Dustin and Shannon took me and worked with me for three or so hours prior to the trial and showed me my #1 biggest problem was that I was micromanaging Rippa and that I needed to shut up and stay calm (a theme)?
I want to be like, “Man, I wish I had a different personality” because honestly, that was my problem growing up, too. People always told me I was annoying and that I’m intense. I think I’ve got it channeled now with people to a point where I’m more interesting and focused ( I hope?), but it has only been the past few years. I guess it wouldn’t surprise me that my default is to be annoying and intense on stock with the dogs. Poor dogs.
Moreover, I get real neurotic about Rippa and this whole thing in general. Like, “Ugh, I broke her. I quit.” Or, “Maybe she’s just not good enough inherently.” I feel like I don’t know enough to make a call one way or the other. I keep telling you I had lots of positive reinforcement on her early on, but now that I’m performing sub-par with her, I’m like, “Maybe she doesn’t have it all going on,” when I think it’s more to do with me and her opportunities.
Or am I just really good at making excuses? My brain, it asplodes!
Anyway, I’m not getting another dog anytime soon or making puppies, so it is what it is.
Anyway, so WHAT happened at the trial? I didn’t try that hard, that’s what. Nobody (not even the Fury Q’d) but I was pretty damn happy with what I got and I feel like that’s all that matters.
I entered The Fury on ducks and the first run, she just totally spaced. She’s a very, very active senior dog, and it’s not like her to space, but whatever caused it, wasn’t worth pushing her. Also, the damn ducks kept getting back into the take pen because the door wouldn’t close. So I left her happy and called it a run. The second run, she did super awesome, but she was too slow to get around them and put them through the chute. I tried it a couple times, but I guess I was late on my commands because I’m not used to The Fury being a bit pokey and rather than push the issue at a trial, I again was happy with how it went and quit it there. I probably could have done better had I adapted to what my dog was giving me, but I went into this trial thinking I was going to not even go, so anything I got that was happy was good.
Rippa –
On ducks the first run, they kept flipping back to the back fence, which the judge later told me is a normal thing and the thing to do there is to have her fetch to me. I tried really hard to use Rippa and I to hold the ducks like a wall and have them make a choice to go to the panels instead. My ducks at home will do that, so I guess I have to train the ducks and dogs to flip back because it’s so common and practice dealing with it. Okay. Either way, psyched on how Rippa did. Plus, the damn ducks went back into that take pen again. Twice. I watched Doug Manley handle it when this happened and he didn’t miss a beat . . . just got it handled like it was nothing. I want to be that cool.
Second run was better, but I was late on sending the ducks to the chute and sent Rippa on a GoBy, but because I was late, she didn’t have great control and I didn’t help keep her off and it just didn’t go well, so I quit. Again, I was happy that she was working and happy.
Mostly, I need to be a better handler and think faster with changing conditions like Doug did. That comes with experience at trials, I think.
Cattle were interesting. They were really scared of people and you couldn’t get too close at all. Dustin told me going into it to try really hard not to use any commands, just my body and keep it under control, so that was the plan. I watched enough runs that I figured if I could keep them moving and stay at the back, I’d be fine, at least until the center pen.
Rippa, considering that she had quit me going into this week, was fantastic. She took her commands really well and kept them moving. A lot of dogs would get the cows stuck and do a lot of yelling at them and that never happened with us. She did, however, lose it when she felt like they were getting away from her (I’m sure I was affecting it, too, but again, I’m still clueless at this) and she’d go to head and mess stuff up, but we made the first panel, and got close enough to the second panel that I called it good (most people were having a ROUGH time), made a half-hearted attempt at the center pen, and then repenned them. We were the only team, I think, that AM trial to be able to repen the cattle – they were nuts. So I gave myself and Rippa some gold stars and we were happy with that, even though it wasn’t a Q. Interestingly, my tactics let me get really close to the cattle compared to other people, again, I was pretty shocked and not resilient enough to changed tactics when I figured this out to my advantage, but eh . . . it takes time.
The second run, the cows had settled down and were easier for everyone to manage. We didn’t do as well this time, but I did get first and second panel with some drama in between (again, Rippa would stop being good and run to head when she felt out of control, making a mess), got an attempt at the center pen and I was repenning when time got called.
Everyone that trialled ran really close to the 10 minute mark, that’s how the cows were, so again, I was really happy with our runs. I know I made mistakes, I tried to fix them – sometimes I just gave up and went with it depending on how Rippa was feeling, and I also used a lot more commands than I wanted to going into it, but Rippa was happy to work with me and that’s all I wanted. We were a team. I knew we were going to go home and spend a lot of time working on fundamentals for both me and her so we got through the trial without embarrassing ourselves, I hope.
I’ve not really felt like working dogs since then, partly because I don’t feel so good and I think it’s translating to my handling, and partly just because I have a lot of other stuff going on. I’m going to be gone this week and then on vacation for two weeks, so I’m kind of thinking the break will be good for them and me, because I really need to get my training act together.
