Rippa goes to camp

Well, when I logged in, I thought I lost a ton of posts, but no, I really haven't written anything in this for over a YEAR.

The Squees and Rippa watch the ducks.

Because I was pregnant with twins. And then I had twins. And then I went once to sheep at Stephanie's and realized that the sheep stopped being used to my dogs and were too light for me to work without being consistent.

Which left the ducks. But even then, I haven't given up my day jobs and I added twins. So . . . not a ton of work going on here. Rippa's been really cute on ducks except when I brought the woods out to test their puppies and she was like, "People, watching? HAHAHAHAH!" I'm working on getting access to sheep again, but they're "on hold" for the moment.

And all I've done is think about getting back into it. Stuff just isn't working out with time and stock availability. I don't even really want to try too hard because even if I get stock RIGHT now, my ability to be consistent is gone.

Whining to some friends yielded an idea - what if you sent Rippa off for finishing? In my world this wasn't okay. You do it yourself, you slacker.

And then people are like, "But Kristin. Twins. Work. People are going to understand. And you'll be a better handler because you'll learn to worry about that more than what the dog's doing." It's true. Before kids, I spent easily 10 hours a week on stuff and still it wasn't ideal. Now it's like . . . 1 hour a week if I'm lucky. Why miss out on the experience when I could have the best of all worlds?

The Fury's face when I told her Rippa was going away for a while.

So, I asked Sherry Baker, nervously, if she was up for it. And she was! So tomorrow, Rippa goes to stockdog camp. I have no idea what to expect except I worry that I'm going to be annoying to her.

I'm pretty excited about this. I think Rippa will like it, all the structure and clear handling from someone who knows what she's doing (I'd argue the best handler in the country for Aussies). And I'm excited to see what she gets out of her. I've been thinking seriously about breeding her, but I really want to be in a place of KNOWING what she can do and not promising something I can't back up to the people buying pups. This is a great way to find out because it's none of that, "if only I was a better handler" crap. Obviously, she has tons of baggage from bad handling and inconsistency through the years, and she's old and has bad habits, but I still think it's gonna be great.

Anyway, so she goes to Sherry's tomorrow. We're loading up the clown car with two dogs, two babies, me and the huz and our nanny who's never been to the snow so we invited her along for fun.

Added bonus - Rippa's just growing back in her coat after blowing it.
She's gonna be SOOOOO pretty when we see her next.

Sherry asked me for a list of her working commands. I sat down to do it and felt so smug for myself because it was such a long list:

Rippa’s Working Commands

·         Come

·         Down: lay down and stay down

·         Stay

·         Stand

·         No: stop what you’re doing

·         Yes/good: keep doing what you’re doing

·         Okay: do whatever it is you think you should be doing instead of what I just told you (a release that lets her do what she thinks she should do)

·         Get or get behind: stay behind your stock or me depending on who she’s behind

·         With me: stay with you but don’t worry about “heeling”

·         Find heel: worry about heeling

·         Get around: get around which ever direction you want and bring them to me – she cuts pretty tight and fast at the top

·         Way to

·         Go by

·         Out: keep circling but get wider around the stock

·         Back: switch directions on your circle (also works as a “get” on cattle)

·         Walk up

·         There: turn into the stock and walk up on them

·         Easy or “hey”: slow down

·         Beat it: get out of contact with the stock or leave

·         That’ll do: stop working and come to me or get off the stock

·         Hup – jump up into my arms

·         Load – get in the truck/quad

·         Crate – get in crate

·         Kennel – get in kennel

·         Leash – present your neck for leash on or off

·         Find your spot – put her somewhere on a stay and if she gets up, tell her to find her spot and she’ll go back to it

·         Squirrel – go kill the squirrels J

M

Getting by with a little help from friends.

Well, it's coming into the Christmas/New Years season, and I have to say, it felt a little like Christmas to this Jew last time I went working. Stephanie has gotten me so many wonderful goodies, some from my registry, some not . . . and then Jennifer also greeted me with a package for the twins as well. There's something so cool about this - I almost feel about the same about it as I did on my wedding day (thinking about all the people I loved that were in town just because of us), but better, because these kids are going to grow up in a vast, diverse community that loves them, and I feel loved as a result.

