Head bobbles and border collies

I posted yesterday about my getting stuck with Rippa quitting me and it being because I am running the cows off and wanting to try the border collies so I stop trying to “Train” Rippa and just work on my handling.

It worked.

Shannon gave me Cat to work – her finished trialing dog. Right away my expectations were different than I expected: I figured Cat would do a lot of the work herself and automatically just fetch them to me wherever I went, but nope.

1. Cat is loyal. She had a hard time taking commands from me until she decided I was cool (I mean, she likes me, but not like as a working partner). I figured that was a defining feature of BCs – they work for anybody.

2. Aussie people always say that BCs work for themselves, but Cat was really mechanical with me. She didn’t want to do anything I didn’t ask her to do and when she wasn’t sure, she’d find a spot to hold them and wait.

I just didn’t expect that.

She’s a slow working dog with a lot of eye, and while I was expecting to have to do more handling while she held her end of the deal, this was more than perfect for me. I saw right away where normally I’d walk a fenceline ahead of the dog, it wasn’t going to go with these cows, I’d need a parallel drive.

At one point, Catty was fetching them to me and this one cow on the left would pop out a bit, and Catty would look at it, and it would pop back in, but MY pressure would pop it back out. It was slow and super subtle but I GOT it.

So, once we did a few rounds of that, I put Rippa out there and sure enough, got way more out of her than I have in a while. We were doing fancy obstacles and penning like champions and I went from feeling like I had a long way to go to be ready to trial again to being like, “Nah, we got this.”

Why?

Shannon said that I started the lesson with more authority than usual (maybe the confidence of my end of the cattle was that) and that I might just have to be laying down the law more because Rippa responds to it and it will probably make her crsiper.

That and at no point did Rippa feel like she was losing control of the cattle. Her drive was really quiet and thinky as long as I held my end of it with a parallel drive and helped her out with some commands to let her know what I wanted. Shannon said that one way to help her would be to have her “lose them” in my direction if at all possible because then I’d have it covered. But that’s the key, I have to have it covered.

Lots of nice things today – she kept herself calm and worked her stock, she lost one and got it without overly fixating on trying to yahoo it, and she pulled her punches and stayed back, watching stragglers, instead of running to head to hit something.

It was kinda awesome. I care a little too much about all this stuff, I know, but when it goes, it goes and I am proud of the little brown dog today. And me. I’m going to keep handling other dogs to feel those cows and those dogs and it will help Rippy bear out.

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.

You get the dog you need.

So, it’s been two weeks post trial. I’m in the massive swing of things with work and responsibilities, and I THOUGHT the dogs would like a day off, but they seem to be more anxious to get outside and get ticks and fleas and take my time than usual. ;D

I put Rippa back on cattle a week after, and this week, it was the trifecta. She’s still pretty shut down on cows . . . will go do an outrun and just go to head to get some hits in, gets them going along the fence, but then gets pouty. I want to be frustrated with her for not trying so hard all the time like her mother, but the fact is this: Rippa is the dog I need right now.

Why is Rippa pissy? Because at the trial, she gave me 12 straight works of me giving her all kinds of commands without blowing me off too much and she’s fried. Rippa did not understand what I wanted by the end and now she’s in her learning phase thing she does where everything slows down while she figures it out.

Why do I know this and it’s not an excuse? Two things: She won’t work WITHOUT me giving her commands. She’ll take a step, look back and wait. But she doesn’t work very happily, so what I’ve started doing is dead silence works where the only thing I can do is grunt and use my stick. By the end of the second session I had my dog mostly back because she felt like she had her job back and could think for herself again.

And you know, the biggest things I need to work on at this point are that: quiet and consistent commands and letting my dog work. Rippa is asking for it and I’ll give it to her.

The Fury has a different set of tools from Rippa, and one of those was her consistent willingness to try hard even when I messed up. If she hadn’t been like that, I wouldn’t have kept on going with this stockdog stuff. I’d have messed her up and probably quit. The fact that I’m still working her at 12 and able to see the difference between us before and now . . . what a gift!

But now I need a dog that won’t try that hard when I mess up, because it will make me a better handler and trainer in the long run. Of course, we all want perfect dogs that have talent and try and never give up, but we don’t all NEED that in every dog.

