“So why don’t you train like me?”

Strangely, I’ve had two separate off-the-blog conversations with people from different areas and different experiences who are asking me some poignant questions about my training style (which, as stated before, is purely the Kathy Warren method at this point).

Mostly this has to do with why the heck I am letting Rippa run back and forth at full speed instead of turning her back and forcing her to move straight or using a line to teach her to walk.

So, here’s my stab at an answer to this:

It seems like, in my limited experience of “other methods,” that there are a number of good short cuts to the end product,  including things like forcing a dog back and using a line. I actually tried a couple of others’ advice when I was working with Fury by myself on super light sheep. But these methods are ‘training the dog.’

And I think what Kathy’s trying to do is “train the handler.” The dog will, if using these methods, slow down and balance up (yes, by God, she WILL walk) because she will finally figure out that it’s better than running back and forth. What we’re doing with all this back and forth with sticks business is working with the dog’s instinct to circle and letting her essentially teach herself what works.

How?

We start out by not asking much except for the dog to not eat the sheep. Then we ask for them to stay out from the sheep. Then we ask for wearing by using the stick to block the circling, and, if the dog has good instincts for this, when we ask for it, that will seem natural. Once the novelty of this back and forth wears out, the dog usually starts to think more and use less instinct, and you’ll see it in some of these videos I post – the dog will settle down and start just reading the sheep and doing the minimal work to keep them going how they should be. You can do this all with out “training the dog” and without commands if you are good. You don’t even need the stick (but that is a LOT of running around). Essentially, you’re not telling the dog what to do, you’re just telling the dog what not to do.

You can actually see this really easily in the first video I have of Rippa working:

She gets faster as time goes by because she’s more and more confident and she’s working lighter sheep. You put Rippa on some heavy woolies right now and I promise you she will slow plenty down and pretty much check out. We need her to keep learning and stay interested, so we don’t let that happen.

It is then, when the dog understands how to balance herself and read her sheep, that we start to teach what to do. That way, when you mess up whether you’re trialling or working your cattle on the ranch, the dog will think for herself and be a good stockman without you telling her how.

Having worked Fury with very little commands on a large head of sheep, I find this “working with instinct” very valuable. My favorite story is of having to move sheep from one pasture to another with this road and wide open space to go between. Once, the sheep banked left and got out and it became a full afternoon’s operation to get them back in. After that, Fury always banked left to protect the hole and the sheep went from pasture to pasture without incident. That’s thinking without me telling her to.

As I know from training extensively in other venues, a dog that’s taught to look for you for direction will default to that and I’d simply rather not be the driver of my dog but let my dog make the decision. A good ranch dog knows the drill once you’ve shown them what you want, and so does a trial dog. It’s not like a seasoned dog is going to go, “My God, you want me to put them THROUGH THOSE PANELS? GASP.” They know what they’re for. And my favorite dogs, which may not always win, are the ones that show it with minimal help from the handler.

As Kathy says, the ideal fully trained dog is one that will bring in the sheep and pen them, and all you have to do is sit in your lawn chair sipping your Mai Tai (with umbrella, this is key). Same with an ideal ranch hand. And that’s why we do it this way.

Rocking the Stockdog GoPro Camera: also–squaring those flanks

So I got a new little toy for my work, a GoPro camera. They’re HD camcorders in bullet proof mounts that stabilize so action stuff becomes actually watchable. Since I am an outdoor competitive event planner, we needed video footage of rides and such so I got one for marketing.

But it has an obvious use in that I can take really interesting perspectives with it. I’m still working out the kinks, though, so the quality’s kind of bad this first go round. Sorry. Kathy was pretty amused at my idea, and that made me pretty happy, too. I actually think it may help me see my mistakes.

She whipped out her own little pocket camera and got a couple shots of me:

What, I am totally normal with my bike helmet while handling in a giant stick. What about it?

Any how, here is a little of the footage from the first day of lessons:

I saved this clip specifically because I told you last time that we were working on pulling her off the top on a go-by both to prepare her for driving and also to fix her tendency to overflank on the way-to and shorten the go-by. Here is me doing that.

