Good work even when it doesn't feel like it.

Went out to sheep this week and Cindy was there. I asked her to sort off some heavy ones for me and we'd take them to the back field and she could work her dog in the close field. They weren't quite heavy enough, so I got really frustrated because it was a balance between trying to my dog work and not creating bad habits - the sheep just wouldn't settle for me to start it out clean.

Toward the end, I figured out it was one specific sheep that was the problem and asked Cindy if she'd take her and sorted her out of the gate. Things should have gone better for us, but I guess the horse run wasn't secured well enough and they ended up with Stephanie's horse and goat. I left the door open and both of those guys took one look of me and said, "See ya," leaving the sheep in the back pens.

So frustrated. So frustrated. But then . . .

I've been back here a bit but not really paid attention to it. Remember I said that Rippa needed work in closer places and with gates? This was perfect. There was a great gateway between two pens, so I got to work.

Rippa is surprisingly a very nice pen dog. I think she can dial it all back when there's fences holding the sheep (vs Fury who needs as much space as she can get to feel most comfortable). We did some round pen work and then I had her hold sheep in the gate way, push them through, take them back, etc. It was great.  A good way to get her to feel control as she has stock go through gateways. I think we're going to spend a lot more time back there now.

I took the Fury in back and put her on a line and did the Ben Means stuff again and it did settle her. She really has a hard time on the go-by side and being able to correct before helped so much that when I took her out to the arena to finish up our session, guys . . . SHE BALANCED TO THE SHEEP. And she kicked out on go-bys! This is really big for her, because she usually cuts her top on the go-by and I have to be REALLY on it to keep her from getting in contact with the sheep (this is usually just barrelling into them like a jerk).

I let that happen for a couple minutes before putting them away but YES!!

Remember I said we were missing that good pen work that Kathy worked into the whole thing? I might have figured it out. If the dogs start to feel more in control and relaxed up close to the stock, it seems to show out in the arena when they have less control.

I drove away, though, feeling a little down, to be honest. I feel like at this point, Rippa should be a lot more finished than she is, but we're SO started still. I got her to take a couple steps in a drive in the pens, stopped her and made sure the picked them up nicely in there, but as Shannon said last session - if a dog can't be trusted on an outrun, how you going to get them to control themselves on a drive? And she can't be, really - the minute she starts to feel like she's losing them, she doesn't take control on the outrun, she drives harder.

And since they're such different dogs and they both do that. Whose fault do you think that is?

Two thumbs, right here: me.

Been training for almost a decade on and off and have I really learned nothing in all that time? Ugh.

So that's how I feel right now, but both dogs did some really great work if I calmed myself down and took care of my end.

Mantra: 1% improvement every day = 100% at the end of 100 days . . .

 I think I have two jobs right now:

1. Go into each session with some objectives and if the situation doesn't work, okay. Change objectives.
2. Look for good stuff you got out of the day and dwell on that. I need some reinforcement, and I need to give it to the dogs. 

Woof