And so we pause for a commercial break (not really)

I recently got around to reading Getting Things Done, one of the great tomes business people cite when you need to get efficient. One of the pieces of advice that I got from it was this:

If it’s on your mind, it’s unresolved. Write it down, put it in a to-do pile or a resolved pile, or do something about it. Stuff on your mind will drag you down.

So I’m sitting in acupuncture today trying to meditate and make use of an hour of having needles in me with nothing to do, and one of the things that came up was: stockdog trials.

Like, there are about a billion happening this May, and while my job is taking a lot of time, and I still haven’t recovered from the financials from the last few trials (not a cheap endeavor, to be sure), I still think, well, should I keep up this momentum? And there’s at least one ranch trial happening memorial day weekend. Should I go for that?

And so we pause:

1. What this blog is about is the warts and all of things. I know that by saying my thoughts, I am revealing things that probably happen to all of us but few admit to it and that’s WHY I do it. I believe in being real. So the first thing I have to say is that I’m sorry that I was so haughty that I thought I’d walk into my first trial and get Most Promising Started Aussie and all my titles because I’ve been working so hard on training my dog and I don’t like trialing.

I don’t not like trialing after the last one, but I’d still rather be doing other stuff, that’s okay.

But here’s the deal. Everything in my professional life revolves around training and exhibition in some way. In the climbing world, you train to go somewhere, climb a goal climb, and go home because it was fun. In the event world, you can’t expect to win an event because there’s more to it than your savvy and fitness. I don’t know why I thought stockdogging would be any different.  It was arrogant and whiny of me and I’m saying it here.

2. Ever since the trial, Rippa’s been lackluster on cattle. She’s not quitting me per se, but she’s not giving it the college try. Like I said after the trial, I honestly think she got tired of taking all my commands and it wasn’t helping so she’s like, “Dude, what the hell do you want?” Shannon reminds me that that kind of thing isn’t useful on a ranch and won’t win over anybody for homes.  But I am pretty adamant that this is because of trialing and not just doing chore work – and I never said I needed a good trial dog for my goals, which she is always game to do, and good at.  I got really frustrated with it so I had Shannon video tape it. Her attitude is like, “Look, I don’t know what you want, so I’ll try a little – but, oh, look, this sucks. I  will do tricks for you, though, I love you, I’m sorry.”

I sent it off to Kathy to look at and asked, “Is this the dog or me?” Kathy says she can’t really see her attitude, but I was running the cattle off and even she didn’t know what I wanted Rippa to do. And I can see where at one point I was aware of it and then fixed it, but it was already too late. Again, I’m used to The Fury just trying again and harder whereas Rippa just wants to be right.

Here’s the video:

The quit is at 26 seconds when I tell her: leave it to the cow trapped in the pen. I can see about a billion reasons why she’s mad at me and why she doesn’t believe so I have GOT to learn to handle cattle better. I don’t because they’re big and I am worried about Rippa coming in too hard.

Here’s a minute before the quit, after about a half hour of work:

She gets a little fixated on the one she hits and we lose our thinking dog, but I’m always in the wrong spot.

So, you know, handling and stock sense make a difference. New plan? Borrow a trained border collie and figure out how to handle cows with a dog when you’re not worried about the dog’s end of stuff.  Let Rippa work  shorter sessions and don’t keep going until she is frustrated with me.

I’m off of sheep for a bit because Stephanie’s ewes were all bred so it’s goats and ducks and cows. She’s looking flipping AWESOME on goats. Just saying. She used to like them a little too much but she’s maturing into it. Like Shannon says, I wish I’d been able to start her consistently when she was younger, it would have been interesting to see what we got.

I took Rippa and the Fury out to ducks yesterday and the weeds are so high that it’s kind of hard to do it in spots. I had real low expectations but set up a pen course with some obstacles and I found by not saying much at all and letting Rippa just make assumptions about what I wanted by where I was standing, I got a lot done – and nicely – and that’s like . . . ENTIRELY what she’s for. So I need to learn to handle like that. Fury takes commands easier but doesn’t read her stock as well. Habits, adaption, etc.

So, will I trial in May? Probably not. Money + peak work season (like, Memorial day weekend is a week before my big race on the Eastside and will I really want to be gone that much like that? Probably not) + this little hang up . . . I need to be confident before I drop big money on a trial that I have a dog that will do the course and that I will help her out. We’re Open dogs now, and we have some limitations and expectations that weren’t on us before.

And there, now it’s out. I can finally stop thinking about it. I hope.

“The Dip”

On Sunday, the Woods invited the huz and I over for a “stockdog party” as I liked to call it. The idea of people just getting together, not for lessons, not formally, to just work dogs was so neat to me. People do that?

I wasn’t sure what it would entail, but what it was was a practice for the trials coming up. Dustin took me into the arena and showed me the course – take the cattle through the barrels in the middle of the arena, then flip them back through a Y chute and turn them back out to the middle, and then pen them in a tight, triangular pen with a small opening.

I really didn’t know how how to go about these things, because watching his first dog do it – he is way more finished than Rippa so Dustin walked me through it. It was a lot more obedience training than it was letting Rippa work, but it was good for both of us and we started figuring it out. Good for me to read the cattle better and good for Rippa to hold her line when I tell her to instead of anticipating.

I brought my camera, too, but it was hard to take good photos with such a tight course. The above is the Y chute, where you take the dog through the panel and then use yourself to redirect them.

It was very good to learn how to maneuver like that and Rippa had a good handle on things for the most part, though we need a lot more training in her feeling in control with the cattle before I want to trial. There’s one in April coming up that Shannon has encouraged me to try, but it’s right when I open my new climbing gym and I really, really want to hold off until I know I won’t embarrass Aussies everywhere – NCA doesn’t have beginner, it has Rancher (dogs that haven’t won anything), Open, and Pro. All of which are levels up from where I am. I can send Rippa to fetch cattle and everything, but it won’t be as clean and pretty as it was for most of the runs I’ve seen at these trials and people have feelings about Aussies that I don’t want to perpetuate. After all, I want spectators to think, “Wow, nice dog. I would consider an Aussie.”

But I decided that after that, I really needed to fix some of the stuff that we’ve got holes on because of various reasons.

Various reasons: my bad timing, my hysteria from learning how to handle badly, my not wanting to make strong points to Rippa because I didn’t want to be hysterical – all of which lead to Rippa not balancing very well and wanting to come in tight all the time.

So, I went to sheep yesterday and brought my camera along. For some reason the shots I did at Stephanie’s didn’t turn out, but it is BEAUTIFUL there.  We worked on three things: not cutting the top on her outruns, making her lay down way out when the sheep come on balance, and some pen work.

