Shut up and Rippa is not a border collie

At the end of my session yesterday, Dustin asked me what I’d learned, and I told him, “Shut up and Rippa is not a border collie.” Hence the title. (I think I told him that.)

Last week we took a break because she’s been acting kind of weird and wanting to quit, which I attribute to coming into heat. She is out of it now that I can tell but still a little sucky-uppy so when I went to sheep and ducks this week, I kept our sessions short. Watching her work the ducks, it occurred to me that her outruns aren’t actually bad anymore. She goes at it with appropriate speed – but still a lot straighter than a pretty arc to lift them. But it still works. Whatever she’s doing doesn’t affect the stock until she gets closer and she’s still controlling bringing them to me as if she were making pretty arcs.

Working sheep, I tried it again – we were fetching across the entire field (it’s got to be a two-acre field) and she would start out with her shoulder wide, but then turn in and go straight. But instead of making the sheep move off, they still sat there until she got close enough to get behind them and fetch them. My thought is this: she’s learned how to read her sheep (these sheep are pretty light, too), and she isn’t wasting energy on pretty arcs if she doesn’t need to. I think I’ve done a decent job showing her what I want with flanks and she’s taking over the job now.

It does NOT look like what Shannon and Dustin’s dogs do in a number of ways:

1 – it’s not that fast. She goes in at a walk or trot to do it, so that’s probably why she doesn’t need to arc.

2 – She’s not “snappy” or “precise” like how their dogs and Fury works. She responds, but she does it in time and she’s loose eyed enough that you don’t even know if she’s really trying to do anything or not, but it happens.  She’s less interested in responding to me than to just getting the job done (and I will tell you, I make a lot of bad calls on commands and I talk a lot).

3 – the super big arc out of contact with the stock isn’t there, but, like I said, that might be directly related to #1.

Basically, what it looks like to me is that as Rippa gets more experience with the stock and she feels less adrenaline about the job, she’s slowing down and thinking and she’s understanding what she’s supposed to do and doing it.

We tried, on sheep, to get a batch of them out of the field and into the round pen so I could work on Fury’s issues, but it wasn’t happening. The sheep were just too boogered. They seem a lot more flighty than they used to be, maybe because there are more and even when I sort out my faithful ones, they’re a little sour to things or feeding off the herd mentality which is lighter. It was a new chore for Rippa so she didn’t really ‘get it’ and I feel like it’ll take time for her to take over that job confidently. Nice thing, though, is I know how sheep work enough to know that taking on that task when Stephanie wasn’t around would be fine. They weren’t going to get lost if we failed. Sheep magnetize to what they know like all herd animals, so if they ran away, I was sure to find them by a pen somewhere and they were happy to run home when I gave up.

I pulled out Booger Ram (I’m sure Steph has a name for him) to work with the heavy sheep and while I was working Fury he was getting impatient with her tendency to dive bomb and started fighting rather than moving. Fury was worried less about him than the light sheep trying to escape so she never had to fight him (I don’t really want her too, since she’s 11 1/2 and I would like to keep her injury free and her remaining teeth in her head), but that meant Rippa got another work.

Booger Ram tried it on Rippa again and she was awesome. Calm walk up again, waiting for me to tell her what to do while he stamped at her, and when I said, “Hit him!” she was like, “you betcha!” Great direct hits on the poll, commitment, and then backing off like he needed to get the point. Here’s a photo after her work, knowing she’s a stud now.

I think working ducks really helped with that stuff. Both Fury and Rippa are more apt to back up on stock (ducks or sheep or cows) than they were because the ducks don’t just run faster if you put more pressure on them: they stop. There were times that the sheep would stop because they’d had enough of running, and both dogs backed up until the sheep moved again. Useful stuff, that!

Yesterday, Dustin started me out on  a new flock of goats and I told him I think I yell at Rippa too much because she’s doing the job even if it’s not how I want it to look and he agreed, so I tried really hard not to do anything but handle with body language. We had to put a line on her because the goats didn’t want to flock and they were REALLY exciting, which then brought down her excitement and by the end she was working slow and methodical and teaching them to fetch to me. It was awesome.

We went up to cows in the obstacle pen and she went and got them off the hill for me without any trouble, but I put the line back on her and she kind of lost her interest in it. I don’t know if it’s from last session when Dustin popped her on a line and she screamed and is now not so sure about whether or not she trusts him or what but she wasn’t really super awesome. Holes. It’s cool. She’ll come back. Good stuff everywhere else.