I know a lot of people don’t want a dog to think for itself, but that’s what her generations of breeding have wanted – one that will work stuff out on her own. The trial I wouldn’t/couldn’t let her do that and so she was super cool and let me force her into stuff. But too much of it and she’s throwing her paws up like WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, REALLY?

I still think she’ll be a nice little trial dog when she gets “the point” but I’m still going to work on foundation stuff instead. She won’t need as many commands from me if she understands the basic job better and better.

She was great on sheep and ducks, but Stephanie’s sheep are all bred so I think we’re out for a few months on that. Shannon and Dustin were thinking that I’d either have to drop cattle and work JUST sheep in order to qualify since we’re working on building confident power on cattle, but she’s a pretty nice dog when she gets it so I don’t think I’ll need to. Will I have to ratchet her down HARD at trials? Probably. She’s a cow dog. She has a lot of presence and power.

Dana Mackenzie’s been posting all the old photos of Rippa’s heritage, and this one about Judd’s Chickasaw Dan (that Rippa’s line bred on – remember me posting about calling the Judd’s about the shut down and how he’d do that on ducks and sheep?) just got me:

”I know Dan was an older dog when he started training and trialing. I saw him run with Joey in Arkansas in one of his early trials. He was a very strong dog, had aussie eye and some natural distance off of his stock. He was working freely in this trial and I got to see his ability. Later on Joey had so much obedience on him it was hard to see, but I suspect he needed it. Dan was a hard, tough dog, and excellent sire of good cattle dogs.” (Emphasis mine.)

Yeah, I think Rippa will need a lot of obedience on her for the wee animals, and for the same reasons. Plus, I like knowing that he started trialing/training when he was older, too.

So yeah, just going to poke around a bit for the next few months while I get my work done. I think my goal of WTCh by 2016 is still pretty doable, so long as I figure out the balance for my dog. I’m looking forward to the next generation and seeing what it’s like training a dog start to finish with no breaks with so much more knowledge than I had to start with her.

The next trial on the docket is April 4th weekend’s 4Cent Ranch cattle trial, but with how work is going, and how Rippa’s pissed about commands, I think I’m going to sit it out. The Woods have invited me to their ranch in April to do cattle chores, and that’s the right step in the Education of Kristin for me – getting to both apply my stockmanship and see how dogs are really used with more than a few head of cows, I think. Better to do that, than worry about trials.

Post Trial #2: Holy cow, they really are just dogs!

Spoiler alert: day 1 loot

Okay . . . so hopefully this blog hasn’t been TOO whiny for a while now, but the long and the short of it was that trialing stressed me out for a number of reasons, some of which I didn’t really understand until recently. When I entered the CVASC trial, it was because I’d given some real thought to why I wasn’t successful last trial and my friends (like Carol and Pat) were telling me I just needed mileage and to get good at trialing as that takes practice, too. I was a little mad that there was this whole other element to it that I hadn’t factored in, but time, experience trying other approaches with my dogs, and my husband’s encouragement to fork over big cash and miss the first weekend of construction on my new climbing gym meant something to me.

And so, I entered Rippa in all four trials this weekend, on all three types of stock. I got an email on Wednesday that there were spots open, so I entered The Fury in ducks. I was tempted to do sheep, too, but I haven’t put her back on them since her surgery and figured let’s wait until she’s better conditioned to try trialing. (Good call, she definitely seemed a little lame by the end of the trial and it wasn’t anything more physical than she’s been doing lately.) I also sent the notice to Shannon, and they decided to come out on Sunday to support me (2.5 hour drive one way support!) and enter their two year-old pups on cattle (they were tempted to do everything, but they were worried they’d get DQ’d for biting as they don’t work to make them not bite stock – that’s what people want from their dogs).

So, up and at them at 4:30 am, we were on the road and the dogs were annoyed. I promised them they’d like it.

We showed up and I was instantly very happy to be there. It was a laid-back atmosphere with people being nothing but supportive. Sherry Baker saw me and was like, “Wow! You pop up in the most random places!” I’d never really thought about it, but she’s right – I think she only sees me at Aussie nationals usually (sitting somewhere around her or sorting stock) and I took a lesson once when I was up her way with The Fury . . . and periodically think I’ll board a dog or two with her on extended trips to get boarding AND training, but it always falls through. We’ll get to it in a minute, but I’m easily intimidated by people like her because I know who she is and her rep and very much admire what she’s doing, but I’ve never had so much as a conversation with her – I was honestly shocked she knew who I was. That first little “hi” set me completely at ease at this trial and that was so cool. The little things, I tell you.