I came to lessons the next day and she was like, “NO WONDER RIPPA SNARLS AT THE STICK! LOOK AT YOU WHACKING IT AT HER! NO MORE WHACKING!” Oops. I think I learned that form moving the stick up and down in front of the sheep to build my flight zone.

Anyway, it does provide a neat perspective because you’re really only seeing one thing – how the sheep are reacting to things. You REALLY see them bank off me and the dog. Also, you can see Rippa does actually GET OUT even though I think she’s right up their butts.

So today we went back to work on that “get out” and also her total lack of stopping when I ask. Since we saw this particular perspective, I was easily reminded that I need to really push through the sheep and reinforce the get out with my body. Which totally worked.

I tried a different setting on the camera and obviously I need to go back to the first one because you mostly see sheep. Sorry.

I’ll let you watch the next video. If you don’t find yourself craning to see past the screen, I’d be surprised. Sorry. In this you’ll see how I’m working on getting Rippa to frickin’ reliably take her stop command, how I pull her off the top,how I get her get OUT really nicely, and how I read and react to her.

Though the sheep look like knee-knockers, they’re actually a mix of light and heavy. Kathy says at one point that Rippa must be doing something to them and I say “sending evil thoughts” – not entirely wrong. She’s feisty, but it’s good.

My main thought watching this is how much time we poor Aussie handlers spend going, “Out, out, out.” But remember, they’re not meant to work four sheep in a pen – they’re meant to work many thousands. A little push is a good thing in that case.

Hey looka me–I made a meme.

So, Rippa’s sire’s owner posted an agility “what people think” graphic and said she wished there was a stockdog one. Of course, I work from home and lately my drive to really get stuff done is a little dead so why not?

So, I hereby bequeath to you:

Enjoy.  I have to say, it’s fun participating in viral things like this  - I am curious to see how many “shares” on Facebook it gets and where it ends up.

Starting the Drive

Well, I went for three lessons in the past two days and didn’t bring a camera because I didn’t anything but a tune-up would happen as we haven’t been to lessons in a few months due to wedding, honeymoon, and lack of funds. Should have brought a camera. The cool think about Rippa, and my current stage in stockdog handling, is that we still keep learning even though we have a lot of time off.

I am resolved that I really need to get on stock more regularly and it looks like my only option’s going to be cows. Should be an interesting experience when that pans out, as I am used to training on sheep primarily (for good reason – they’re not as dangerous and hard to manage).

Anyway, so, I was handling really good first day and fell apart today. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I had things to worry about today. Rippa dove into the sheep when I handled her poorly and nearly killed one, running it into the fence. Horrifying. I hear stories and I am sure it happens more than people admit, but I like animals and hurting and scaring the sheep bummed me out. So, I think my nerves ruined my handling the first work of the day today.

The first work, of the three lessons this weekend, was on light sheep in the duck pen. We're staying in the duck pen to get the kind of control and consistency we want. When I first started, I was SO eager to get into the arena because it "meant something." But the reality is, the arena is good for trial practice, but it's also great for losing good habits. So we stay inside the littler pen for now. Kathy has us on light sheep because Rippa gets bored and stops working on heavier sheep - she needs something to do. She told me "be careful, you're essentially dog breaking these sheep" and I have to say, that felt night. I don't know that I've ever done that with hot-and-heavy Fury, and it's good to know that when/if I get access to sheep off the ranch, I'll be able to handle them.

But, as I said, my first work the second day was kind of weak. Rippa wasn't covering her "go by" side and was overreaching her "way to" side, so Kathy put me back on heavy sheep, but we began the drive exercises that she does to prime you for this.

First, I do want to note that Rippa's down is a lot better. She doesn't slam on the brakes, but she is downing when I ask so that's good. That's step one in being ready to teach the drive the Kathy Warren way.

So what about the drive?

Well, first, the drive is pretty key for when you need a dog to push animals away from you, and the way that Kathy teaches it, it's key to teaching the dog to handle its stock without your directions. You kind of wait until your dog is fetching with good balance and control and taking commands. Then you start throwing flank commands whenever you can ("go by" and "way to"). And, of course, you need a solid stop on your dog.