So, shut up, and your dog’s not a border collie. I finally get what that last bit means and why you have to be careful about border collie trainers. They probably also want your dog to work like a border collie. Dustin and Shannon are awesome about letting my dog be my dog and working her for what she is, not what they want, etc. I think it’s really building an all around stockdog.

And all of these different experiences on stock and the kinds of advances we’re making is really showing me how little you can tell about a dog if all it does is train for trialing. A real useful ranch hand or chore dog needs experience to get it down and not every dog has all the heart and go juice to back up the experience.  It’s one thing to take stock around an arena in under 15 minutes, and it’s another thing to work all day on stock that doesn’t know what the program is.

Super grateful to how things are working out. I’d say Kathy retiring has actually been one of the best things to happen to me in my stockdog career (after getting my foundation learning from Kathy) because I was so dependent on the experiences she was providing (and so dependent on doing what she said rather than feeling it and learning it myself) that I wouldn’t have had all of the ones I’m having now.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to trial this fall because my schedule is insane, but I don’t really care. I’m putting in the time to learn all this and it’ll pay off with really knowing my dog and knowing what to look for in a stud if I decide to breed her because I’ve got the whole picture of what she is and whether she’s what I want to see for my goals.

Anywho, it’s cool.

Mileage is definitely key–and coming into heat is a problem

Last week, Rippa was super flirty with the Woods’ dogs and sure enough, she’s coming into heat. Not standing or anything, just flirty . . . I hadn’t thought much about it until Dustin asked me last night about how I felt I was doing and what my goals were.

I told her about the ram incident and how I was pleased with her, but maybe her confidence was bad. The last work I had on ducks and sheep before going there, she was a mess. She stopped wanting to take flank and Way To suddenly meant WAY AWAY OVER THERE. She was doing great on sheep and our driving was going well, but then her mind just seems to drift.

I mentioned she was in heat.

“Well, that could be some of it?” It’s true –I forget. Cranky pets and cramps can affect it all.

So yesterday we did some exercises. Dustin had me work on getting her outrun cleaner and just thinking and slowing down. He also put a big emphasis on me working on my own stockmanship. I did a couple send outs, but then I had to make Rippa stay while I moved the cattle. They aren’t as light to me so it was a lot harder. Then he had me do some obstacle work – get them around trees or hold them. You’ll see me trying here, but Rippa’s not precise enough (or I am not timing it early enough) to get them to settle right where they need to. He says it shows me holes in training, and it did.

Something I’m noticing from watching these videos (there are a lot of them, you’re just getting parts that illustrate a thought) is that Rippa is doing a lot better than I think she is.

I told him that I thought she was lacking confidence. She seems slow and not engaged to me. This, ha ha, is what Rippa thinking and working seriously looks like. I don’t see the Woods dogs working like that (they’re typically fast moving and responding) and Fury doesn’t work like that (I broke her, plus she’s just a lot more intense naturally), so it’s hard to watch Rippa go about things slowly and not in a “snappy” way and think she’s working. But watching it third person like this – uh, yeah, she is. She isn’t even that slow to respond. It just feels like it handling.

So here I am trying to get Rippa to get the cattle in the area between the two feed buckets up by the camera. It’s not super smooth because I’ve got to put some training on her where she doesn’t take things.

There’s parts in this video where I think she’s blowing off a flank, and she’s not. It just doesn’t look wide enough from my perspective. At the very beginning, I lie her down and she takes a step to turn and face the cattle – staying in contact with them – which in hindsight looks like good instinct against my bad instinct. I need to command her earlier so she can do things like that and stay in control if I’m going to obedience the commands out of her.

I haven’t been using obstacles in training much because I’m working on commands and instinct, but he added some goals and it did indeed show me things to work on for both of us.

Today we went to ducks and sheep and Rippa did a perfect started B course with me.  That’s all I asked for today and that’s what we got. Fury did a decent one, but the ducks were hot (I used the whole flock, which is currently down to 7 since one died mysteriously, two wouldn’t work so I sold them, and one is in my backyard with pins in her leg). I had them hang out in the kiddy pool for a bit and started over: golden success.

Went over to Stephanies and did sheep with Rippa – sorting is a real challenge these days, so that was good. Rippa had a hard time keeping them all together for sorting, but we got it done, and then practiced driving again – going really well. I’m not sure what changed but I think both of us are getting it (and off the fence, too).