This trial they wanted to move fast and had two rings going at once: cattle, and ducks and sheep. Being in started in everything meant that I was constantly trying to remember who I was going up after, much less what the course was (course D for sheep, which was seriously like an agility course to me – I said something like that and Sherry was like, “It’s not agility! It’s pasture gates!” Yeah, well, at least they have clear fencelines for me to figure out where to go if they’re pasture gates.)  Both times I DQd on sheep? It’s partly to do with me getting turned around with which made me lose focus/confidence and then set up bad stuff for Rippa (who then would go too hard, chase a sheep, and make people yell, thinking she was going to get them). Oops.

Here’s course D (drawn in blue for the open course – started I don’t have to do the pen) - apparently the far left panel isn't actually there - but there was a tree there so I assumed it was, oops:

Both judges had to help get me through the course. This is why I kept being like, “This is me second trial in years. Be gentle.” I’m standing there after the first panel, heading to the top left and they’re like, “uhhh . .. that way.” Ack!

Okay, so, I am conscious of the fact these blogs are long so let me try to make this short.
Betsy and Feather and Rippa and I were in contention for the silver buckle for Most Promising Started Aussie, but the best part about this whole weekend was that I wanted to not worry about that stuff and just get what I needed out of the weekend. In fact, Betsy is so cool and supportive that I made a game with her that high fives happened before each run as a way to take pressure off of both of us. There was a time when I wanted to debut Rippa at the Bullet or Nationals and get myself a buckle, but I’m pretty good about altering goals when need be and right now? I need to learn how to CHILL OUT and have fun.

Part of that meant not worrying at all about what people though about us and making sure I didn’t make the mistake of undoing anything we’d been working on in training, like letting her blow commands or whatever in favor of getting a qualifying score. Shannon and Dustin have worked on timing me on runs and I have found that the ASCA max runs are PLENTY long to take care of business if it’s going well so not to worry about it.

First up was cows. I am the most confident on cows because while Rippa still tends to freak a little and stir things up, she is allowed to bite when she freaks and so I don’t have to worry as much.  That first run, however, I could feel my heart racing and I was totally like, “Calm, calm, calm.”

I do this thing that I learned from the Woods, in which I face Rippa out away from the stock to start. Everyone was starting on the side of the center pen nearest where the cattle came out and I decided to not care about what everyone else was doing and keep doing what works. Facing her out and on the other side meant that she couldn’t key in to the stock as much and that she’d have to start with an out around something, both making her slow and making her think.

I also knew from the week before when we switched arenas for cattle that Rippa can freak out in a new environment (she totally lost her head, barking, chasing, literally making cattle fall over on a slippery part), so I babysat her on this round. She still got kind of rowdy periodically, but as Dustin said, it makes for good photos.

Look at that. She hits SO right on and deliberately and calms down after that I’m cool with her still freaking out a bit. A few months ago she was too intimidated to do that and she’d be hitting side flanks instead. 

I wanted to try just fetching her through everything, but after about four tries, I could tell I was messing with the cattle and decided to let her drive them instead. I haven’t worked a lot on driving so I generally don’t trust her to handle it 100%, but she did great.  Q.

Sheep was up and as I said, watching the runs, Sherry was talking to people about stuff and about how her sheep will go where they need to if you point them right. She told me the started sheep were her lesson sheep (and they had collars, which you can see in the photo, and that’s cute) and all you really need to do is make sure your dog circles and they’ll point at you because that’s what they’re expecting. Well, okay, I said. That’s the plan.

So, I went into the arena – and let me tell you, course D? That’s not just walking around an arena and repenning. No sirree bob. You Q on course D and you’re worthy. Even if you don’t get lost. I have to admit it was more fun than the standard old course, but also very intimidating. I was not expecting to do well here because the Rippa does not feel balance to me well. I suspect this is largely my training both from what previous judges have said (remember John telling me to fetch until I wore out shoes) and also because Rippa would much rather default to thoughtful chilling because she doesn’t like intense, futile pressure, and she does if I give her enough time.  I also think she has the same thoughts about sheep that Fury does – that I won’t hold my end well enough . . . both of them tend to try to over flank for that reason and Fury will cut in where Rippa tends to quit me if I suck. So . . . yeah.