So I don't think Rippa knows her flanks yet, but I'm working on it. We have the rest, and this first step should help Rippa stop coming up short on one side.

What Kathy does to teach the drive is teaches the dog to "pull off the top" - that is, stop fetching and circle the stock and the handler on command - keeping out of the flight zone. This is what we practiced.

Once a dog can do that with finesse, you lay the dog down next to you as it comes around and then you hit the dog with a "there." "There" means to walk up directly into the stock and keep them going that direction.

Oh. My. God. This totally blows the dog's mind. They are so used to you being up front to control that they only want to get around and when the animals start leaning or bending a certain direction, the dog wants to run around the outside and bring them back. Nope. The dog has to learn to watch the inside flank - the side they normally don't watch - where you would normally be. Their little brains explode here.

Kathy usually starts dogs on the drive in a big open field with no fences so the sheep can just keep going straight and the dog has time to just watch the sheep without other interference. This only works because she has seasoned chore dogs that fetch lost sheep when the baby dogs' brains fry and they lose them in the hills.

Anyway, so we're going along with our heavy sheep and I carefully position myself out of the flight zone, get my stick to a place where it will push Rippa past where she wants to flip back, and give her a "go by."

And darn it if she doesn't totally get around like she's supposed to, except she does it with her ears pinned back and a snarl on her face. Rippa is so weird. When she doesn't get something or is frustrated, she is definitely angry. I have to watch her and keep her going so she doesn't take it out on a sheep, but once she gets stuff, she mellows out. She's like that with everything. We're taking agility lessons, and you'd swear I was bringing Eeyore into the class, but once she figures out what I'm trying to teach her, she's perky and waggy. Same thing here. I miss Fury's spunky can-do attitude, but Rippa definitely gets it done.

I have to admit, though, it still makes me grin to see this snarling little dog taking her flank and going all the way around me. I like quirks. I got quirks.

I am thinking about it all wrong.

Today I went out on the fire roads and cattle paths that make up the Poly Canyon to Stenner Creek mountain bike ride with the dude and the dogs. I always think that our dogs are probably in better shape than most ranch dogs because they simply pull mileage out of the week with their full bore running. Watching both of them zip around the burmed corners of the single track makes me giddy.

I happened to watch Rippa trot a lot today because Y had her on a leash on the road and she wasn’t able to bop around much. Every time I look at her, I get pretty excited. She’s pretty much exactly my ideal dog in structure. Her movement isn’t something that takes your heart away, and to be honest, I don’t pay that much attention normally. But she’s efficient, and she is fast.

And as I was posting more recently about her not being very brave on cattle, today the dogs got a taste of them that I didn’t intend and it helped me think differently about her. The mountain bike trails are all mostly open rangeland and filled with cow-calf pairs. This is the most dangerous time to run around in the fields because mama cow is definitely not going to put up with a dog hassling the kid.

Y was up ahead of me and did an amazing job keeping the dogs focused on running with him instead of poking at the moms and babies that were strewn all over the road. When I finally caught up, we went down over this hill and the dogs found a mess of cattle without babies spread out all over the trail and before we could do much, they took off.

Now, one thing Kathy has taught me is that if you start shouting stuff at a dog, you’re liable to get them hurt, so usually if we don’t have much control on them, I keep my mouth shut and let everyone settle before I call them back.

So Fury takes off and gets around behind the first cow, with Rippa going the opposite way, and believe it or not, they balanced off each other and kept it mellow and simply moved the cow up toward the rest of the heifers. I was imagining some major drama with a green dog and a dog that hasn’t been formally on cattle for three or so years – but they both basically just did a good job of putting them back in the group and letting it go at that.

They then went across the road to the next straggler and did exactly the same thing. And as I’m watching with some pride and amazement, I had to realize that heading – if Rippa never really does it – isn’t really a must-have in the bag of tricks as Terry Martin has told me. We’re out with the range cattle who aren’t dog broke and they don’t take a lot power to get moving. What they need is simply some control and self-restraint on the part of the dog. Just like good trial cows.

So like . . . hey. I got myself a pair of dogs that work nicely together and keep their cool and don’t get into trouble but also have no problem going right to the cattle and getting ‘er done.