Anyway, there was also herding.

Much gratitude continues to ebb from me to Sarah Martin. I'm so glad Joan Cliffe Holmes suggested I talk to her, because she loves to spend time explaining stuff as she sees it to me and it's just what I need right now. Of course, it's very cool and important that she's a cattlewoman using her dogs in the operation to me, but moreover, she's taking basic things I "know" but don't understand and explaining it in such a way that things keep clicking for me. I think if I were to teach people, I'd definitely do it in a class-based format because while Kathy's camps were valuable and she was/is always open to questions, you really have to be "ready" for the info to sink in. I think I spent a lot of that time walking backward and doing what she told me without understanding the mechanics of it. Every time Sarah mentions something that sounds new, it's not really, but it's nuanced in a way that feeds my "why" mind.

So, this last time, she'd sent me videos of her pups working outruns and fetching and she makes a casual comment about how stopping a dog or taking it off its feet will break the balance of the dog to the sheep and handler.

Guess what? That's my #1 issue. And yes, with The Fury, I did TONS of walking backward and not stopping, but with Rippa? I did tons of stopping to crutch through it.

So now, thanks to Sarah, I understand what the real point of all those backward walks and turns are. I think with Kathy, I was seeing it as teaching the dog to read its sheep and nothing to do with balance. If you've read this blog long enough, you know that I am always saying I feel like all I ever do is walk backward because I need miles for the dog to calm down.

WRONG!! When you turn, the dog has to kick out and get into balance. When you straighten and mark a "there" on the dog when they're right, they feel balance. And when they get too close, you don't have to run in and bust it up (that's what causes a lot of fights with my dogs), you take pressure OFF the dog who's already feeling it by being close to the stock, relaxing him or her and showing the dog that it can control from further away.

Slow and steady.

And that's all well and good, but I tried it this last session. The difference on BOTH dogs from beginning to end was amazing. The Fury who is a pushy something else was following the sheep straight across the field with no pressure and taking her downs nice - this is huge! Rippa did the same thing.

This exercise also showed me that Rippa's not really getting to balance a lot of the time before she cuts in, and the sheep will go past me on my side instead of pointing at me in front of me, so we had to work a lot on showing her how to keep out (me running toward her and reminding her) until she got to the right spot and then could tip in. I think I've got a couple sessions of that before it clicks if I do it right. But it was great. Miles and miles of learning.

The other thing Sarah intellectualized for me was the difference between instinct and obedience training. I always hear people disparage other trainers for being "mechanical" and "obediency" but I've always thought everything I did was basically obedience training to one degree or the other.

But Sarah set me straight:

Obedience training is stuff that, when I say, the dog has to do with a predictable outcome. Training flanks, slowing gait, stopping, that sort of thing.

Instinct training, however, is taking the dog's natural inclination to do something and setting things up so they can figure it out without me giving a command. This is HUGE. I don't think I ever really got that because I've been taking direction for so long and not working on my own essential lesson plans. Plus, I always see things as "what does it take for me to shape this behavior?" But the dog, if it's got the instinct, will shape it's own as you present situations to it. I understand now!

Like, when starting a puppy, you teach the puppy to read the stock and balance to them by showing them what doesn't work with the stick. Further along this continues to work like the above with the turning to develop the balance.

In fact, lately one of the things I've done with Stephanie's lighter sheep is walk the fenceline back to the incredible draw of their home gate and Rippa has to keep them in line by going behind them and then half-mooning in front of me, and she's learning over time to stay out wider to move less and to watch the eye of the leader to hold them. I usually try to "obedience that" but I have learned to just let her work.

And that's what a lot of my friends have said when trialing, that I just have to let her work. But I've been so obedience-minded that she's missing a lot of instinct development that would have had us progress faster and I totally see it now.

But letting dogs learn on their own is THE BEST part about stockdogging, and I get it now.