I’m standing out in the arena waiting for the sheep to settle and I can see that they’re not going to. They’re like Stephanie’s sheep who will see the Fury and start heading for the hills. Since the first obstacle is smack dab in the middle of the field, my usual tact of kind of driving them slowly until Rippa feels in control isn’t going to work, so I focus more on making sure Rippa understands that I don’t need pushy or speedy. At one point in the trial, the judge asked if I was moving on to another panel, but what I was doing was trying to establish that circle thing Sherry told me about with a calmer dog. Every time I Q’d, doing that plus heading toward the right panel meant Rippa had enough space to take pressure off.

How much space?

So much space you couldn’t take a decent photo:

The panels and me are well behind the tree.

Every time I didn’t Q – I happened to head for the wrong panel and not get Rippa lined out enough and balancing. I’m not going to lie, that course and sheep in general freak me out. Rippa CAN dial back the power, but it’s a fine line between her quitting me and going too hard and she doesn’t like sheep that much so there we are.

I feel like I get gold stars here for remembering Sherry’s words and using them as well as figuring out to line her out like that. It took me telling her no and correcting her hard (including running up and growling at her), but not caring what other people think and not letting my dog’s skills erode because it’s a trial was worth it.

I wanted a dog with a little less edge than The Fury and I thought I got it, but I still have it in Rippa, I just know how to control it more (and it didn’t come out until we had some miles on her).

So, on to ducks. Sherry’s ducks were reeeeeeeally nice. They’re all the same color and they’re all drakes. My ducks, I suspect, are all females, and they’re pretty good, but they weren’t as honest as these ducks. She works hard to make them nice, I can tell. If you and your dog were good, you were going to Q. So, did we Q? Mmmm . . . my dogs were mostly good but the ducks got hung up on the center pen and I didn’t know what to do. At home, the dogs figure out how to get them off, but here? 1. The ducks don’t know me or the dogs so they’re a little more freaked 2. The dogs and I are more queued up.

So, we did a lot of putting them back on the back fence with me trying to keep the dogs behind them and holding them. It worked once with the Fury (Q!) but the other three goes that day got a little rough when the dogs got frustrated and duck bowled a bit. (PS, I knew they wouldn’t kill/hurt them, so I was more chill than usual, but one time the whole crowd “Hey’d” and it was a little freaky. I told myself they were doing that to correct the dog and not yell at me and got through that little ego kill okay.)

So . . . end of day? Rippa has all the qualifications to put a Started cattle and sheep at the end of her name and we have a bunch of shamrock towels for the bathroom!

I was neither sore, nor did I feel like crying afterward, so I think I handled the stress pretty dang well! I got invited to go to dinner with everyone, and I spent some time in the cattle pens with Denise and . . . the conversations there were super supportive and real. Talking about life, about the stuff that freaks me out not being real, and stuff in the past (Denise’s daughter Leslie was a junior handler with me).

The next day, I got up and took my time, not even bothering to do my usual meditation stuff because I was feeling good and just wanted to get going. Dustin and Shannon were there with their kiddo whom I love and is the most happy, sweet little guy ever. It was like having home come to me. They had driven all that way mostly to support me and that’s more than I could ever ask for. They always ask me how I’m doing during trials and they’re just awesome friends. We talked about stuff and what I learned and got going.

A couple things: Roland, whom you’ve heard of before because he goes out to Stephanie’s with his dog, was there trying to finish his dog Jesse’s WTCh. One advanced cattle leg.  No go the day before, so today was the big day. I told him he had to have a winning attitude and forced him to high five me before going in (it was cute, he was so hestiant about it – 70 year old guys can hug, but high five?).  His run was really good, right up to the point where he was penning and got in a hurry and pushed the cattle out before he could close the pen. He came out demoralized and I was like, “No, it’s about control, right? You only lost 3 points on that happening!” Lawrence warned him he thought he’d crossed the handler’s line (50% off score = no Q), so Roland was pretty sure it was a failure.  We’ll get back to him soon.