So, Rippa, I’d like it if you head a little more (Y says she does when this happens without me there), but meh. I keep forgetting this isn’t for the bragging/photo rights.

Gotta go meet up with my cattle master. I’m excited to finally get that moving. He’s even got cows he’ll let me work.

Lessons on the wrong days and this stuff is actually handy.

So I checked my calendar and found that I had a lesson this week on a Saturday. That is pretty stupid, I thought. Why would I ask for a Saturday? I specifically like the Thursday and Friday lessons because it’s low key, and a little less “make a day of it.” And, well, because I can. A lot of the stock dog folks bring trailers and this is their vacation, but I’m very single-minded about stockdogging. It’s the means to an end.

It turns out I was looking at an email from 2010. Oooops. And Kathy had been counting on my virile post-surgery strength to help with lamb chores (like castration), which, so long as you don’t do it every day, is actually pretty fun. You feel legit. You feel accomplished.

At first, I really would relish spending all day at the ranch, whether it was blazing hot or freezing cold, sitting as close to the action as I could, soaking it all in. But lately I find myself up on the hill, overlooking everything, simply waiting my turn. I think it’s because I’ve been around enough that everything isn’t totally new and that I’m not learning as much by observing at this point. Most people are working on driving and I’m just about there, but not quite.

Kathy started us back in the duck pen, where we stayed for both works. I thought this was an important lesson. Though Rippa can probably very successfully trial with me in started on sheep right now, it’s best to keep those good habits. Go back a few steps if you’ve had time off. Make sure you have the fundamentals down.

And we do. But the duck pen slows Rippa down and lets me handle my sheep better. Really read them.

But one thing that has been bugging me and REALLY bugged me this last time was that Rippa WILL NOT DOWN on sheep. She will down off sheep. She will. She does it for cookies, in the middle of running after Fury (who is fetching a ball), I can even make her do it when she’s after deer. She’s called off a bear before. She’s great. Just not on sheep.

So there I am, I have Rippa looking cute on sheep and I go, “Rippa, down.”

And what does she do, but dive in for a nip. Seriously? Seriously?

So then Kathy suggests I not use her name. Okay. The first go round, I use her name, catch myself, but don’t say “down.” Set it back up again (by this, I mean I watch her little yellow eyes to see if she is relaxed enough to take my down and not ignore it – this might mean a few laps around the duck pen to settle her), and “Down.”

And I swear to God, Rippa looks at me, gives me snarly-face (which, btw, is her half-smile thing she does that I encourage – it’s not actually being aggressive) and gives me the finger, diving into the sheep. Ooooh, she got a correction that time. People who think you can only train a dog using positive reinforcement have never tried working stock. Rippa so clearly gave me the, “No way, I’m gonna make this fun” face, and no amount of liver is going to stop that.

So the next time we’re doing this, you bet your life she lies down. I think it’s mostly due to me. I think my tone is a little tougher than it should be and that Rips has gotten away with it. It’s frustrating. I can’t start driving unless she downs. We tried teaching stand-stays but that wasn’t happening. Just need miles.

Which means I need to get the guts up to call my CattleMaster contact. After this blog entry. I promise. I told Kathy I hadn’t called him yet and she was like, “I understand. Just go and see what he does, without the dogs. It can be scary to get on something with a green dog.” Yeah, it is. I am respectful of people’s stock. Of the stock themselves. I don’t really want this to be a disaster, and I also think I am funny to be calling up a rancher and ask to work on his goats. But, she adds, “You know, keep it under control, or else Rippa is going to go! AIIEEE!! EAT ALL THE SHEEP!” Or something like that. Her wild gesticulation was about perfect. Not that Rippy is an alligator, but she has bite and if not handled right, yeah.

Anyway, so I would be more frustrated than I am if not for watching lessons all day. Lots of people with more experience than me being frustrated with their dogs and Kathy repeating this mantra about how you just have to chip away at bad habits over time. If they get like that, and their dogs are like that, I’m in good company.

So I get home after a solid day at the ranch and Yishai tells me he taught Fury a trick.