I feel like I have the first two handled, and Rippa was a champ. Just need to reinforce it. But the pen work? Sigh? Rippa is great at getting stock out of pens – even awkward ones. With everyone’s coaching about chilling, it worked and Rippa is super nice even in tight spaces. When is she NOT nice? When the sheep pass through the gate and head wherever they head in a hurry.

At this point, Rippa will shoot like a bat out of hell, generally end up in the middle to get to the heads and turn them around. But it’s not controlled and confident, and while sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it’s really, really not.

Today was that day.

When I left Stephanie’s, I pulled to the side of the road and had myself a little cry.

I just have so many questions about this whole thing: I know so very little and also so much compared to some. I know that Rippa’s a nice dog, not just because I think so, but people are always telling me when they see her, but this is not going smoothly along, it’s not easy, we get hurt along the way . . . and for what? I don’t think that stockdog training is kind to the animals we train on. It can be better than some, but at other times? The stock don’t deserve what the dogs can do to them sometimes. People are okay with it – they say that’s how we learn, but like . . . I have been at this for years now and I’m only discovering what I don’t know and I don’t know where to land on what is next. I do this thing where I post on the Internet about stuff (ha ha, here I am) and people smack me down sometimes even though I know that I’m not wrong and that the people who talk are spouting dogma without much to back it up. But I’m not much better, eh? So what is right? How do I know?

Finally, I was like, “Ugh, you’re already out here and you’re bummed, why not go for a lovely drive over to see Jennifer and the ducks? You don’t have to work them – in fact, you probably don’t want to. But it’s good to see friends and beautiful places.”

Good call. I told Jen how I was feeling and she told me to hop on her horse and ride up into the hills with her daughter, but I was like, “No . . . I am way out of whack and I shouldn’t be doing stuff with animals right now. The animals suffer.” Jen asked me, if that’s how I feel when I work, why am I doing it? And I was quick, “Because most of the time I feel amazing!” “Well then!”

So I headed down to the ducks, who were out in the pasture area eating up the tall grass, bugs, and other goodies. This is their first green spring and they love it!

I decided I owed the Fury at least a little working for watching dogs work on Sunday and Rippa today, so I set the arena up and sat down for a minute.

Stephanie and I were talking before I worked her sheep and she said two things to me that came to me as I was sitting there – I had complained to her about how I was feeling torn about everything.

1. She said she’d seen a photo recently where the dog’s getting pushed out with the stick and that makes the dog go in tighter rather than giving space and pressure.

2. She said that I know enough to make the right decisions.

#1 was certainly true during sheep (and cattle, when I get upset, Rippa goes in tighter), and since she had faith in me even though stuff didn’t go well that day, I could probably do this.

And so, I put the Fury on the ducks. She tends to run in really tight, especially on the Go-By side out of frustration with me and take it out on the stock, so instead of going to confront her and pushing her out, I tried Stephanie’s method and took pressure off of her that was coming from me. Bam. Worked like a charm. The Fury has not worked so well in a while.

I tried it with Rippa and again . . . bam. Like a charm.

And my day was now turned around.

I recently read a book called The Dip by Seth Godin – a book about when to quit. In it, he says, you should quit if you don’t think you’re going to be The Best in the World at something.

Okay, before I go further, I have zero idea what that means for me in this area. I don’t want to be The Best in the World at stockdog trialing, I know that. It would be cool to be that kind of trainer, but I don’t have to be. But I’m headed toward something, and we’ll see where that goes.

But, if you’re on the path to Best in the World, this is what it will look like:

So far, that’s pretty much what I feel like has happened. When I got The Fury, I peaked a bit, but then when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to get much further without a lot more mileage and she was probably “ruined” and the dip sank. Then I got Rippa and it was exciting, but when my stockdog options dried up, major low point. I think I’m at the crest upward, and it looks like once I get stuff dialed, according to Seth, it’s a short trip to the payoff.

But how the heck I’m supposed to keep the faith in myself, keep building my understanding of the bigger picture (it’s severely lacking – all vague right now – when I was training under Kathy, I grasped the mechanics of the training to its own end, but not of the bigger picture of the dog working in a ranch setting, and certainly not trialing), keep working on my handling skills while trying not to reinforce bad habits I’ve put into Rippa, and get Rippa feeling totally in control of the stock.

Dang, that’s a lot.

The hardest part is the amount of opinions on the subject. Everyone has one – and I was once sheltered by Kathy’s opinions only, but Stephanie has different ideas and Shannon has different ideas and Dustin and books and the Internet. I feel like I “get” Kathy’s ideas. I know “better” like Stephanie says. Kathy’s message has been transmitted, but I’m so damned open minded – I don’t want to be dogmatic about things, I want to be open to new ideas, but MAN, does that make life confusing.

And what do I do every time? Go back to what I learned from Kathy. I’m wondering if I should learn something from that. heh.

In which I create a stockdog rubric

The CVASC trial opened today and I got a call from Roland encouraging me to enter (love him). I know I said I was ready to trial again, but I think only if I am doing it for the experience rather than hoping to qualify.

But do you know how much it costs to trial for a weekend? A BOAT LOAD. And I am not with a lot of free cash right now (hey, my truck broke down last week . . .  wee!) for such things. Also, honestly? There’s a lot of other things I’d rather be doing on a weekend than trialing. That’s always been the case. I used to LOVE conformation showing, but I don’t think I’ve ever LOVED trialing, no matter what venue. I think being raised in dogs, for this long, whatever it was that was magical when I was younger is gone for me. That’s okay. Different strokes for different folks.

Speaking of that, all of this questioning of the “status quo” as it were that I’ve been doing has led me down a new train of thought to explore, and one of the things I did was open up my copy of The Traveling Herding Teacher (Bob Vest’s book) and read it for more than just a cursory overview today. Just what IS so different about his thoughts and what I’ve been taught?

Not a lot that I can see, aside from being more reliant on a line and on tying sheep to create scenarios. It seems like the order he trains in is a lot different than what I know. In the KW system, you work on the stop, sure, but mostly you let the dog work it out themselves while teaching an out, then the fetch, then flanks, then drive. If the dog doesn’t work it out him/herself, you start handling more. In his system, it’s broken down a lot more, and a lot more obedience and scenarios first before more complex things like fetch and drive. It reminds me a lot of the Woods’ style – which, like I said, seemed a lot to be based in KW’s methods but more expectation of dog obedience first and use of lines.

And, interestingly, using the Woods’ style seems to have created some holes for me in terms of Rippa and her feeling in control. I was wondering about this but then if I’m 1/2 the training doing it KW style and then switching to the other, that’s got to create holes because one depends on a totally different foundation to start.

And if I’m right about this, I understand why it’s taken me so long to get where I’m at – I thought I was loyal to one method that I know works but in wanting to be open to other ideas and not stubborn in the face of people who clearly know what they’re doing, I might have delayed the first style’s process and created a few problems (none of which I feel are unfixable).

And so, the teacher in me used Bob Vest’s book to make a rubric:

A completely finished  stockdog will have all the components below:

1. Call Off – The dog stops working and goes out of contact (“That’ll Do”)
2. Flanks
1. Come By
2. Way to Me
3. Dog can flank 360 degrees in both directions around handler
4. Dog can run 1.5 x around with both directions around handler
5. Dog can pass inside of handler (inside flank) on both sides
6. Short flanks both directions
7. Regular flanks both directions
8. Wide flanks both directions
3. 3. Walk up
1. Dog can push stock past handler for short distances
2. Dog can do this “around the clock” with handler in fixed position
3. Dog can walk up and hold pressure in a take pen
4. Dog can grip and release pressure in pen
5. Dog can move back (see “back”) in the face of pressure
4. Stop
1. Dog stands
2. Dog lays down
5. Back - Dog backs up or switches direction by taking pressure off
6. Out – Dog gets wider in relation to stock
7. Look Back – dog can leave stock in control and pick up other stock to bring to them
8. Outrun
1. Able to stop at any point in the outrun
2. Able to redirect dog at any point in the outrun
3. Walking up for the lift
9. 9. Fetch
1. Walks up on command to fetch
2. Holds the line to fetch (aka, straight to me, not all over)
3. Self-paces on the fetch (aka, not too much pressure or too little)
4. Stops on the fetch
5. Flanks on the fetch
6. Backs on the fetch
7. Out on the fetch
8. Can make a clean turn around a post
10. Drive
1. Can walk up away from handler balance
2. Holds the line on the drive
3. Paces the drive
4. Stops on the drive
5. Flanks on the drive
6. Backs and outs on the drive
7. Turns around gates

I bolded the ones I feel I have 100% down.  So that’s maybe half, and not in the right order that Bob Vest aligned them into. HOLES! Holes that I TOTALLY KNEW I WAS CHEATING WITH KW’S METHOD but ignored because I was trying to focus on other things. And because it’s not a solid foundation, it’s not going smooth.

At least, that’s the theory. It’s ALWAYS the theory.

AND SO, my new goal is to evaluate where I’m at so I can see measurable (and small) goals to get where I want to be.

Gratitude and we’re trial ready.

I have to start this out by sending some public love. It’s 2015 in a few days and the perfect opportunity to bask in the achievements of the year. For 2014, there were many, and not just in dog stuff, but we’ll stick to that because that is what this blog is for.

I will continue to shout it to the heavens, but we are never solely responsible for our own successes, ever. When I look at where I was last year, and where Rippa and Fury both were, I’m just floored.  And this is not because I’m awesome (in fact, in many ways we’d be even better if I was more awesome), but because people found it in their hearts to take me.

First, to Kathy Warren for recommending me go to Stephanie to rent sheep. Had I not known about her, the rest of this would not have happened.

To my husband, who was a massively supportive champion. He told me to get over my insecurity about contacting Stephanie and try again, his efforts prior to that in finding me land to get sheep, his efforts to find me cattle when I decided it was time, his building the duck pen with me, and his blessing of us financially and time-wise because both have been major sucks when I could have been doing a million other things with both.

To Stephanie (Operation Sheepdog) for being a good friend. Moreover, for trusting me and teaching me to relax about hurting her stock. For her patience when they did get hurt – she’s never yelled or nagged, she’s just simply told me about it and trusted me to take care of it going forward and I am so appreciative of that.

For the million other things she’s done for me from book recommendations on stock handling  to taking time to talk to me about finance, wealth, and utterly changing my mindset about that. It’s not necessarily stockdog stuff, but I think because of her setting me in the right direction, the huz and I will take our unique ability to handle risk and do some incredible things in the future. And I’m also grateful to her for not being disappointed in me buying a house instead of investing it like the plan. A lot of mentors would see that as an apprentice failure, but she’s great specifically with taking you where you are and realizing you have to make your own mistakes and forge your own path (or build your own life because I don’t think the house was a mistake, and I doubt she does either). 

Stephanie also enabled me to stop stressing about stockdog resources because her setup is great, affordable, and a beautiful (if not a bit of a drive) location. Instead of needing land RIGHT now and taking what was good enough, I was able to make other choices that are more right for my husband and I (I’m glad we couldn’t get the house with the land that I at first wanted – I am enjoying my new Los Osos house a lot more).

To Jennifer (Best Family Farm), who again, has been an amazing, loyal friend and to V, her daughter, who is as well. Jennifer supporting my having ducks on her property enabled me to learn so much more about them and make leaps and bounds in handling because of it. It also reminded me how much I love animal husbandry and while I’m not the one that takes primary care of them, it’s a taste of it. The fact that I’m not is also SUCH a big gift on the part of their family. To both Jennifer and V for letting me ride Lady and Maddie, because I haven’t done so in years and that reminded me of that part of me that’s been dormant for years. I LOVE working with the horses and my friends and I especially love riding with the dogs because I feel like I’m fulfilling something in my heart and in the dogs’ hearts about being a part of the west and that experience.  I only hope that in the future I’ll be able to give back to them as much as they are giving to me.

And to Shannon and Dustin (DSW Stockdogs) – I know when I showed up at their place I was nervous and stupid and stressed out because I didn’t want to look like a fool when I showed up. My friend Dom kindly pointed me in their direction and he gets a shout out too. Along with Stephanie and the Bests, they’ve become some of my best friends (I see them way more than any other circle of friends so it seems natural) because it’s not just about dogs or what kind of dog I have or anything. It’s because they're good people, fun, and so hospitable that they’ve opened up their world to me – with patience and smiles and OMG their adorable son (also, I must say that Shannon is a fantastic baker).

I think the Woods have given me back the original reason I’ve gotten into this stuff in the beginning. They’re pretty urban where they live but they’re ranchers, too. Things make sense because they make money doing it, because the relationships are worth it, and because the life they want is there for the taking. There’s no need to prove oneself or get into fights about anything because they’re just doing their thing and they’re good at it. From parenting to stockmanship, to just living – seriously, guys, you’re amazing – and they’re younger than I am. Infinite potential for joy, success, and abundance and you can literally feel it emanating from the trio of them.

As I was driving from sheep to ducks today, this combination of people and their allowing me into their life has me thinking big thoughts – not about winning trials – but about what I want for the future and how to get there, and if you know my huz and I, it’s not a far-fetched dream.

Deep gratitude for you all for sharing your worlds with me this year. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have profited from it on so many levels. Hope this doesn’t embarrass you.