So, the night before, Pat had been talking to me about Feather and Betsy and stockdogs and everything in general. Remember I said we were in the running for the most promising award? Well, we DQd three times the day before – and Feather stays off the stock enough that she won’t get DQd, so we were down around 300 points. Go for a buckle or go for Open experience now that we had started sheep and cattle?

I had talked to both judges after the trial the day before. This is also a key strategy for me, I think. Basically – what does Kristin get intimidated by? People who judge her. At the last trial, I timed with both judges and it was easy to talk to them. I didn’t get to this time, so I was reserved until I had the right questions.

Marie suggested I stay in started for the experience and Canby, who I talked to at dinner, told me about how he used to be so nervous he puked (obviously making him a lot less intimidating than he started out being) and told me to go for open if I thought I was ready.

Since Betsy and Feather were likely going to Q in everything, I figured I’d move Rippa in to open cattle because nothing was different except the line (and since I was driving her, the line wasn’t very hard to cross) and penning which I’d been practicing with the Woods. Open sheep? On course D? HELL NO! I talked to Betsy to make sure she wasn’t moving up (and also forfeiting the buckle), and she wasn’t, so as long as she got her 9 Q’s, YAY Betsy and Feather and WELL earned. She’s such a cute dog with a lot of talent. That also took pressure off me because there was no worrying about a buckle.

Look at that – how could Betsy and Feather NOT win?

If a run went less than how Betsy hoped, I kept reminding her there was literally a silver lining so WHO cared? It was awesome. High fives, baby. I like my Rippa bear, but we’re gonna have to plan on a DQ now and again because running wide and staying out of trouble are not our forte’. I think I’m trying really hard to stress that she didn’t win it by default – she was going to win over me anyway because they were just better than we were this weekend. I hope you get that. I bring up the choices I made because I felt like “yeah, starting to understand this trialing game” and I was proud of myself for deciding to try to move up and get experience rather than win something and put the pressure on when we weren’t in a good place to try doing that. I’m learning to get that ego in check!
How’d open cattle go? Not so great. I think the pressure of being in open made me handle badly on the first run and on the second, Rippa had spent an entire weekend getting commanded to do stuff and doing nothing she considered fun and being tightened down, so when she got into a stupid spot because she had to overflank and go to head, she got kicked in the head. I’m sure it hurt, but she also decided that was it and stopped really trying. I mean, she definitely tried, but all her power and willingness to do distance work with me were gone.  She seemed a little lame, too – too many goatheads in the arena? Too much emotional pressure? So, on the second run, I just repenned the cattle so she could end with something fun (out run and a clear point).  That’s cool. I would have been terribly spoiled to go into open from this weekend and Rippa tried so hard for me when normally she would get mad with all that commanding and changing my mind and not being in control and didn’t quit me until she got clocked pretty good.

Even when she was a bad little dog, I figured she was tweaking more because of me and never walked out of the ring without telling her she was wonderful, which I think she is. My theory on Rippa is that when she gets out of control, it’s more out of lack of confidence than being  a jerk. She really, really tries to do good – and her best work is when she knows what I want and I don’t say anything, so I know she’s trying to help me. A great example is with the chickens. She’ll run the chickens pretty hard if I’m commanding her to do something, but if I open the front gate, she goes out slowly to find them and brings them back at a balanced walk so long as I don’t say anything. I get her. People were always saying she is stubborn, but she’s not. She just needs to feel in control of the stock, understand what the point is of what we’re doing and she’ll be super helpful. I have a feeling that with enough mileage in trials, when she learns what they are, she’ll be pretty good.
Ducks? That morning I thought about how helpful Sherry’s advice was on the sheep and how she’d offered it so freely that I wasn’t too worried about asking her what to do with the ducks. Again, I loved how she approached it, almost exasperated that I didn’t know what to do – kind of like, “You know how to do this – you don’t have to keep your dog back and you know they’re headed that way so let your dog go out to one side and pick a side to keep them off. And you can use yourself too!” So, okay! I love how she put it back on me that I knew what to do but still told me what to do. The result? Sunday’s runs were 3/4. (Fury duck bowled a little (just got a warning) but by then she’d earned her started title and I was going back to back on runs and switching dogs while she’d not had any time out of her crate except that duck run so I said, “You rule – we’re done!” and called time on myself.)