Fury had to sit out sheep this time because someone else came to rent and I was in the middle of business calls so figured it was a good time to bounce.

Really happy with how things are coming together and really, really glad I video taped the works so I could see where I needed to fix things.

And now: your moment of happy family zen.

The line between instinct and self control: we have found it.

My view on the way to Stephanie’s.

An interesting thing has happened with Rippa that hasn’t happened with Fury. When I started training Fury again on sheep and ducks, Rippa and Fury worked a lot a like in terms of how they were reading and the control that was happening. Granted, I was giving Fury slack for bad handling mistakes of the past and not working in a few years, but I felt like they were kind of in the same spot with training.

Rippa has utterly surpassed Fury in the last few weeks and the contrast is making it really obvious to me. It may be mileage, but I think it’s more to credit our work on cows than anything.

My dogs have a lot of drive and instinct to DO SOMETHING with animals. It has felt, with both of them, that I have a lot of raw energy that I have to keep under control with my handling, but something has definitely shifted with Rippa.

We’d been working roping steers the last few weeks and they have a way different dynamic than the older cows and the calves the Woods now have. There was this one steer that was a bully to the other one and made it really hard to control the whole herd. Rippa quickly ID’d that steer and wanted to work him and sacrifice the group because she was so annoyed with him (I assume – I felt the same way handing him). But with the careful, patient prodding of what to do with that situation from Shannon, I’ve been handling Rippa different and putting more obedience on things. When she goes to pick them up, I drop her just before her adrenaline takes control and she goes too hard to control them. I call her off the steer, etc.

It, in turn, has given her space to make decisions and think, finally. Our last session on cattle was really nice because she was doing that. A lot of the reason we’re not killing it at this point is that I’m still bad at handling and reading the situation, but Shannon had a nice thought on that: “You’re worried about what your dog is going to do. Keep worrying about her until you don’t have to, then you can worry about what you’re doing.”

But this all really came together on Stephanie’s sheep last time.

She has a LOT more sheep than when we started now because lambing season’s over (though there are some late lambs in the mix) and everyone’s all together again instead of separated out. That means I have a bigger herd to sort from and it’s a little harder because if I try to sort out of the pen she keeps them in, the light ones stay to the front and the heavy ones to the back, so I have to let them all out and then go over to this small, weird shaped pen with a point at the back and sort them into there because the leader sheep go first.

But, never overfill your pen, ESPECIALLY if it has a point at the back that they can get stuffed in.

It’s happened before and it happened again, I had one of the rams in there and when Rippa went to move them out of the pen, he wasn’t having it. Backed up and faced her, stamping, ready to charge. That kind of thing in a little pen isn’t good so I tried a couple things to fix the situation (like sending her on the outside of the pen, but he just rammed the fence), so I ended up putting her on a down and dragging him out by his horns. He was still being a jerk and backed himself into a corner and wouldn’t move. I tried backing Rippa’s pressure up with my stick but he wasn’t having it.

Rippa’s frustrated, but patiently waiting for me to do something. She doesn’t want to walk up on him because he’s going to charge her so she wants help. She literally says, “I don’t want to start a fight with him, but I don’t know what to do.” This, the dog that was bite first, ask questions later six months ago.

So, I told her she could hit him. She did a lot of yelling and feinting to try to make her point, but finally decided he needed some hits, so she would hit, reasses, hit again, reassess. This happened a few times, great shots to the poll until he still wouldn’t move and she hit him in the ear. That worked. For a bit. 

We had to have a couple gos with him, and I got some sheep out to get him moving nicely again (she had to heel the sheep to get them to move out of that little point, which was a bummer – not what I want her take pen experience to be like)– putting him away quickly, but the key was that even with Rippa hitting him, she didn’t let her instinct and stress get the best of her. It was hit, reassess, warn, hit, reassess.  She didn’t get him fixed with the hits, but I really don’t know what she was going to do because he would rather get bit by her than just run and give to the pressure.

Moreover, that would have had her all emotionally charged for her work the rest of the time, but she settled into the basic working jobs just fine . . . penning, working on calling off the top, driving.

I’m still sucking at the driving thing still – I can do fine with it along fencelines, but neither I nor Rippa feel like she’s got control on the drive away from them. It’s fine. I’ve been working on getting better responsiveness before we move on to that seriously.

And talk about giving to pressure – we have a cat who hates the dogs. Fury cannot help herself but to growl on back and charge the cat, but Rippa? She just turns her head away and gives the cat her space.