So, now that I’ve gotten the love and sap out of the way, we’ve got about a week until the first trial I’ve entered in something like 7 years (Sunday, Jan 4). Stephanie has been encouraging me to enter sooner, and the Woods are shocked that I think I’m ready – of course, the Woods are used to cattle dog trials where the beginning ranks are still very experienced, in my opinion – close to finished, dogs. I just need to get stock out of a pen and get through two panels and put them back in the pen.

I was stressing it last week because of what COULD happen, and so have been practicing the take pen since I don’t do that a lot. Stephanie, if you will remember last time, told me to chill in there and Rippa would relax. Well, she did. I really liked her advice about not stressing that her take pen was so tight – that means at the trial Rippa will be LESS stressed because it will be a bigger pen. Of course! Another duh moment.

On cattle this week, we basically just ran some practice stuff. Shannon told me to do two things:
1 – I yell my commands like they’re corrections so stop doing that. Give the command like I want to give the command, and THEN verbally correct if I have to.
2 – Make sure I have Rippa’s attention and anticipate trouble before it happens.
Both are duh, but I needed it.

Long story short on #2, there was a discussion on a cattle dog group about the difference between BCs and Aussies and one thing that was pointed out that I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before was that Aussies break contact with the stock for a second and look back at the handler for (or to confirm) commands. I will say not ALL the time, but watching videos of Rippa, sure enough that happens. It made me realize that many times, Rippa’s not blowing me off, she’s just so intent on the stock she’s not hearing me – so I should be patient and figure that’s it.

And I did. The runs went pretty well – a couple things I liked:
- Rippa heeled appropriately again. I wondered where it had gone because she’s a strong heading dog and when she loses control she tends to grab body shots, but I know she heels too. The cattle got balled up in a corner and she had enough control to walk up, look at me for help, and when I told her to hit them, she hit tentatively  - it worked, and then she hit for herself when she needed more and we were out f there. Nice and low on the hock and not getting excited after.
- I lost the cows in one corner because of the draw of the gate. I totally wasn’t THINKING about that and I was like, “DUH! Bad Kristin!” So the second time we pulled a parallel drive to get them through the corner they were drawing away from. I held them at the eye and Rippa pushed the rear. Worked great and reminded me how to handle again.

I left with a pretty solid strategy there for the cows.
I was stressing sheep and ducks, though, because Rippa has power and take pens aren’t always clean.
So my husband wrote on my hand:

And that was the plan today.
Guess what? It worked. We sorted sheep at Stephanie’s in record time, got them into the take pen, and worked on being quiet there first. Rippa, remembering how cool cattle heeling was, would do it to the sheep a bit in the tight spots but really easy. Even if a sheep turned to face her, she would hit it on the poll or nose, but really gentle – HUGE EVIDENCE THAT IF I AM CHILL, RIPPA IS CHILL.

We did a couple laps of her field and went to ducks.
Same thing with ducks. Only a couple issues with Lucky Duck when I worked her back in with everyone (the first tries were with my most happy 3 black ducks) because she’s more tolerant of the dog from being a backyard duck at my house for a while. As long as Lucky isn’t in the draw, no issues (even then, all I need to do is not let Rippa get too much pressure on her and she’ll be easy).

Rippa’s attitude these days is if I will calm down and shut up, she will happily do her job. Over handle or get angry or confuse her and it’s over. She’ll either quit and come suck up to me or she’ll take it out on the stock.

This forces the Kristin to become very zen. WHich is something Kristin should do anyway and is a major life goal for 2015 (to specifically work on that) – it will benefit my dog and the stock, as well as everyone else who deals with me.

Stockdogging for a better life.

Final thought – everyone keeps talking about me wanting to win it. This is something I’m going to guard very carefully for any time I exhibit in the future. I do not want to win. I do not care to win. I care to qualify and I care that my dog makes Aussies look good. That’s why I waited this long to trial and that’s why I’ll wait longer for the cattle trials. My goal here is to show people that Aussies are legitimate stockdogs and not just for hobbists. In ASCA, there’s no money, and often no real trophy, so all the standings and merit in the world doesn’t matter. I need the titles for legitimacy, but even then, working cow-calf pairs in the field works, too. That’s the goal. Eff winning. I will not get into that mindset because then my ego’s stuck and I’ll get stressed out.

No. My goal is to make my dog’s heritage proud.
I’ll write again after the trial. See ya!

Duck Husbandry and Philosophy

I have ALWAYS loved taking care of animals. I’m not sure what it is about me, but people feel hardwired to be a certain way, and my way is – without a shred of doubt – super agrarian, and moreover, shepherdy, not farmy.

I  do garden, but I don’t spend a lot of time REALLY caring about the garden. I water, I weed, I see what comes up, I work slowly to get better at it, but I’m not 100% there.

But animals? Yes, I am. Growing up we didn’t have 4-H or anything like that, but had we? I’d have filled my backyard with all the things I have now and moreso. Mom, can I have a goat? PLEASE? PLEASE? PLEASE? I kind of feel like that now, but with a balance of wanting freedom to leave and go on adventures without being saddled to the animals.

Shannon and Dustin (along with meeting Brad and Alana Holstein) are showing me I can have my animals and my freedom and not necessarily live on a ranch to do it. Both of this couples manage land and stock off their own property and despite everyone telling me it couldn’t be done around here, it is. It’s all a very good education and whether it comes to fruition or not, I am working quietly on learning how to “farm out” livestock for fun and profit. Funny how I went to school for this and yet the animal science classes taught me nothing and made me feel like it was hopeless. School, clearly, isn’t the best avenue for all things you want in life, right?

One of the first steps to this was getting the never to ask my good friend Jennifer if she’d be up for housing my ducks on her property. I don’t go out every day, so I’m definitely adding to her chore list. She gets duck eggs out of the deal, but it’s not 100% a fair trade, though I suspect her motivations are much like mine, and I think the whole family appreciates them, too.

So I’m not taking care of them day in and day out, though I feed them and whatever when I do visit (I try for at least once a week, but lately with work and guests it’s been hard), but they’re still a good learning opportunity for me.

When I first got them, I really didn’t know if or when to work them, and they would get really stuck in the house and not want to leave. Kathy told me to feed them in the field and put a pool out there, which I did and it helped.

Since then, I guess I spend a lot more time wondering how to get the most out of them – and sitting in the field just watching them do their thing is about as good as praying or meditation has ever been for me. It’s as good as sitting on the top of a mountain with a friend after a big climb (I’m into rock climbing). But it’s effortless. The choice to sit in a field with ducks in the morning is a stronger draw than anything else in my life right now.

So, as I sat there letting the duckies play in their mid-field pool with Rippa on a downstay for a half hour or so to make sure they ENJOYED being outside their pen before we moved them, I got to thinking.