Dustin made a good point: his dogs live in kennels. When they come out, they work, and so there’s that relationship. Whereas I’m always working with my dogs because they live with me. I go to the beach with them, take them on hikes, play frisbee, etc. They have lots of other fun things to do, so if it stops being fun, they’re more inclined to blow it off. I’d not really thought of it that way, but it’s true. And I also let my training erode. Rippa isn’t super responsive to certain things because we’re casual about things. So I’ve been working on that, making her work kind of all the time and respond in a snappy way.
I'm about to talk about a respected judge by name. I've been trying to decide if I should leave it alone or not, but she was quite forthcoming about her expectations and opinions, so I don't think this is anything that if she finds out I said will be hurtful or contrary to how she wishes to be perceived. And I think it's an interesting educational point that came out of the trial that I hadn't worried about until this point. (Well, I actually had worried about, but the last two trials had made me feel secure that my worries were needless and this undid that.) I figure it might well be useful to friends trialing in the same situation anyway.
The biggest takeaway for this trial was that I learned that judges DO matter - both to how they score you and to your experience. Previously I figured, eh, it's a few points here and there, what's the difference? We trialed under Joan Carillo and at the handler’s meeting she specifically said she didn’t want to see biting of the cows, especially face or tail biting. Erk. Dustin and Shannon both encourage appropriate hits (not the tail biting) and power and so do I. This was going to be awkward. We like dogs with the courage to back up the threat.
I timed for both judges as much as I could, and Joan was very, very down on Shannon and Dustin’s dogs for biting to anyone within earshot of her. I watched a LOT of dogs run at cows and get nowhere because they wouldn’t bite them, but Shannon and Dustin’s dogs did and they never got stuck (it might have gotten messy, so flip side to that coin, but yeah), and same with Rippa. And they didn’t need a heel bite, the cows were turning to face the dogs off. If your dog didn’t hit them, they’d just stay like that until they figured the dog wouldn’t do anything and start doing their own thing.
Without a pointy reminder from Meg, that cow could have just stayed put.
Was there gratuitous biting? Yeah, but I personally felt better about that than not being able to move the cows at all – and these were all quite green dogs – they’ll grow into controlling it more over time with experience and miles. No blood drawn, nothing horrible, forgivable, in my opinion.
But there was definitely a dark cloud on us for having dogs like that. Shannon and Dustin both were not psyched on how they were treated by her at the trial- Dustin got right back at her at one point when Joan yelled at him to watch the biting and he yelled back, "How is the dog supposed to move the cattle?!"
I have to admit that I felt a bit “slinky” when I drove away this time because even though I was happy with how things went, I didn’t really want to stick around for awards and see my low score (I already knew I didn’t Q anywhere) because my dog didn’t let the cows get stuck – nor did I want to hear about it - it wasn't going to do anything for me or the dog. It made me feel crummy enough that I don't think I'll trial under her again. Had she just made her point and let it be or called time, it would have been better - for me - than knowing how much disdain she was willing to share with others for it, and making me wonder what she was talking about to others about me and my dog. She's been at this a long time and is a respected judge, and, no, every bite that happened didn't need to happen. I respect that is her thing, but it made me just FEEL bad as a novice trialer with a novice dog who can't really control such things in that scenario yet. Is the solution to just don't trial? I don't think so.
I guess trials aren’t the be-all and end all, anyway. I’m proud of Rippa for having some real bite and presence to her. I’ve said it before, it’s not just the bite for her. She can look at stock across the arena and they’re watching her. She’s not lying to them about needing to move. I don’t think it’s all that useful in most trial scenarios because dogs with less power can get it done (especially because people try to find nice, compliant stock for trials), but it’s something I know ranchers want and need and I know it’s not a given in Aussies, so I am proud to have it and I won’t be training it out of her. I really need to figure out how to get her balance back in tune, because if she stayed off the stock more naturally, she'd not feel compelled to hit them as much, but I am happy that she's willing to get a poll or a heel when she thinks it's needed. You can't train that kind of confidence.
I will say, conversely, that so far my relationship with the judges at trials has also MADE the trials - because I tend to interact a lot, both because I'm trying to learn and I'm willing to be vulnerable in order to do that, because I like to help out with timing,etc, and simply because they set the tone. This was just one bad experience for me and that's okay. Something to learn from. I used to keep a notebook when I did conformation about which judges to go under or not, and it might just be the same with stockdog trials.
In fact, I told Terry Martin recently that I was really appreciative of her dogs being able to take me as far as I want to go with this. I got Slash V lines because I was coming out of conformation and I liked the look of her working dogs more than others that I’d seen. They are a difficult line to have for your first working Aussie, that’s for sure – at least mine are, guardy, reserved, very very aware of their surroundings and reactive to them, but I’ve never once been left wishing I had more dog than I did. I want to learn to train dogs to work stock? Great, we got this. Cattle? Yeah, we got that, too. Real ranch work? Yes. In fact, they’ve also been the best trail and adventure dogs I could have asked for. They don’t get lost, they naturally track their location and trails, and they naturally stick with you.
I get comments all the time about what nice trail dogs I have, and I don’t take it for granted. Yes, some training goes into it, but if your dog’s not interested in really meeting other dogs or people, devoted to specifically making you happy, stays on the trail, and stays with you, you can’t go wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment