to raise my voice and she never did anything cheap to merit their concern. If they weren't used to seeing dogs work, I daresay they'd have been impressed. :)

I've been working both dogs on chickens, too, as it's pulse-grazing season and my yard needs weeding. This has been good for them, and man, the neighbors love it - honking and waving when they pass.

The Fury is pretty deaf these days but she can hear a whistle so I've decided to just use this opportunity to teach her that and myself. She knows down (one little blast) and come (two blasts) off sheep, so I put her in a smallish square pen and waited for her to settle (the little beast literally vibrates with excitement when I make her do this, so it's a long wait) and then would send her out to fetch them, and ask for a down and then to come in and repeat. She started getting a little agro so I left the whistle training and got the flag out.

Fury bear is an ALL THE WAY AS HARD AS I CAN GO dog, and my poor handling in the past didn't help. I hear we all ruin our dogs and I didn't think I did years ago, but yup, I did. I wish I had The Fury to start today because it would be really fun. But such is life. So, The Fury does not care about me or sticks or anything when she gets up in close contact to the sheep and myself. She's killer on outruns and distance fetching, but she just grits her teeth, squints her eyes, drops her head, and goes for it, whether it's just ramming into a sheep, going for a hit, or whatnot. So, today I decided to make use of that tight space and GET ON HER with a flag.

Every time she went to dive in, it was flag mayhem. And she actually backed off. When she backed off, I'd let her fetch around a bit. But as soon as she got intense, whap whap whap whap at the ground or her face or whatever. And you're like, MY GOD KRISTIN, YOU DOG ABUSER, but she's literally asking for it. Plus, she and I have years of solid trust built up so she's not mad or hurt by it and when she backs off, she gets sheep and when she calls off, she gets loves. She got to sit in my lap all the way to the Best Family Farm as a reward for taking it in the face and backing off the sheep.

But that was remarkably effective and I'm going to start doing that a lot more. Once I don't have to do it in the small pen, I can try it out in the arena. Maybe we'll finally get somewhere there. I'm not asking for a lot, I mean, the dog is 13 years old and had major knee surgery this year, but she is still totally ready to go (and that surgery was THE BEST decision).

And then we went and said hi to the ducks. They aren't really legged up as I haven't made it a priority to see them with work and sheep and cattle, so didn't want to put too much on them. I sent Rippa in to get them out and then we did a record advanced duck run to perfection and put them back and I was like ALL GOOD, THANK YOU, DOGLET!


I let Fury in to just do some fetching (kinda hard to do anything with a dog going deaf and no whistle flanks), and all that whapping made a difference because look at her on duckies (it was the end of the work and they were getting hung up on the center pen so I just took it down to end happy for Fury):

See her watching the heads and being head low? That's thinking, stay off 'em Fury. Not GO HARD AS HARD AS YOU CAN Fury. It was awesome. No need for face whapping at all.

So that was great. I feel all nice again, like I can totally get Rippa's WTCh when I'm ready.

But today taught me something else, too, which I've said before, but . . . I've done enough self work at this point that neither dog pulled anything cheap and I never got upset. I'm learning how to work with them and appreciate that they're trying to work with me. When I used to take riding lessons, I used to get SO frustrated at the iron-sided horses for not listening and the trainer would get pissed at me and say it's not the horse, it's me. And it probably wasn't. Now when I ride, I'm uber sensitive to the fact that I'm out of practice and I might be messing up the horse, and it's largely because I have learned my lesson with the dogs.

And I think it's carrying over into real life. I spend a lot of time worrying about why I waste my time with this in the first place, but it's been such good self work and been so good developing these relationships with the dogs that I really have no concerns about it.

You've probably seen posts where I can't decide if Rippa's something I should breed or not and I felt something fall away the other day. It honestly isn't about having The Best dog. There is no Best Dog. There's the dog you want for what you want them for. And people are ready and willing to tell you that they don't like aspects of your dog, but they don't need that. As long as other people do, then you're in good company.

I'm still not there with Rippa, but I'm good. I am having a human litter sometime in March-May (twins come when they come, due date kinda irrelevant) and I'm likely going to be out of the stockdog game in a month or two, so there's going to be a big break and my priorities will change. Maybe there will be a litter because we come back and she stays amazing and I'm convinced she's a benefit to the breed. Maybe I'm too busy wrangling kids to worry about it and the line dies. Who knows. My husband has promised to come out with me to wrangle kids so I don't have to stop (maybe we can even afford a nanny to come with), but I just know the next year is a big black space with a red question mark in it.

But I do feel I've come a long way. Stephanie watched me a tiny bit today and I didn't go to pieces - I didn't care. Rippa was doing great and I  knew how far to push her without making problems. We've got goals and all three of us ended the stockdog day with smiles on our faces.