If I ever give lessons, I’m going to force people to spend time with the stock themselves. I feel like all this time working on my own has made be understand them better and empathize with them. Having my own ducks makes me understand their motivations and how to move them (sometimes just removing pressure is all you need), and also what they want out of life aside from not getting trampled by dogs. Some of the more valuable stockmanship I got from Kathy was her asking me to feed her animals when she was gone and moving around in there just interacting with them. Moreso with Stephanie’s sheep when I have to sort my own – I learn personalities, motivations, and reactions.

The more you work with an animal the more it becomes part of the equation for you. It’s not just about you and the dog, it’s about the lives that come between you in the moment. Their fears and hopes and what you can do to entice them. A good quiet work helps them achieve their own goals (of not getting eaten, left behind, or starving) just as it can your own.

(Here, the ducks want back in their home and away from the squeeze job of both me and Rippa. I’m PSYCHIC.)

The longer I do this, the less I want to be a part of the “dog” culture and more I want to be just in the fields tending my animals. Everybody gets into stockdogs for their own reasons – but I’m pretty sure I know why I’m here, and it has nothing to do with the breed or my ego or the dog club or the people – but just because I like finding ways of interacting with the animals under my charge and getting better and better at that. I loved conformation, I loved agility, and I loved training in general, but not enough to spend time doing it every day, taking lessons, spending money. But here, I do, and I think it’s because there’s something inside of me that wants to be around as much life as possible – and the kind of life that relies on human care.

Here’s a little video of us working them prior to the trial coming up. I’m working on being quiet and calm to model it for Rippa. You’ll hear me sucking in periodically – it’s a weird little tic I got from training long ago that warns a dog they are on thin ice: and it works. And it looks real quiet to the casual observer.

Oh, and PS, the Fury is doing awesome. It’s hard to keep her quiet, but she’s using her leg to walk around and only pulls it up if she’s moving fast (she’s not supposed to, but . . . she’s Fury sometimes you can’t stop it in time).

Here’s my almost-12-year-old dog, a little less than two weeks post traumatic orthopedic surgery . . . on my flipping desk. NOT OKAY. Back in the ex pen she goes. But, it’s funny, you have to admit.

Trial Entered, goals to work on.

Last time I considered entering a trial, the thought of it made me a little sick, to be honest. This time, I’m reasonably sure I’ll qualify, and I might actually do well. January 4th – so long as I get in. Sheep, ducks, and cattle. And, I’m even entering the Fury. That latter idea might be a bad one, but she’s pretty good – Rippa is better, and why not? Nobody’s going to kill stock, and I can come out of it with more experience and some titles for both dogs.

So now I have have to work on some things that I haven’t: take pens. The course is basically – collect your stock from a pen on one side of the arena, collect the stock wherever they end up once they do that, walk the dogs through panels on opposite corners, and put them back.

I can totally do this with both dogs. But not well, not 100%.

We don’t have taken pens to practice with except with ducks. With ducks, I have it dialed. I went to look at Stephanie’s set ups today while both dogs waited and I basically have a choice of an 8 x 8 panel free standing pen, that weird collection pen with a corner in it, or some big pens that are not “take pens.” I decided to go with the 8 x8 pen, so today was about center pens for both dogs and then taking them out.

Normally, I just have them go on the opposite side of the pen and it goes nicely. But with take pens, the dog is supposed to go in there. That is a very tight space for dogs, me, and sheep.

Kathy trains take pens by having the dog go in on a long line and learning to circle and stop opposite the gate on your command. It’s too small for a long line and I debate using a leash with Fury because she is just so amped that she is good and then if the sheep look at her, she starts heeling and not thinking.

I tried a couple things like having her circle outside the pen to work off the stress, but really, I think I just need the Fury to work on impulse control a bit. I had her grazing chickens the other day and she was whiny and vibrating the whole time with desire to do more than sit there – Rippa, however, has been working a lot more and more often and she’s getting more patient about stuff.

That’s the other goal- work on both of their impulse control and command taking.

I’ve stopped working on Rippa’s drive since the duck quitting and we’re just going back to basic fetches, fixing outruns, and working on finite handling understandings. It’s really fun to watch her work stuff out without me saying much – though she still gets excited and starts getting pushy and I have to correct her.

When I trial, I have to think of it as more a training session than anything else or I have the potential to go backward from what I have got. Rippa made her practice run quite nicely, but she would get excited and push too hard and had to clean things up. Fury is always excited and pushing hard but my strategy with her is to just down her way off her stock because she’s so intense, her control is from very far away. The closer she gets to me, the more intense she gets. That’s bad for the take pen. But we’ll get it sorted.

I’m also working on introducing whistles. Right now it’s just “down.” I whistle, then yell down. Both are getting it, but I think they believe it means more “HEY PAY ATTENTION!” right now.

But that works. It’s sparkly.

And finally, just as I was finishing up the last outrun with the Fury, she comes up lame and won’t walk on her left rear leg. Noooooooooooo.

I’m super sensitive to the fact that she’s almost 12 and that knee injuries can be kind of common and lay a dog up so I have been very careful with how she plays with Rippa and does other stuff to watch this. She was coming in too hard to stop a runaway sheep and the ground at Stephanie’s is pretty rocky, so she probably came down wrong. I’m hoping she just tweaked it, but she’s hopping around right now and I’m worried. I’ll give it a day or two and if there’s no improvement, to the vet I go. I keep poking on it and looking for pain reaction but she’s not giving me much so I’m hoping it’s just a tweak – we all tend to do that. And now she’s banished to the down palace in our bedroom. Tough dog life.

Warts and all

I started this blog mostly for me – I wanted a way to track my ups and downs and remember my thoughts. I’m a huge fan of journaling for this reason because for me – how far I’ve come never seems far enough until I look back. But there are always bumps in the road.

We’ve kind of hit one.

The last month or so, Rippa has totally quit me. Not, “Hey, I am leaving the arena” but more of a sulky, “Please, I don’t know what you want, I don’t know how to do that” reaction with some hopping up on me, following me around, and generally not taking direction at all, even simple things like ‘get around’ to start an outrun.

It was really scary. To go from bragging on how we’ll we’re improving and being ready to trial to having a dog act like she has no will to do it, no talent, no instinct, what?

At first I blamed it on her heat, because that’s an easy out, but I doubted it was really the issue. Last time I was on ducks, we did our usual chores, took them out of the take pen, started doing some obstacles and after trying to get them through a center chute – Rippa just quit trying.

And I really don’t know what to do in that scenario. Stockdog people say don’t let them get away with that, so I tried to force it. It didn’t work. Then I tried running around moving the stock like I was getting a puppy excited about it. Nope. I put her up, put Fury to work, made her jealous, but when I started up again, nope. I worked them together and that went okay, but it’s really hard to work dogs on ducks. They can’t take pressure or they quit and then the dogs aren’t finnessy enough to figure out the team work thing where rougher work will work with cattle etc.