It’s very cool. I feel like we’ve hit a milestone in maturity with her. I had been wondering if it would ever be a natural, easy fetch and plain work without a lot of me having to watch her – the answer is yes, it is.

Good dog.

It is starting to come together!

Remember how I said I needed to work on outruns and take pens? Hmm.

So, following yesterday’s cattle runs, I took Rippa and Fury out to Stephanie’s for sheep this morning. I was SO tired. It was a late night accidentally and I could barely keep my eyes open. Perhaps that has to do with it.

When I got Rippa going, on new sheep, nonetheless (not our usual heavy ones – we usually have a rough go of it when I take CA along – which I did today - because my heavy sheep are occupied), things were pretty much close to perfect.

I decided to work on her outruns, but found that she was naturally turning her shoulder out and going out wide without me asking. If she turned in too much, I just had to lay her down and ask again and she’d go further out. If she was going too fast, I just had to ask her to be “easy” and she’s slow to a trot. There was not a single out of control moment. I was doing outruns from 50 meters away and I never do that.

When we did fetching, she balanced up super good and if she got too close, it just took a “no” for her to get out. The sheep actually lined out instead of bunching up because she was chilling out enough to let them naturally cruise along.

I credit this monumental leap in training to Shannon and Dustin (though mostly Shannon lately). They’ve been having me put a little more obedience on her – and ask for more than I usually would – when I work with them. The day before, Rippa was worried about going to a cow on the fence and buzzing, so we had to lay her down before she got close enough to really get in a mess and since the stakes were higher with the cattle, she was down with that. I think that she found that taking my commands kept her safe and helped her be calm and she carried that forward with the sheep today.

The balancing up on the fetch I also totally credit to a method she taught me where you lay the dog down and walk ahead of the sheep, letting them drift and not letting the dog get up until they need to get up because the sheep aren’t feeling the pressure. No commands, you just lay the dog back down if they get up too soon. Otherwise, the dog is allowed to get up and work, and as they start moving faster you slow them down with either a down or an “steady” and if they take it, work continues.

I’m trying it with Fury, who has had a very hard time balancing the sheep because of bad experiences. She works ducks and cattle fine (no, my 11 year old dog isn’t on cattle anymore), but sheep is issues because of my bad handling in the past. Once she gets that relaxation thing and the game, it should go well, too. Pretty neat.

The other thing we “worked” on was take pens. I don’t have a really good take pen setup at any place. The ducks have a full trial setup now, but it’s hard to practice take pen skills on ducks because the are different from other stock and the take pen is so small. That said, we have inadvertantly been doing that because the ducks like to mash in the corner where the door to their enclosure is, so both dogs have learned to be patient and how to get them out of that corner.

Rippa’s been doing pen work via sorting her sheep out at Stephanie’s but it’s a smaller, weirder setup than what you’ll find at a trial. I figured it was good enough to try it today, so I did.

The first go, the sheep got packed into the back of the pen (it’s not square, more like wide on one side and narrow on the other) and Rippa couldn’t get enough space to get around them. Instead of telling her what to do, I let her sort it out. The sheep would stamp at her, and after trying a couple things, she went outside the pen, got into a bow and gave them ugly face and a little bark and they made space. When I got her back in the pen, they came out and she was nose-to-sheep leg, calmly waiting for them to file out. We did it three times before I was satisfied we had that dialed and. . . that was that.

Sometimes I feel like I’ll never get there – so much power and drive and so little perfection on my part and then my dog goes and shows me she’s getting it. It’s one day and she will likely get worse before she gets consistent, but it’s in there. We got this.

Psyched!

Going to work ducks tomorrow and sell my obnoxious call duck and one runner that just refuses to work. Next week we are off – the huz and I are going to do some epic canyoneering and climbing in Yosemite. Give the dogs plenty of time to think about this awesome week.

Tougher Cows; Better Handling

I need to write this one as soon as I can so I don’t forget. I feel like today’s lesson was invaluable. And it has a lot to do with my ego.

Shannon warned me that this new batch of cows, they’ve traded out since the others were getting too soft, were difficult and they were used to getting gang-worked old-school (aka, a lot of dogs on cows, not a lot of control) so dogs really have to have some power to get the work done. Then she pulls out her little Zeda and they look pretty good to me.

My turn.