Every single run, they got stuck on the center pen anyway, but this time I just had my dog on one side and used myself to keep them off until the dog had enough space to pick them up and go in the right direction. Having my own ducks helped me here. The last duck run of the day (Rippa), the ducks seemed to have figured out they weren’t allowed to get eaten and if she took pressure off, they RAN at her. Well . . . ha ha . . . that happens at home, too, so call her out of there and have her circle around back at them and . . . ta daaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Final score for the weekend? Rippa STDcsd, Fury STDcd (she had cattle) and a much more confident Kristin. We even got some first places in there with actual competition.
I think I might be totally over the nerves thing. Like, it was that easy.
Here’s why –
1. My theory is that I’m old hat at trialing. I’ve been showing conformation and agility for a while and I do not get nervous there at all. I seldom walk into obedience rings, but when I do, it’s also fine and I make sure we have a good time. Stock is different because to a lot of people, what I do and how I do it makes a big fricking deal and I take it to heart. THE FUTURE OF THE BREED IS AT STAKE is how I feel. All I needed was some perspective and a shot of confidence and I could go into normal Kristin trialing mode where I’m fairly successful despite all the complete devotion to the theories and consistent training – in fact, I probably would do better since I DO spend a lot of time on both for stockdogging.
2. Not only were people open and honest about me, almost everyone kept their mouths shut about their opinions on my dog, both good and bad. That meant no over inflated ego or deflated ego. Canby complimented her and that was great, but I heard nothing from my fellow trialers and that helped me not worry about the whole “people judging me” bit. I honestly don’t know how anybody felt about my runs or if they even watched – I think the only feedback I got was when Pat saw one and said, “Oh, they don’t all go well all the time” about a sheep run, but I actually felt good about it because my objectives we more training based than Q based. I had the space to feel good about it and I also knew Pat was just doing what she always does – encouraging me. Heck, when the duck bowling DQs happened, EVERYONE was there and I still didn’t care. Credit to all of them for not freaking me out or even talking about it.
3. All the really good people there with experience and well deserved recognition and famous and fancy doggies had runs that weren't perfect, too. Somewhere along the way, I felt like I shouldn’t be trialing unless I was perfect. I know lots of people said it would be okay, but it wasn’t okay to me. Bottom line? They’re really just dogs and dogs will be dogs! It’s okay!!
3. Dustin and Shannon were more than encouraging, and I did hear a lot of compliments on their own dogs’ runs (they won their started classes by a big margin). Two people were immediately asking after their runs, “So, do you sell dogs?” It was a great affirmation of something that I knew: that I had great friends and trainers in my pocket and despite not doing stuff with Aussie people, I was doing good stuff – and also that my estimation that their dogs were pretty awesome was right – because here they were in a context I could really understand. Roland told me he’d heard people commenting, “Now that’s how you handle cattle” and I figure if Aussie people appreciated it, too, well then, I am right in that they are the people who will be able to teach me what I need/want at this stage. Plus . . . can you tell how much I love them. Squeezes!

In the same vein, having their outside opinions on how things looked (they had no dog in this fight at all) were very favorable of me and what I’ve been working on. They said I didn’t yell much at all or inappropriately, and that I was handling well enough that in time I could be as good if not better than some of the best people they saw that day.

Pause: I’m not gunning for anyone, nor do I need to do that, but it tells my little heart that has a hard time evaluating myself objectively, that I’m improving in the ways I want to and that it’s in the right direction. While this trial was really, really fun, the reality is – I’m not going to be a top finals handler or a trainer in many, many years (I have businesses to run and babies to make and mountains to climb). But remember my post on “Best in the World?” That’s pretty cool that I am on that path at least. May we all strive to figure out what that means to us.
And, finally, what was the BEST part about this trial?
When they were doing awards on the final day . . . they called out Roland’s Jesse’s score . . . and she’d QUALIFIED! The WTCh was finished!

Roland has always been really supportive of me – he calls me to see how I felt our trials went, he lets me know when they open, and he’s also a lot to do with why Rippa and I are working well together. He’s given me some advice on chilling that has really worked.