I wrote to Kathy Warren, who told me Rippa’s always been a little weird about pressure and to just go back to chores (but make sure they’re done nicely) and fun stuff. I talked to Pat Lambeth, whining about how I’d never seen such a complete transformation. Pat asked me if I had done anything really different lately.

I had! A month ago, Dustin had me do obstacles with Rippa. Up to this point, I do them occasionally, but it’s mostly just ground work. We had no issues with that on cattle, but he also added some extra mechanical stuff – he put her on a line to try to make her rate herself faster than she was doing naturally (she gets pretty excited on stock on the first go), and the pop he gave her scared the crap out of her – so much so that she quit trying on cattle and just drifted behind them until we put her up.

With ducks, we’ve been working obstacles ever since. She likes the take pen – she gets that, but center chute? I lose them! Not only does she think she loses them, she does. When they see the back fence where home is, no amount of dog pressure is going to have my duckies come off the fence – they want to go home. Obstacles came to mean futility. Never mind trying to get them off the fence when they were tired. So Rippa quit. I would pick the ducks up and reset them in the middle and that probably wasn’t a great move either because she was probably waiting for me to move them since she felt she couldn’t.

By the way, she can, with patience. Fury’s able to do it, though Fury has a lot more power and eye than Rippa. You have to work the dog you have, not the one you want.

Anyway, I almost canceled my Wednesday night session with the Woods but Shannon thought she could help me through it and I tend to agree. So what’d they do – put us on baby goats. That was a new one.  I thought, at first, that the goats needed space, but what they needed was super tight pressure to get the kids moving. Rippa LOVED that. She had to gently heel their little hinds to get them to move and she had a real hard time getting them off the fence, but between the noises and the biting and the total novelty of it – she was on again!

We moved on to their new goats – that’s something I love about going there, they change out stock ALL the time. I don’t think I’ve worked the same set of stock more than a handful of times that I’ve been there.  It went well. No issues. Was she fixed?

I asked the husband to come along with me today to work ducks and she did it again. We got going, she got the ducks out of the take pen and parked, but when they drifted back to the draw of the pen, she gave up.

“What’d I do?” I asked him.

”Nothing, but damn, yeah, she really quit!”

I had him call her in and send out Fury. I worked the ducks back and forth with Rippa in plain sight while Fury did fun things like outruns and fetching until Rippa was quivvering. Then I let them both work the ducks. Again, this isn’t something I’d do with other people’s animals, as two dogs at once is kind of rough on the ducks. The dogs don’t bite them or anything, but sometimes they’ll end up on top of them or in between them and it’s not pretty, but it gets Rippa excited and moving. I was pretty impressed with how both dogs took my commands so well together.

After a minute or so of that (it was hot), I had huz call Fury off and Rippa was game to play again, fetching all over the arena. I didn’t try anything fancy, just wanted to keep her motivated and happy. We quit quickly and all was good.

So . . . it looks like I need to build some confidence back up. I was working on so many new things – perfect distance outruns, flanks, driving, obstacles, adding stuff like a line, etc and Rippa is so situational that she doesn’t take it easily. She needs to understand what the thing is fully to do it with full commitment.

I don’t love that about her – it makes her slower to train to be effective, but I think it’s fine. She’s reliable on the chickens at home and she’s great at bringing stock off the hills or to get sorted because she understands it. If she were a little ranch dog, she’d get the game easily and that’s all I’d need. She might take extra work to be a precise trial dog, but that’s not the goal here anyway. I want dogs I can get in ranch homes that can go to work with minimal formal training  - so far so good there.

Where did this come from? Fury’s not remotely like Rippa in this way. In fact, Dustin put Fury on his goats with the husband attempting to handle (he’s pretty clueless, as you’ll see). Fury doesn’t quit if she doesn’t understand – she just goes harder. I talked to a number of people who have Rippa’s relatives and I guess it’s a pretty consistent thing. The dog I linebred on (it looks like Spike – Andrew’s Red Chickaspike) seems to have a fairly reliable incidence of dogs who would get sulky if they didn’t get something right away and need a confidence build up. To be clear, I’m not blaming Spike, nor saying all his relatives are like that, but it seems like that side of the line has it in there.

So, good to know. If I breed Rippa, it needs to be a super confident dog to improve that.

Anyway, so some more work to go, but we’re not ruined yet!

And bonus: here’s the video of 11.5 year old Fury working goats:

Oh! And the ducks are now laying! Green eggs:

It’s inspiring me to make things like this epic French Toast I had for breakfast:

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.

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.

An Interlude: What Should I Be Looking For in My Dog?

A lot of people have started to ask if I’m going to be breeding Rippa. Enough, actually, that I was spurred on to do her genetic testing earlier this year (all clear). But I do not have plans, per se, to breed her yet. I need to find the right matches for my goals and know that I have enough homes for my puppies. Rippa, like her mother, is not a great fit for everyone. My line is what I’d call “Advanced Aussie Home Only.” They have quirks, they need management, and they need someone who is going to use them. A couple of Rippa’s siblings ended up as purely companion dogs, but both of those dogs were the lowest-drive and lowest-energy in the lot. One the males we almost kept because he was just so sweet and cute but he was also the slowest and less drivey of the whole pack. Not my speed. Rippa was mid-ground, along with her red bi brother.

Rippa, I’d say, was a success of my breeding program. She has turned into everything I’d hoped to get out of my breeding Fury to her sire, Ben. But having two dogs in contrast, and the opportunity to work them both as adults puts it into a real perspective for me – more than I see from watching other people’s dogs perform in trials at different stages of their training. In fact, both dogs are about at the same level of training at this point and it’s interesting to see what I need to work with on both of them.

Something happened a few weeks back at the Woods that actually shook my confidence a little more than I should admit. They had a puppy buyer in who was dropping his dog off for training for the next few months and he was watching me work Rippa and offering observations. I think I’ve said before that I don’t do well with unsolicited advice.  There is this amazing article that articulates it, though I think few people don’t identify with that feeling of loss of control I get. I just don’t handle it well when I don’t know if I should be taking someone’s criticism or ignoring it. And generally, that’s all the time because I recognize the merit of everyone’s opinion.

One of the things he happened to say was when the Woods encouraged me to put Fury, who happened to be with me, on the goats and sheep. Fury’s style is much more “border collie-esque” – she shows a lot more eye, moves very snappy: sharp corners, quick response. She looks really, really good. He points out that he likes Fury a LOT more than Rippa because she “watches her stock.” Rippa’s a classic working Aussie – looser eye, less responsive. She’s also less intense than Fury – Fury works on instinct more than Rippa does. To a border collie guy, I get why Fury looks better.