Rippa’s still green so lacking confidence on outruns, so what’s she do? New cows? Outrun and FLY BY. OUTRUN AND FLY BY. My handling falls apart because unlike their other cows, my presence means a lot and I’m trying to stay out of Rippa’s way. She’s working up close and picking fights with this one cow – and that one cow, when not occupied with Rippa is pushing on another cow – literally picking its hind up with its horns and basically bullying it. I have no idea what that’s about.

We take a break. I watch her work Ruby – who works a lot wider and gets a lot more done.

I get it.

These are the kind of cows that people talk about that need a dog to back up their bark because they’ll run right over a dog. But they work pretty good if the dog stays off them. They work off people, too.

We have a conversation about what I saw – and Shannon teaches me something about cows I didn’t know. Dominant cows really make a difference during your work. This one Holstein is top-banana and it is hating on this other black cow. Anytime they get close, the Holstein pushes it out, aggressively if need be. That’s what was going on there. She says that in a herd, the dominant cattle will push the weaker ones out to the flanks, like, “YOU, YOU get eaten. Not me.” It’s a dynamic I’ve not really seen before (or didn’t know to see), and it makes a difference.

My next work is a lot better because now I’m seeing what’s happening – this Holstein keeps breaking up the group because the black cow gets close to him. Rippa pushes the black cow in, Holstein pushes it out. It’s work. You’re not totally working a herd, you’re working individual cows and dealing with their problems. Why? Because one little dog isn’t enough to worry about if you’re used to a bunch of them.

I watch Shannon work Trent, and he is such a nice dog. Now knowing what I know about the dynamics, I’m seeing how he handles them. Trent has POWER. He also has BITE. He will grab on and hang on as long as it takes. But he’s also really reading his cows – staying off when he needs to, watching the head, watching it go in, letting it go, moving on. At first I’m thinking “Well, yeah, he works wide and they like that,” but after she stops putting commands on him, he moves in close. And he takes his positioning immediately. This is what having a total dog is about. This is what I want, ultimately. She tells me it took a lot of work to get him to work wide. I feel better  - because it’s taking a lot of work to get it on Rippa. She’s taking it . . . but started dog taking it, not perfect yet.

She send me in alone with the cows and starts directing me. Just me, no dog.

This is invaluable. She has me do the “hook the eye” think that Curt Pate was talking about where you go toward the side that you want them to turn and they look back at you and that turns them that way, rather than pushing them away.  She has me find the balance point.

Here’s the thing: it’s not really where I think it’s going to be. All the little diagrams about how you go to the rear and it pushes, go to the shoulder and it pushes out, and go to the eye, it stops? No. It’s different on every cow, but you can stop a cow back behind the shoulder because they’ll turn to look at you. You have to watch those stock and really pay attention. If you can’t get out wide enough to push, hook that eye and they’ll turn toward you and keep going and they’ll turn. Not in big, outward circles like I think of with dog training, there’s an “in run” too – where the dog or whatever can go to a spot, hook they eye, and then run back they way they came and that will turn just as much as a dog running all the way around to push the head way.

This. Is. Huge. At least to me.

We get Rippa back on, and I learn another big lesson. I’ve been watching Shannon work her dogs and all of them have bite. Good bite. Rippa, on the other hand, is a real preservationist. She tells them she’s going to do something, but she’s a little worried it’s going to hurt if she backs it up. I don’t like this. I don’t like this so much that I forget about the subtle handling tricks I just practiced and latch on to the “sic ‘em” mentality and just want Rippa to grab a hold and back up her warnings. Don’t get me wrong, Rippa does from time to time, but not EVERY TIME.

I’m in the midst of the eight billionth “sic ‘em” fight we’re having with that dominant steer when Rippa pops in and then gets out of it and the steer, sensing the pressure is off, pops right back the way we want them to go. And here I am with my ego worrying my dog doesn’t have enough power. Rippa has enough power, but she doesn’t have enough cow sense yet to stay out wide enough to not create problems. And *I* don’t have enough cow sense yet to show her to do it. So when she comes in tight and the cow puts its head down for the attack, it can’t run, so it wants to run her over. If she would just say, “Hey, I am here” and then get out of the pressure zone, the cow would turn. And I’m not letting her because I’m riling her up because I want my dog to hit the head.

Stupid. Super stupid. Better to have a confident dog that takes pressure off and waits than one that goes all fool hardy into a fight. And I’m creating it. Shannon’s been trying to get me to stop her from doing it (and me) by having her stop once she’s turned her problem cow so she can learn to relax and take pressure off, but my ego got in the way of this lesson.