In fact, I'm more eager than ever to see what happens on a field full of cattle now, rather than being worried about how it looks like I did last time I had the opportunity, relaxing, and letting the dog figure it out .  . . I get it. I mean, that's why you get an Aussie in the first place. The quest of "why" is solved.

I finally flipping get it . . . but how long can I keep working before I pop? I'm halfway through this pregnancy, and normally it seems like 30-32 weeks is the magic time to stop, but I have twins and it is dang hard work keeping on the dogs. My core is pretty strong and the pressure of it fighting against the kids is very uncomfortable when I'm out there moving fast and breathing hard. I have a nice brace that Linda Kager (all these lovely dog people!) got me, and I've strapped that on and it makes a world of difference moving around, but  . . . with the rain starting to come and everything else . . . I guess we shall see. :/

Here's me with my brace and preggo stomach.

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.

Back to the Drawing Board

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And whose fault is that? Mine.

So mine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"They think they know better."

He pauses.

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

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

......

So what was I doing there?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then Mike said the above to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's my turn.

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

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

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

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

A Break and a Visit with Sarah Martin of GS Ranch

A couple weeks ago, I started a TransCanada trip with my best friend, Lisa, who was moving from Yellowknife NWT to Halifax, NS. I flew into Calgary and our first stop was visiting Sarah Martin. We've been talking a while about what makes a good dog, training, etc, and I wanted to mine her brain. She and her husband generously hosted us for dinner and gave us a place to sleep overnight, and Sarah and I talked for hours about dogs while poor, bored Lisa looked at her phone.

The thing I love about Sarah is that she gets where I'm coming from, has some interesting new thoughts and tools that she suggests, and she's doing what I want to be doing in terms of cattle dog programs. I wish to God I'd thought to whip out the notebook during our chats, but she's got some videos and when I get on sheep, I'll show you some of the things she showed me.

One of the things that I appreciated about the visit was that I've been so unsure of how much of what's going on is me, is my dog, is bad training, or what. After her showing me videos, I showed her some old videos of Rippa working and as we're watching, I'm like, "Wait, she's not that bad at all. Wow."

Sarah looked at what she saw and kind of showed me how I'd created certain problems, made me feel a lot better about other things (like how she wasn't confident working out in a large herd at the Wood's ranch) by explaining how that happens and what to do about it. I came out of that night with different expectations and a happier outlook on things. I really am starting to "get" more about how to use the dog's instinct, how to stop looking at it as a pretty photo, and the importance of "teaching the dog" without judging it.

Anyway, I like my Rippa bear quite solidly now. She's a good dog, she just has some handicaps thanks to me, and I feel pretty confident in saying that now. If I can just fix myself and be consistent (easier said than done), I think we'll be trucking right along.

Now that I'm back I'm going to try to double down on stock lessons.

Today we went back after a couple weeks and Sarah's video sessions showed me I need to video and evaluate myself more often. I thought Rippa was so out of control, but when I watch it afterwards, she's not, and I see what I do to cause that, too. I need to stop being lazy and start changing my mind.

So here's the video we got of her first work. Her second, the phone overheated so . . . eh. It got a lot better when I started out babysitting her, she quieted down, calmed herself, moved out instead of into the stock, and I was able to execute an obstacle without too much trouble until she broke it when she felt like the stock were going to run (fair enough., at least for now).

Shannon noticed that she seems to lose it on the outruns at 10 and 2, precisely where I'd kick her back if I was doing half moons. It looks like I need to go back to some basics and do the daisy chain thing that we did on sheep when starting. I think I can make that happen as long as I'm watching my cattle.

And that's the other thing. I really need to get more stock savvy. I know I work WAY better if I watch the sheep and ducks, but on cattle, I really watch the dog. Time to stop doing that, because I feel like Rippa has enough cow sense to make decisions and I can read the cattle enough to know when she's wrong, too.

Habits: help Rippa early and be consistent until she makes good choices 100% of the time (aka, not for a while) and watch the cattle. Watch the dang cattle!!

Side note: poor little dog inhaled so much dust that she's been puking up dust foam for a couple hours. Ooops. She needs a little bandana (as Shannon suggested) or maybe needs to learn to work the cattle at a WALK?.