So, when I called him after awards, I called him up:

”Hey Roland, just wanted to say I was so glad to see you this weekend.”
He starts earnestly and sweetly telling me the same . . . and then “NO I’M NOT. JESSE QUALIFIED. YOU GOT YOUR WTCH!”
And, folks, I had the honor of being there when Trish WTCh’d Duke, but you have not heard or felt the joy of a man who thought he had a ways to go find out his end goal had been reached. I don’t want to embarrass him, but he’s been trying so hard to play it cool and it was so awesome to share the psych that I’m still tearing up as I write this.
That’s why we do this stuff. It’s just dogs and them doing their thing. It’s not a be all and end all and you don’t have to earn your place to have a nice dog or do well. You just have to be cool and honest and try your best and that’s all anyone can ask.

What’s next? Work has me swamped until the end of June. I’ll keep up with practice and such, but no trials till Fall, probably. Maybe a roadtrip?

Pre-Trial #2

Stephanie’s gang watching a lesson.

Well, big trial #2 is coming up. I’ve been thinking about why I don’t like trialing and why it was such a surprise to go from training to trialing and I have to admit that I’ve approached things differently before.  When I started showing in conformation, I felt honored to be there and I didn’t expect to win, so I took what I did there and practiced and practiced and loved it for the sake of the practice.

When I got my second dog, I knew no practicing would help so I stopped.

Then I got The Fury, who was admittedly insanely easy to both train and trial. Her performance doesn’t change based on the environment. Obedience, agility, stock, all very consistent and totally not dependent on me or anything else. I went to agility incredibly surprised by this and we had a great time. I quit doing agility after a while because I’d rather be doing other stuff, not because I couldn’t handle the stress. Obedience is the same way, if there were trials closer, I’d probably have her UD by now because I like training and she trials well.

But stock is something else. Stock means something more to me than any of the other stuff. I guess I’m not looking to prove anything with the other venues. They were fun, my dogs were fun. But stock has depth to it the others don’t. How good is your dog? Is it worthy of serving a legitimate job? Will other people want dogs like yours?

When I showed up with The Fury, I knew nothing about the politics, the lines, none of it. Overtime, it’s become heavily steeped in opinion and validation needs and I’m hyper-conscious of it. I used to think agility was free of it, but it’s not. I hear the same sniping there these days. Conformation certainly has it. I suspect obedience is too small to have it.

Anyway, so that’s why I’ve been so surprised about trialing being a whole new element. Like, Kristin, duh, of COURSE you have to practice trialing to get good. You had to practice everywhere else (Fury doesn’t have her CD, after all, because YOU did stuff that DQd you). I guess the difference is that I was practicing TO trial. With stock, I’m doing something else. I’m trying to master the actual craft. It’s not about sending a dog over an obstacle, it’s about raising a dog holistically to use its instincts to move another bunch of animals and help you. I forgot about trialing.

And, unlike the Fury, Rippa is extremely influenced by situational changes. When I was taking lessons with her for agility, she was doing great. Q’d every time I trialed her at a preshow at Nationals. But then I didn’t take lessons any more and just trained in my back yard and went up to Eileen’s to rent her agility field and . . . UTTER DISASTER. Rippa was like, “There’s people and dogs and a judge and this is so much pressure.” (Rippa is very, very sensitive to pressure.) I quit trialing her in agility because I had my fun with The Fury, but I want all my eggs in the stockdog basket.

So, when we went from the back arena with the obstacles back to the front field that’s open to work cows last week, Rippa lost her head at first. It was new, she felt out of control. Shannon and I were like, “Woah!” Shannon said, “Well, you and I both know she can just gather cattle at that distance, but obviously the change in location made her back up a bit. Better babysit her at the trial!” By the end of the session, she was in control again, but you don’t start out nice, you don’t have time for an hour later.

So, this week, I babysat Rippa through everything and she did mostly great. For whatever reason, she’s shutting down on sheep and just doesn’t want to do it. This generally seems to happen when she’s confused, but I think it’s something else. She’s been kind of sick from something and grumpy, so maybe that’s it? But the shut down is at a level that’s useful. Stephanie watched her and was like, “That kind of shut down is going to make you win.” Aka, she’s not putting a ton of work into what she’s doing and she’s quiet, and that’s all you need most of the time at a trial anyway. THe dogs I’ve put titles on were like that, so I get it. I got a ranch title on a dog who just followed sheep and sat when I told him to sit. Soooooo . . . so long as she works a bit, I’m happy.