But I was seriously thinking, “Am I wrong, is Rippa really not that great a stockdog compared to Fury?” As I said, I’ve had the opinion that I did a really good job in my matchmaking for the litter with my goals and that she was a better dog than her mother.

So, I actually sat down and started an audit process so that I wouldn’t let the outside opinion of watching a dog work for five minutes influence me that much.

I thought I’d share with you what I discovered.

My main source of information came from the Working Aussie Source Stockdog Library. Kay Spencer’s put together some of the best articles out there on stockmanship, puppies, etc. I stuck mainly to the cattle articles, reading everything pertinent and taking down notes. Cattle because that’s what I want my dogs’ strength to be – I want to be breeding cattle dogs. That’s what the demand is for and that is what they’ve been bred to do for generations. Asking them to be fine duck dogs is lovely, but the glory for Tara Aussies is in the cows.

So what is it I should be evaluating?

Let’s start with what I’d consider rule #1 – the less training a dog needs to get to the goal, the better a dog you have. As one article puts it, you could be training a poodle and they’re very trainable, but you’ll always have to be telling the poodle what to do. The end-all and be-all of a good stockdog (and a great strength of the Aussie) is that the dog should be able to figure out the job with minimal instruction and get it done with minimal help. Kathy Warren always described it as you at one end of the arena with your feet kicked up, drinking a margarita under the shade of an umbrella, while the dog gets it done.

Between Fury and Rippa, who is easier to train? Fury is more responsive – she’ll keep offering behaviors and doesn’t quit and stays happy, but she also doesn’t really “get the full exercise” at times and you have to fill holes in. Rippa takes a long time to “get it” and while she is “getting it,” she seems pretty morose about the whole idea, but when it clicks, she’s consistent and a happy worker. Fury responds instantly, while Rippa is slow, but that’s more because I think Rippa is concentrated on the job compared to Fury. I think if you weren’t a real “dog person” you’d give the points to Fury and probably get rid of Rippa if you wanted instant gratification, but I see merit in both. I’d like to take Rippa’s slow but complete knowledge mixed back in with a little more enthusiasm like Fury’s, but I’d say both are different, but good.

And what components beyond that trainability?

There’s generally two other I see in various writings:

• Desire
• Instinct

Both dogs have intense desire. Fury made it through many years of just terrible training by me and still wants to keep going. She both wants to help me and move animals and it’s great. She wants to do both so much more than protect her ego that we did better than I think we could have with a dog like Rippa. Rippa, again, classic Aussie, does not put up with BS for very long. She’s a great second dog (and probably a great first dog for someone with a mentor) because she works very happily and intensely as long as things are going well. If you’re putting too much pressure on her or she doesn’t like the exercise, she’ll quit. But if you’re not messing the picture up too much, she’s there all the way. Again, both of those things have merit in both dogs. I respect them both for their reactions so I don’t really want to call that one.

Bottom line: both dogs will work through pretty much anything. Neither quits when they get kicked or get yelled at for being bad. Very little is going to stop them from trying to work. Having worked with dogs where very little pressure stops the dog, I am quite happy with what I have and would be happy to pass it on.

So that leaves instinct – in which there are many different parts. Here’s what I’ve kind of come up with as things to look at, ordered according to most important to me to least:

1. Responsiveness to livestock (aka, can they read the different stock and adapt)
2. Bravery
3. Desire to dominate stock, not chase
4. Grouping
5. Rating or pacing self and stock
6. Heading
7. Heeling
8. Barking

Responsiveness to livestock:

I feel like this basically is the lead and everything else in the list follows. As a human, understanding the components of this needs to come with general stock sense – either being raised with herd animals and gaining it inherently or studying it through clinics, books, and observation. Examples of this include understanding what the flight zone is, how to manipulate it, where pressure can be removed and applied on an animal and how it affects it. Stuff like what I learned at Betty Williams’ clinic applies, too.  Just how much does your livestock see compared to what you do – is the cow really fighting the dog or just looking at it. Is the dog too tight in to affect the cow effectively or is she just surprising them? Does being really aggressive serve the dog and cow in efficient moving? Does the DOG understand these things – that is the point. And how early in the training does the dog understand it?

A good illustration of this is an early memory of when Fury was just six months old and I was walking her on the dairy part of my grad school’s campus. My previous dog had zero working instinct so what I’m describing needs to be taken into account. Fury, who was adorable and happy – and harmless- walks up to a friendly Jersey cow that I had been petting. The cow puts her nose down to look at fuzzy Fury and . . . Fury hits her on the nose. The cow and I are surprised but then I’m instantly like, “Oh yeah, that’s why I got this dog in the first place.” Fury wasn’t being aggressive prior to the cow, but feeling the pressure of the cow’s nose on her first encounter with a bovine, she nipped it. Now, after several exposures over the years, the same situation can play out and she doesn’t nip initially. She understands that it’s not needed if the pressure’s not on.

I don’t think you can really evaluate this subjectively when you’re in a situation like mine where you get limited and sporadic exposures to livestock. A dog growing up on a ranch with animals you’re moving might figure stuff out pretty dang fast, but a dog taking a lesson a week on sheep and then seeing cattle once a year . . . if the dog just instantly “gets it” – that dog is amazing. But they have got to be pretty few and far between.

I’d love to know if there ever were such “born” cowdogs raised in the above scenario. I watched a lot of dogs at Betty Williams’ clinic struggle because they lived in an urban environment. I see the same thing happening with Rippa. I’d had a year off from working altogether and Rippa just couldn’t get the “fetch” concept down, though she did get the “move cattle” concept. She gets “fetch” fine now because we’ve been working on it.

But then, how do you explain my childhood border collie/old English Sheepdog mix who famously pushed a neighbor’s cow back in the barn when she had never worked a day in her life and they had recently moved to a ranch in Kentucky. Perhaps she just was chasing the cow and the cow headed for the safety of the barn where she winters or gets fed or something?

I don’t know. I don’t have the experience to know.

I also think this encompasses the stuff like how far out the dog needs to be, how the dog turns and watches heads, etc. But all that should theoretically come with a dog managing the livestock effectively.

Bravery

Bravery isn’t bite and bluster. Bravery is standing in front of something scary and having the guts to hold it inside and regard the situation calmly. Bravery is the ability to take control of a situation despite losing propositions. Bravery is backing up the bark.

I think I told you last time that I don’t regard Rippa as the bravest dog – she takes her time in deciding whether to go headlong into a situation after observation and reward. That’s also a nice quality to have that allows her, after getting kicked, to calm down and start thinking instead of let instinct and rage the the most of her and over correcting, or fear and pain and giving up. Fury is brave, but she doesn’t have the same kind of control on her emotions that Rippa does on stock (or in general). Fury goes FULL OUT and ALL IN, but in many foolhardy ways that have left her fairly toothless in her old age.

