Weekend at Sherry's Part 2

Life has changed quite a bit. I no longer have the time to sit back and muse about my stockdog experiences and worries like I used to.

And that's probably a good thing. Sending Rippa to Sherry for a month was a game changer.

Going this week for a couple lessons even more so.

As Sherry is telling me to repeat "There" to Rippa and watch her turn into the sheep and slow down, I'm flashing back to driving out of Stephanie's property wondering why I need SO much mileage on the dog because I never seem to get better. Why is it so much more work for me when other people are doing this like it's casual? How is it that I'm so sure Rippa is pretty special, but I can't even get her through the ASCA trials, much less be comfortable entering NCA stuff as the lone Aussie?

The answer is this: every single time I felt I was spinning my wheels, it was because I had a hole missing in my knowledge of stockdogs. It's not like I didn't spend years watching Kathy teach other people. It's not like since I haven't talked to people about what they see in all those videos I shoot.

But, just as that one time years back I took a lesson from Sherry with The Fury, I came back with some lights on. Sherry somehow reaches me and explains things to me in a way that I "get."

As much as I wish I'd known to do this sooner (like way back when I didn't have a way to work Rippa), the path is the path, right?

I want to give much gratitude to Mel Zarchikoff publicly for suggesting I send Rippa to Sherry in the first place. There was a big part of my early stockdog culture that was like, "People that send dogs off for trainers are dirty cheaters." When I talked to other people about the idea, all of them were like, "Well, good because it will give you a chance to work on your handling and not worry about the dog."

So, we did it. I'd hoped Rippa would meet Sherry, realize she knew what she was talking about and come back to me ready to trial, but that was not to be. Rippa has way too many bad habits right now for that. And now I'm 100% sure it's because of me. Is she the most forgiving and pliable dog ever? No. She's powerful, she has opinions, and she's stubborn. But if I knew what I was doing, we'd have been a lot further along by now.

And I flash back to standing at Stephanie's feeling so lost and being like, "Well, Kathy said I could do this. I need to learn to fly on my own." Wrong. One thing I've learned is that if you're not already a stockman, and you don't already inherently understand the stock you're working, you're already at a disadvantage. If I ever train people, I'm definitely making them do stock chores. Kathy used to have us helped and it was my favorite and I did learn quite a bit of stockmanship that way that I didn't learn in school (I have 3/4 of a large animal science degree), but it's not the same as running a ranch with 300 head of cattle and I know that.

So, here's a couple things that I got out of the last few days:

• She actually can work at a walk and stop the sheep in front of me.
• She can be moved where I want her after this with a flank, a "there" and a "stay." I've never had that degree of control of her, and she's never had that degree of trust in me and the stock that it will work to get it.
• COWS, guys. Sherry put us on cattle after a lesson on sheep and she fetched them in such a relaxed manner, it wasn't funny. Went right around them, walked up on them and stayed straight along where I needed. If they challenged them or lagged, she'd hit them low and square and instead of getting upset and making a mess, she'd just go back to the job. No barking, no growling, just getting the job done. We cruised around her whole field like it was nothing. I've not been able to fetch cattle kind of ever. Obviously they were heavy cattle who were like 2 feet off me, but her ability to just relax and do the job was amazing. I was ready to cry. 
• I had a very different understanding of how to do the commands usefully. Like, "out" doesn't mean move out of contact, it means square your shoulder. So a command should be "go by" and then if she needs to square out more, "out" and then hit a "go by" or a "there" or whatever you need to finish it so "out" isn't a correction.
• If you say "there" and the dog correctly turns in, but too fast, just say "there" again and they'll slow to a walk. Like, WHAT? Because they're pointing in but have to rate if they're going straight right behind them. Total news to me. I've never had a dog take the "there". Or, let's be honest, I didn't know how to use it until now. Now I do. I taught her it, but I wasn't using it right!
• When she's a jerk, I should keep her on her feet and working, but she has to give to me. This is something I know, and especially Sarah Martin has drilled into my head about switching the brain to neutral, but Sherry's method of doing this was a game changer and something I have to fix in my own habits: if she's coming in tight or whatever and doesn't take her command, I don't hit her with an "out" and push her in the direction she's going, I make her switch back the other direction to show her that I'm in control and have her switch her mind. I was doing this by laying her down so I could have a mental break and get control but it caused a lot of issues - loss of stock, frustration taken out on stock, etc. Just stopping the direction and then getting a move on allows Rippa to keep control of her stock and work with me while also shifting her mindset.
• I need to have higher expectations of my dog's performance. She should stop without a single step when I ask (I let her have a beat because I don't trust my sense of timing). She should take a flank with a fancy square corner or else get hit with an "out" to make it. I was taking whatever I could get. I had to stop my session and look her in the eye and thank her. I've never known what it was like to have a dog act like this and how to even expect it. 
• I need to learn to control my mouth. I've picked up all kinds of other things, like yelling "Hey" or "No" at her to warn her off of her choice, but now she's trained such that she definitely knows what it is so if she doesn't respond, I just hit her with it again and force it. All the other stuff is just nagging. Same with body language. Neutral or positive, and then correction if needed and then back to it.
• Even stuff like repenning - don't let the dog just follow the sheep into the pen, look for the dog to slam dunk them into the gate by having them take a flank so it's pretty and square and they cover their side and you cover yours. When she taught me this, I was so impressed, I gasped and told her that was why she was the best handler in the world. I think she liked that. I mean it, though. So many runs I've seen Sherry slam dunk things because of her handling. 

So, anyway, this was a game changer for me. So many years of sucking at it and now I'm seeing it again for the first time. I also know I'm not ready to train on my own until I totally understand everything. 

The advantage to Sherry knowing Kathy's methods so well is she'd be like, "So, this is how Kathy has you do stuff, but you're missing something about it." Click. I flash back to when I was a kid learning subtraction and at some point didn't understand how to carry numbers and always carried a 9. I failed so hard all year long because the teacher didn't see what I was doing. My mom spent a whole summer retraining me and it made me think I was bad at math.

My years with Kathy, I only scratched the surface of what she said and what I did and what I saw because I had one dog (and a couple lesser instinctual dogs I handled) and I never got further than started, so I never understood everything and got stuck in a basic principle without truly understanding it. I feel like I might finally be on the road to mastering this thing with her help.

Have van, will travel.
We got lost looking for a park for the Squees and found an apricot orchard.

It's a hell of a thing to stop in the middle of a work week and drive yourself and your babies and your amicable nanny up to lessons, but she's totally right. She told me she could keep Rippa for four months and have her habits fixed and back to me, but a better thing would be for me to take lessons once a month with her. When you have invested as much time in this as I have, you buy a van and you make it happen.  I am so happy with my little red dog, my wonderful nanny, my patient babies, and the ability to do this now. It's okay if Rips isn't the world's greatest dog, it's okay that I know what she is, what she can do, and what I can look forward to in the future.

Much excite.