So, yeah, I needed to get it down before it fades. You need bite sometimes, but you need prudence other times. The solution is NOT always to go harder in, sometimes it’s to go further out. Hook their attention, then do something unorthodox.

Heads down? They’re just looking at you. They really don’t need to fight. Out! Out! They see you!

Anyway, not a bad work, Rippa gave it a good go – she took her commands pretty well for being on cattle (which is really, really adrenaline pumping) and she let angry Rippa go after cows challenged her. She also had no issues walking up calmly on heads. I’ll take it.

But I’m parking my ego about what she should do at the door from now on and just trying to learn to read the stock. Help your dog get it done. Don’t worry about anything else.

Starting to Think I’m Getting Close to Ready!

Shannon and Dustin Wood with their mentor, Merle Newton of Crystal Rose Cowdog College. I wish I could have gotten Sandy in the shot, too, but she seemed to hang back the entire time and never give me photogenics.

So where did this photo come from? This week I took hump day off and audited a Curt Pate cattle handling clinic at their suggestion (notes in the link).

One of my first thoughts was, “Crap, man, I don’t even know how to ride horses that nice. I’m going to mess them up.” Mainly because Dustin says they’ll put me on his horse come this fall when I go trial with them and I’m used to lesson horses. It’s going to be a WHOLE OTHER ball of wax compared to ASCA trials where the goal is for you to just sit at one end of the arena and command the dog. I mean, yipe!

They both assure me it’s way easy once I get the hang of it and they’ll get me practiced up when the time comes. I don’t know if they assume I’m an ace-rider or not, but I hope they assume not and it’s that easy. I’ve just started riding again after 15 years off . . . and I was doing hunter-jumper stuff primarily then, definitely not cattle work. (Though I did totally go to a camp when I was a kid to do just that.)

I’m way into the whole cattle horse thing now, too. That’s a whole other ball of wax compared to trail riding or doing some jumps. It looks like Western-style dressage, and with an end purpose to it.

Anyway . . . lots of thoughts rolling around in my head.

I got a chance to rent sheep this week and work ducks, and go to cattle with the Woods.

Sheep – sheep went really well. I tried this technique Shannon had me practice last time where I lay down Rippa and walk out ahead of the sheep and she needs to stay put while they drift with me. When they stop, she’s allowed to get up. It took  a few minutes to establish the rules, but it really got her minding the sheep and me well, compared to the constant “out out out” pushing I had to do. We were doing it all over Stephanie’s field, fencelines and not, and she didn’t break once. She’s getting more and more self assured – but still takes a bit to get the confidence to work out further from me. That’s okay. Baby steps. We’re still only just starting out.

Ducks went super nice, too. Now that Rippa gets the point, it’s almost automatic from the pulling them out of their housing to the take pen, then putting them out to the take pen, and put thing them through the obstacles. I only just introduced the chute and Rippa was like, “OMG, this is a take pen. I go to the top and hold them, right?” We’re working on that. I also don’t really have much experience with obstacles because Kathy likes to lay down the foundation without that stuff. So, I’m working out the best way to navigate them and where to put Rippa for clean runs.

Cattle went really well. We warmed up on goats and sheep and she was super good. She’s still a lot more power than I want for them – it’s so hard for her to just dial it back a bit, but I’d rather have power than not. I can control it, but it’s never just a casual stroll to start out.  Shannon put us out back with the obstacles this time and said I should fetch the cattle to the arena and then pick an obstacle. Which, I did. We put them in the take pen. Some of it was ugly, some of it was great, but the ugly stuff wasn’t Rippa’s work, it was just that she’s not precise on the commands and neither am I.

So that’s my job from here on out – stop working on being relaxed now and start demanding excellence from Rippa. I feel like my cattle handling’s weak still, but Shannon agrees that I should work on Rippa first ,because once I can relax that she’ll take all my commands when I give them, then I can work on me. She’s not bad. She just takes too many steps and tends to want to test me. Shannon stopped me and told me I needed to give stronger corrections, and when we went to start the next round, things changed even before I did. Rippa must have sensed I meant business, and it was NICE. She was thinking and she was obeying.

So, precision. I still don’t love her outruns yet. Just gotta do it a million times. Outruns can set the tone for the whole thing so I need to get it down. It’s really the weakest part of the link, and I think its because Fury was SO easy to teach in comparison that I didn’t have to work as hard as I do with Rips.