Apparently, our backyard chickens were out perusing the yard and one got under the house through a loose vent. We recently had to undertake a serious rat extermination project, and under the house was nasty. Y was not going under there. So, thinking it through, he decides that Fury has had her time on poultry, maybe he can send her in after the chicken.

So, I can only imagine him pushing Fury through this dark hole under the house and saying “Get around” while she’s fighting him, confused and probably freaked. He said it took him getting a flashlight and showing her the chicken to get her to willingly do it.

So Fury goes under the house, and moments later, while Y is standing there, a chicken pops out and flies into his arms, followed by a self-satisfied Fury.

And that made him spend the afternoon herding the chickens. These little feather-foot cochins are pretty gregarious so they just need to feel comfortable with the mover to, well, move.  So now Fury has the daily chore of going in, and herding the chickens out. She also now knows how to pop them into the air and into our arms so no more chicken-chasing. They don’t mind us, but they’re not exactly looking for love.

Pretty fun. I’m proud of the Fury for being useful. All that training wasn’t for naught. Funny, she’s got her started cattle title, and a leg of a sheep title, but nothing on poultry. Maybe she’s still got a future.

Day 4 – Oh, Chute

Well, the morning started out with rain. And lightning. And thunder. Which, you know, doesn’t happen too often here on the coast of California.  It’s 5:30 am and it’s definitely coming down out there. I’m worried about my little Cochin chickens – they have a dogloo to live in but we haven’t covered the whole enclosure yet and they have feathery feet, which, when they get wet, makes the little guys cold. I’m on the Internet looking at radar and thinking about how I’m slated to go walk around in the very hills where the lightning strikes and how I’m just not feeling all that awesome and maybe I should just go back to bed. I send Kathy and email and tell her I’ll wait until the lightning/rain stops. She emails back and tells me it never started where the ranch is at. Well, okay. Drink a protein shake and get in the car.

The last few days haven’t been very good ones for me in general. This camp fell during some bad mojo with my personal life and I’m not getting too much sleep and not too happy. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get over it.

But I get there, find Marilee and Carol out with their dogs in the back and join them. When it’s my turn (I’m not that late), we see a repeat performance of the last time. I’m really flipping excited about how easy miss Rippa is being, especially when Carol’s dog gets excited and loses control of her sheep and Marilee’s dog has to get them. Par for the course, but so far I am excited that this hasn’t happened to me. I’ve watched it happen over and over and it feels nice to not worry about that – yet. I’m sure when we’re learning to drive and not just fetching things will change.

So we all regroup and we’re sitting there and the first thing Kathy says is, “You need to fix your blog.” Okay, so maybe you don’t get this from me, maybe you do, but I have this stupid complex about being called out. Even if it’s not bad, I get all horribly guilty, feel awful, and want to go hide in a hole. The dumb thing is, even if I’m not doing anything wrong and I know it, I still feel that way. And the dumbest thing about that? I’m also totally the person that puts it all out there because I believe in being a voice when others are silent. I give people a reason to find faults because I put the whole story out there. Peeople like me should shut up and just keep their head down, but I can’t. You can see that I am a headcase. Oh well, you’re reading this so you like it. Anyway, being called out totally made me get all teary thanks to being already a bit of a head case the last couple days anyway. Stupid. I hope when I’m sixty I finally stop caring so much.

Basically, here’s what she wanted me to fix, and I did but I want you following along to know it too:

• The person that commented that her famous Fred started out weak on heads is dead wrong. In fact, when she was making the choice between him and another, he saw him go head-on (as a puppy) after a sheep (I think a ram) and that was that. Anyone who’s ever started puppies and seen that kind of confidence knows what I mean. Most are a little wary of big guys stepping up against them. And that I should never listen to hearsay.
• That Kathy never said I ruined Fury – I am the one that says I ruined her. She says that I started her wrong. I guess in my mind, it’s the same thing. Though, you know, that’s not true, either. Kathy’s always been patient with me about trying to get Fury to come back from all the bad habits I gave her. And she definitely has no problem telling someone that she has a lost cause on her hands. Me retiring Fury was my decision. I may start her up again when the goat thing works itself out as the miles she needs are free and she’s slowing down in her old age. Maybe not. But there is a lot of cool stuff about Fury that we got her to do, too.
• And finally, that I forgot the most important comment Kathy made about Rippa on cattle, that “She’s coming, she’s coming!” As in she is coming along and will step up. I just need some patience.