But I also don’t think Rippa has 100% confidence or she wouldn’t take as many cheap shots on stock when I have my back turned. I always wondered why, but when I think about it in context of Fury’s ALL OUT ALL IN, that makes sense. Fury doesn’t have 100% confidence and acts before she needs to. It just manifests differently.

This is a weakness I need to fix if I produce another generation of dogs.

Desire to Dominate, Not Chase

This is an interesting component I read about as a defining thing to characterize. The difference between domination and chasing, to me, is pretty clear when I look at dogs I’ve worked with very little real instinct and dogs with lots. A dog with very little generally tends to bounce around a lot, they look like they are having fun. There’s not a lot of wheels turning, they’re just seeing animals move and having a good time with it.

That’s totally what this rabbit is doing in this video:

A dog really trying to DO something with stock is WATCHING it and making choices based on that. It’s trying to dominate the stock and control it, not instinctually just run it down and . . . lick its butt or kill it.

A sure sign of  a dog doing that is a dog that watches his stock intently, usually looking for the eye, seeing what they do, and then turning the other direction.

I was sitting there trying to think of a pure viewing of this since most well trained dogs can look like they’re doing it, and then I thought, hey, I have a video of the first time I put Rippa on livestock . . . and I watched it, and there it is:

It took a while for Rippa to want to fully engage with them, but look what she does when she does: she spends the first minute or so in classic Rippa fashion watching and observing and holding back, but when she does make a move, at 1:38, she picks a group, goes out around them and brings them back to the next group and at 1:45, instead of chasing them, she goes to head (and I try to kick her back because back then I didn’t really know how to start a puppy. I think I get that better now. Should just let her circle and reinforce her staying out).

At a couple weeks old – she’s DOMINATING, not chasing. Gold stars, Rippa bear.

Grouping

This is evident in the above video, too. The dog shouldn’t want to dominate a single animal, but  a group. It should be harder for us to train them to shed out a sheep or cow or two out of a herd than to get them to keep them together. Having a herd splattered all over is useless.

I’d say Fury is weaker here for sure. She regularly drops off an animal or two in the pursuit of getting the task done and ignores them and has to be sent back. Rippa is the opposite – it’s hard for her to ignore other animals that could be part of the flock. You don’t have to tell her to look back, she knows and does not like it. So, I like that.

Rating or pacing self on stock

I think you can lose a lot of the natural instinct here to bad handling. Fury always worked out further and balanced up naturally until I stopped holding up my end of the bargain and now she has a hard time dealing with that aspect of things, though I have to say, after only a couple times out on ducks and sheep, Fury’s doing a pretty good job of letting that instinct come back out and staying off them when they don’t need it.

Rippa can be very, very good at this, too, but I don’t see it coming naturally on the ducks or sheep unless I’m watching her. As I said, I think that’s more about her confidence/bravery than it is her ability to do it. In the video of her on cattle I’m going to post at the end of this entry, when she gets corrected by a cow via a kick, she paces herself pretty well to what’s really needed and doesn’t need me to babysit her.

I do also see her pacing herself with our backyard chickens pretty well. I think it has more to do with my timing and my handling than it does her skill set, but she’s a pretty classic pushy Aussie.

So that’s another thing I’d like to work on in the next generation – a dog that does a better job of self-rating him/herself on stock. That’s actually a big reason I chose her sire – his videos show him doing that as a consistent feature of his working style compared to Fury’s intensity.

Heading

Despite a start where Rippa lacked the confidence to head, she sure isn’t lacking it now. I generally can’t see where she’s aiming and if it’s a clean poll or nose shot, but it’s effective. She has the power to do it. She also has restraints – she’s not an alligator that’s just going in for chomps at every opportunity, so, so far I’m happy.

Heeling

Rippa heeled a lot when we first tried her on stock, but she really hasn’t needed it since other exposures so I’m not sure I’ve seen her do it as a mature adult, at least, not on cattle. When I’ve done pen work with her with sheep, she’s used it (and I’m always impressed at how judicious she is with it – she’ll try feinting and little, light bites before going for a full grip).  It’s in there, I’m not stressing it. I’m not sure how fancy and low it is, though. Both dogs tend to grip higher when I’ve seen them do it, compared to the spot you really want them to. It’s safer to hit the right spot but if it gets the job done and no one dies, I’m good with it – which is why it’s lower down the list.

Barking

Barking’s really interesting. People really hate it in a dog – you want a quiet worker. But that’s really situational. In an open field where you can see a dog and they have lots of room to move, barking’s not optimal. But in brush or tight quarters, you can both find the dog by hearing the barking and the dog can get things done without having to come in contact with the livestock.

Fury never had a ton of exposure to cattle so she was a pretty big barker – she’d punctuate every turn of the head with a bark. Kathy told me once it was partly her backing up her threat since she was so small, and I get that. Come at them like a ball of . . . Fury, and they won’t challenge the tiny dog.

Rippa is doing that barking, but when she starts rating herself, she quiets down, so I think she’ll be a judicious barker as she gets more experience.

So, all in all, I think I’ve identified the spots I need to work on from a objective perspective and satisfied myself in that my dog is pretty spot on for what I want to see in a dog.

I think it’s still way too early to tell how great she is, though, since she’s only been on super gentle stock. We’ll come back to all of this again when we’ve done rank, non-dog broke stock or worked cow/calf pairs. And that will come with time, too.  I’d say I think the foundation is good, at least.

And so here’s the video of Rippa’s second cattle work this week – I have all four works I had (goats and sheep included) in the YouTube link, but since I doubt you’re watching for my handling mistakes, I figure I’ll show you the final work when we’ve been fixing a couple things the first works.

Couple thoughts from this video:

• Rippa’s actually making really good arcs around the cattle. Bigger than I thought. Definitely time to start seeing if I can get that from further away.
• This goes double for the times we do an outrun and I’m too close to the cattle for them to come off the fence – which is dangerous. I need to watch my stock, too and not worry too much about the dog because she’s being fine.
• I like how far out Rippa starts – one thing I’m sensitive to is something Betty talked about – where the cattle just can’t see the dog so they should be a little wide instead of right up along the cow when they come around. The cattle have time to see her coming. Rippa will slow down and stop running ragged when she “gets it” but in the meantime, I like her go juice. Better more than needed than not enough.
• I need to lay off commands like “Steady” because I can’t even see to reinforce them and she’s busy trying to figure out what to do with the cows since she can’t see them. It feels like it’s all going too fast from my perspective, but she’s not doing a bad job of working them – they aren’t running or showing signs of panic so more confidence from me is probably useful.
• I’m handling a lot. I think I need to watch less of my dog and more of my cows.

See a theme here? I think I need to work on me more. Which is why I made these videos.