We also need to figure out how to do formal take pens. Rippa is good at chore take pens, but she doesn’t know how to do a little trial one –  the last thing I want is a “thank you” at the start. Nobody has a formal setup to practice that so I may have to travel when I get close to trial time and practice it somewhere else. That’s good for me, too.

All in all, I’m pretty psyched. It’s coming together and my confidence in myself and my dog is beginning to climb. I just might be ready for this trial stuff soon.

Curt Pate Part 2: The notes

You can read part 1 here.

Dustin Wood uses his horse’s butt as a wing (as mentioned below).

Mr. Pate’s cattle clinic was one of the best clinics I’ve been to for a number of reasons:

1. It was ridiculously cheap.
2. I understood the stock more clearly than I ever have. We always focus on our dogs and the stock aren’t really as much of the equation. They should be. This clinic helped me get there.
3. The first hour or so, I basically felt like I had a lot of work to do (especially if I want to trial on horseback . . . those horses take a LOT of work).
4. Some things that I’ve been feeling out but not told got solidified. I think I’m definitely at the beginning stages of mastering this stuff in that I can see things, and I can also see things I don’t know.

Curt started his clinic with everybody on horseback as he lectured about what he did, and then he took to doing warmups with the horses. I thought this was great. I’m sure everyone was wanting to get to the good stuff (moving cattle), but reality is a good check. Is YOUR team fired up?

General Thoughts

Think of this as smooth stockmanship – that’s how he thinks of low-stress stockmanship. No hurky jerky. Things just flow. Look for it. Stay ahead of the action – if you have problems, you’ve acted too late. Look way ahead, not right in the thick of the business at the moment.

Curt didn’t have a lot of money back when he started, so he made a deal with himself: he could attend one clinic and never go back. It was his job to get the most out of it he could. I  LOVE this. Most clinics, people just kind of treat them like a lot of lessons back to back. Kathy Warren had remarked last clinic that I was good for keeping my journal and she wished people were writing more things down (that’s partly why I do this public blog, so it’s down for everyone). If you paid attention and asked the right questions, why do you need to go back? You learned it. Apply it.

When in doubt – keep things simple and easy. Your equipment doesn’t matter (and don’t use equipment until you manage the basics (this means sticks, spurs, etc). Your handling of the animals matters.

He has a rule about the horseback clinic: your horse can’t get into a lope (or gallop). If you need to – you’re too late.  Keep everything under control. I loved this because Kathy is always reminding me that I need to not run – if I’m running, I’m wrong. I’m athletic enough to run, but keep it under control. Running – it’s out of control.

Good stockmanship means you’re 100% self aware at all times.

When you put a command on and the pressure on, release for the START of the movement, not for the movement itself. Remember that bad stuff happens because you’re late. (Great advice for dog handling, too.)

** Movement creates movement** This is the cardinal rule of livestock. Always keep moving – they see movement better than contrasts. Keep their mind on you  and they won’t have time to see other things.  This is what goes on when a dog runs to other stock in another pen – their mind isn’t on the stock you’re working for one reason or another. Keep their mind.

Horseback Thoughts

1. Smooth horses – work to have a horse that transitions with its gait smoothly, that can get to business and then calm. That can just stand there calmly. He says he doesn’t like “cowy” horses because they’re hyped on adrenaline. Better if they’re just doing what you ask without adding more energy. (I have always felt about this with Fury in agility – seems like the same applies to stockdogs – you get in trouble when the dog gets amped. Look for dogs that can return to calm when the challenge isn’t needed.)

2. Do a little exercise where you have the horse move ONE foot forward and one foot back. Those tiny steps are important. (Same as with advanced stockdog work.) You want a responsive horse (and dog).

3. It’s the human presence that matters on the horse (or the dog presence). They look for predatory movement – a drone can’t work a herd of cattle.

4. The cattle will feel pressure of the horse like a dog does – a cowy horse will put more pressure on them because it’s watching them.

5. When you get into an arena, everyone rides clockwise – don’t do it – be ambidextrous with everything. Ride with both hands in both directions.

6. Your horse should have 3 slow gaits: a lively walk where the horse has its ears up and is watching something, a slow walk that’s straight (this part is hard), and a straight back up. (Sounds good for dogs, too, but that straight backup is something else . . . ) Don’t ride horses next to rails because they crutch on it for going straight – pick something in the distance and have them go straight to it.