So there you have it.  And, as usual, I have some thoughts that spring from this.

1. Starting your dog right is really, really key. I cannot tell you how many illuminations I’ve had about this clinic about that. It’s almost been a year since I started Rips with Kathy and I only go maybe four times a month, if that, and she improves by leaps and bounds every time. As Kathy always says, if you don’t give them bad habits, it’s not about fixing things, it’s about progression. Poor Fury was mostly about fixing. There are some really talented dogs at the clinic, but they don’t have the benefit of Kathy’s supervision for every single sheep outing stopping them from making handling mistakes and fixing issues before they come up. All I can say is that if you think you can do this on your own, or from reading this, you definitely are barking up the wrong tree.
2. Pick your mentors carefully. I am very, very lucky to have learning relationships with a lot of the breed’s greats because I was a precocious kid who loved email.

I am not particularly tight with anyone in Aussiedom for a number of reasons (one of the biggest being that I am simply not around enough for real relationship building), but Kathy has been an amazing mentor for me. Her chastising me for posting hearsay always reminds me that she sets a good example about keeping her mouth shut with things unless she really knows, and then she really only tells you if you need to know or could use the info. In Aussieland, there’s a lot of talking about other people, but for the most part, I’d say Kathy does a brilliant job of keeping it classy and reminding me that it’s the source you should go to. You never know the whole story.

This also was reinforced when this guy showed up randomly to drop some ducks off and sat with me a while watching people’s runs. He was telling me he was dissatisfied with his show-bred Aussie that didn’t have a lick of interest in stock and was interested in getting a real stockdog puppy to train in the spring, and asked what advice I had about finding the right one. So I told him about what I’d learned from mentors that the public doesn’t always say, that he should really think about what qualities he wants in a dog and what he wants to do with it, and really do the research. I told him about how I did it and his eyes bugged out. I laughed and told him I might be a little hardcore about research, and Aussies in general. If not for the right mentors, I would be such a mess right now.

So, I know I told you I’d lay off the video camera, but Kathy wanted to do chute work with everyone and I was like, “Ooooh, good learning moment for everyone.” I’m not going to say a ton about it right now, but I did annotate the video for your learning pleasure.

What you need to know about chute-sheep-dog management is that it’s all about setting the dog and sheep up for success – telling them where to be, getting out of the way, and holding up your end of things. It helps when your dog actually lays down when you tell her to. This session ended with Kathy telling me that I really need to put some kind of stand-stay on Rips because she is fighting the down. What’s annoying about this is that she downs quite nice off stop. So let the obedience training begin.

In other news, a lot of people were working on their driving skills with their dogs.  Driving (that is, not fetching, instead of bringing the sheep to you, the dog drives them away) is a whole other game. People have just as hard a time learning how to drive as their dogs do. I think I finally understand the training philosophy, but understanding and doing are two different animals.

Kathy’s method doesn’t use props (like ropes) or the fence as a crutch. You start learning the drive out in the wide open, which I think is pretty cool. It makes for a well-rounded, thinking dog.

And what’s it going to take for me to start learning to drive? I think the following elements need to be all in a row:

• A solid stop (ie, down, which I don’t have yet)
• Self control (check)
• Balance on the stock (check)
• “Steady” (ie, a command that slows the dog down when they lose self control, do not have)
• “There” (a command that tells your dog to turn into the stock and go straight, not wear back and forth – I think Rippa knows what this means, but not totally)
• Flank commands (“way to” and “go by” – working on it, but not there yet)

But that’s not all! Rippa is currently training on heavy sheep (ie, not too scared of her or me) and we need to get her on lighter sheep to work on that control. Why? I asked Kathy. One very good reason is that her method involves taking the person totally out of the picture. When you back away from heavy sheep, they will try to follow you and bend in your direction when pressured by the dog. With light sheep, they’re happy moving into open space because they don’t know the person is “shelter” from the dog.

So, we have some things to get “down” before we move on.