Man, when you have a bad day, you HAVE A BAD day, but today I'm all glowing. I'm so grateful to my stockdog community that lets me do this. <3

Learning about cattle and dogs

It's amazing how much you don't know the more you know.

As I said last time, Rippa's been improving a lot with feedback from Sarah Martin about what to do with her and cattle. She's a lot happier to work, has a lot more power, is pulling them off the fence and thoughtfully fetching most of the time . . . like night and day to a few weeks ago when I thought I'd better give up the ghost.

I know so little about how my dog works here, and how the cattle work. Last work, Shannon pointed out a cow with pink eye, but I'd been so worried about what my dog was doing and what I was doing when we were sorting cattle to put into the arena that I really didn't look at the cattle. Not like I would with the sheep and ducks.

Maybe it's because I don't have a lot of experience with cattle - but I don't really have it with ducks, either. Maybe it's because I don't "own" the cattle, but my ducks live full time with someone else. Maybe it's because I'm not afraid of the ducks smashing me . . . but I'll be honest, I'm cautious but not like . . . timid around them.

I mean: 

So here's what I know I don't know now: before I was trying to approach cattle like I do with sheep and ducks - which is . . . send the dog around them, have her fetch, and like . . . it translates, right? And since it translates, all we need to do is worry about obedience.

Here's what I learned, or maybe relearned, because I remember some of this from Kathy starting the Fury on cattle, and some from Betty's clinic, too:

• It's probably pretty healthy that a dog has a fear/respect for the cattle. If a dog charges right in to fetch them, they can get smashed pretty easily compared to sheep and ducks that will run. Even a sheep challenging a dog warns well before they have a chance to smash in my experience.
• Fencelines, where cattle like to hang out in arenas, are pretty dangerous for dogs.
• The dog can't see you relative to the cattle so has to guess at where to be and . . . if you have a tight-working dog like mine, she's got to be paying a lot of attention to the cattle to make sure she's not smashed.

I forget some of this because Rippa lacks a bit of confidence and grit that her mother has that most of the Wood's dogs have. One one hand, she never gets overrun because she'll take time and stop stuff if she really can't handle something (though she still tends to like to go to head and wahoo initially), but on the other hand, she doesn't get really hurt when she's working cattle because she pulls her punches.

Like, I really like that when she's thinking, she's really deliberate about her hits. She'll walk up on a cow, show some teeth and then hit, kind of slow motion, right on the poll or heel. Or bark prior to the hit. When she's not thinking, she's running around, hackles up, barking, side swiping, all the western-stuff that seems exciting, but again, she never REALLY REALLY gets hurt. She's got some self preservation in her that I like. If The Fury had that, I'd let her work cattle in her old age. She doesn't.

So, we went from Rippa semi-driving but not really learning how to control the heads away and me using a lot of commands to get her to do things to her shutting down because of it to not even sending her on outruns, but starting out with a "There" and driving the cattle around the arena until Rippa's thinking and watching her stock and I can slowly back out of the picture, at which case the cattle either drift off the fence and we go into a nice little fetch or we keep driving, depending on what it's looking like. Heck, the very last work today, she proved she'd not naturally a barky dog because she was thinking well and had to tuck one head in and just came around, gave the cow the chance to think about it, and then hit it in the poll. Worked like a charm. We ended there.

So, what was missing before was functional chores (and honestly, sorting the little bulls can be difficult as they don't like going into the arena, so some days are good, some bad, sometimes Rippa can't hold her stay because she doesn't believe in what I'm doing . . . ) and me just quietly letting her work her stuff out.

She's still weak on the push from behind and everyone can get stuck, but a little flank command or some patience on my end usually fixes it. She's not fast and snappy, but she's getting it done at a walk and sometimes a trot and it feels marvelous.

Okay, and then let's also talk about the beautiful people I continue to meet on this journey. Shannon and I will go out to this ranch, I don't know what it's called, it's also go a huge quarry on it, where they used to raise hogs but now do cutting horses. They keep about ten calves for us to play with and even water and till up the arena all pretty before we get there. Because they like having us, and Shannon works one of her dogs. It's amazing.

Here's her dog:

Today, Cindy, a woman with more than enough going on in her life, found out I was pregnant with twins and was like, "Do you have anyone to help you?" And I said my husband, and she was like, "You will have to get my number. I don't have much time, but I will absolutely help you." I mean, she barely knows me. Her heart is that big. I also didn't say no.

I mean, it's amazing. I love these people so much.

Cindy's granddaughter, Jade, that comes out to hang out with us.

I have been really trying to double down on the stockdog thing. I really don't want the pregnancy to totally derail everything I've been up to. I'm hoping we get consistently good enough to get at least through Open before I'm too big to trial.

I told my husband that it was probably all over once I had to stop and he was so sweet: "I'll go with you, every time. I promise." Plus, everyone I work with has been so supportive, and of course, Shannon and I can have stockdog playdates . . . :) It'll be okay. Different, but okay.