Turning a cow? Back up out of the flight zone and turn into it – work those angles. Don’t go straight to a cow, think about what it sees.

Horses (and dogs) should give to you

- Get them with a soft feel. You can pull on a horse and give to pressure? He doesn’t want that. What he wants is reins short and just the small fingers of your hand tighten – that’s the soft feel. Set neck is just pretty, not function.

- If the horse is rolling its bit while you work on drills, that’s good – it means he’s thinking. You want a thinking horse. But pay attention to how amped it gets, a horse amped will amp cattle – that’s not smooth handling. (Same with dogs.)

- Pay attention to your horse – they have a really hard time with more than one thing. Don’t pull the reigns and kick with the legs – one or the other. You should be able to rock your horse’s weight gently by just using one or the other. Just the saddlehorn will move.

Don’t just worry about your horse – worry about you: are you approaching straight on, from the side, looking at your stock or not. This all matters. (Or wearing a skirt. Never again.)

Your horse should be able to go forward and turn into the flight zone as well as go back and turn out of it. Same with dogs, I’d say.

You should never have to turn more than 180 degrees on a horse. Spinning is silly. Get good at 1/4 turns that stay in place, both backward and forward.

- Draw a line and take a 1/4 turn in a circle.

- The horse should turn straight rather than bend

Smooth stockmanship is precise: you can put your partner exactly where they need to be.

Cattle Handling

When you do a take pen, you can do as little as you need to – you don’t have to go to the back of the pen. (He goes halfway in and stands there – it creates leader cow flow and the rest follow calmly.)

Driving: the farther behind the cattle you are, the more out of control you are. A dog just walking up isn’t doing much other than following the drift: he should be wearing a little – working the sides where the cows can see them. A dog that works wide allows for the animal to not have to turn and look for the dog when it’s behind it: helps in keeping the cattle calm. We try to work dogs and horse and ourselves in a straight line but it’s not natural to on stock.

If a cow moves away from pressure on one side, it will look on the other side to see if there’s pressure there. (The fatter a cow gets, the less flex they have to look.)

The way to change a cow’s mind is to get their attention – that’s all. If a cow is eating, all you need to do is come into their field of vision and change their mind about food and put attention on you. they’ll look up and see their buddies moving and move, too. You pick up a group by picking up the leaders and the others will follow so long as they are watching the leaders.

If a cow is trying to get by you, you need to ride/run up next to them, and then fall back. The cow will look back at you and you can then step in to turn them. (Lots of self control needed here for everyone.)

If you ride with the cattle (aka parallel drive), it will keep their mind on you and you won’t need as much dog or cow. In a parallel drive, turn your chest away to take pressure off.

Are the cattle in a corner? Walk in, find the balance point until one turns in, then back out. Readjust, always looking for that balance point and walk out, working that side. If you get too excited and too close, the cattle will stop to look at you and it will stop the flow, resulting in less smooth, clean movement.

You can’t move cattle looking in different directions. Get them to look the same direction and they’ll naturally drift in that direction.

Should you make noise? If you have to, but too much noise will cause them to turn and look back at the noise: stopping flow. Don’t yell.

What if cattle are “trotty” (or light, as I have used to describe them)?

You might have to get aggressive with them to teach them to take the pressure, but always be able to pull out of it (again, need a dog that calms down and gets out when it’s not needed). It’s just like handling dogs, or horses. Get after bad behavior and then don’t nag or over correct after. Some people think they have what they takes to do this, but they don’t and they can’t control their emotions (and some dogs). If the cattle don’t get it, you can push more. He used to push and release but he says it doesn’t work. Push and half-release. That can work.  Though, when you first start working stock, it’s a good idea to release all of it until you know you can do more. It’s finite work.

Do you want to line cattle out? Work the leader. The rest will follow.

You can draw stock into you without someone at the top of the arc. Get in front of the eye, and then pull back and they will look and draw you – changing the mindset of the direction they were going. Don’t use eye – eye will cause them to turn. This is called “hooking the eye.”

Watch the lead cattle, but if you focus too much on them, the others see you coming up and will stall out.

You can stop cattle/sheep from panicking with wearing – they will see what’s going on.

You can use a horse’s butt as a wing if you’re working panels: use the head and it will be too much pressure for the stock to pass.

Sorting stock for a run? Go in and look for the stock that feel your presence most (turn their heads away from you) – those are the ones that will work great.