I was worried to take her to ducks after because if she’s shut down on sheep, it can’t be much better for ducks, but au contraire, she was awesome.

Cattle today was pretty awesome, too. I did two short sessions so she felt good, though she definitely seemed to be wary about me sending her go-by . . . I think she’s confused. But a confused dog is a thinking dog and that’s cool. She didn’t do any unnecessary roughness, and man, one time she hit a head and followed it up with a heel to make her point and . . . what a balanced little dog! She doesn’t do it if she doesn’t have to, but no complaints here.

I’m going out tomorrow for sheep and ducks again, and then bright and early Saturday we make the drive to Riverdale. It should be a small trial – they still have spots open (so I decided to add The Fury for ducks and was tempted to do sheep, but I haven’t put her back on them since surgery, so probably not  a good time to), and Shannon and Dustin will be joining me Sunday and doing two pups on cattle. Dustin wanted to do everything, but their dogs are tough and they don’t work on making them not tough, so they decided it was probably better to not risk the DQ if they bite.

Feeling good. I have an understanding of why I didn’t Q last time, and why handling when bad, and Rippa and I both have a lot more control going on than we did because I’m letting her handle her business. As a result, she’s listening to me more, and we’re happy.

We’ve got four trials total so if all goes REALLY good, we Q on the first two and get those started titles. I’ll probably bump her to open if that happens and give it a whirl because she should be good to go there. I’m treating the first day like a lesson warm-up, though. Obviously, I bring a major headcase to the thing and like I said, Rippa’s not in a great mental spot right now, either. Hope it clears up. She seems fine other than grumping and loosish stools.

See you on the flipside!

“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.

Small goals, sheer aggie happiness, Working Aussie Source

I went to school to be a vet or be involved in animal production. For three years I took classes that taught me how to feed livestock, catch them, breed them, etc, etc and I also took all these science courses.

I’m bad at math. Science is a lot of math. So I switched majors.

And I switched trajectory. I played lacrosse and found passion there. I learned to climb and devoted most of my life to it. And, while I did poke around with dogs and animals, I never really got into it. I think most people had no idea that my first love was livestock, that I rode for years and years, and generally, nobody asked.

I think it’s really interesting now that I’ve found some success in the climbing industry and other places that I’m able to circle back to what I love, which is, really, animal husbandry. (Though I like a tiny bit of farming, as evidenced by my garden and slight obsession with landscaping that came with  buying the house.)

My husband went away last week to work an event in Nicaragua. And I was pretty jealous. Nobody invited me to do it professionally and I didn’t get an opportunity to see a new place or practice my Spanish (I’m proficient and I love it).  But, interestingly, as soon as he was gone, I realized I was pretty dang happy with the dogs and working the animals, gathering eggs, weeding, and working on our jobs.

While I was doing that, Kay Spencer emailed me and asked me if I wanted to take over Working Aussie Source as she has decided to move on from Aussie stockdogs.  She suggested including my right hand gal, Amy, on the project if I wanted, which I wanted to. Amy and I have found a really nice balance to eachother’s skills in developing dog community and I like sharing the wealth.

Kay giving this project to Amy and me allows us to take our energy and do some good with it while not having to worry about politics, clubs, or being on the right side of the fence. It’s also going to allow us to move fast and have a great impact if we want to. This is awesome.

And then, icing on the cake, Kay boxed up her library and sent it to me.

A complete set of Ranch Dog Trainer magazines, a couple books, a bunch of DVDs with stockdog footage . . . tres magnifique! I cannot wait to go through it, post the good stuff she hadn’t gotten to, and share it with the world!

Honestly, I think it’s good to walk away when you’re not getting enough out of it, and I am always teetering on that edge, but then again, something like this happens and I leap right back in. I’m a dork, what can I say?

Thank you, Kay.

And so, here I am. Dorking out with all these books, with a Woods goat in my backyard for a few days grazing down all the weeds that I can’t get under control myself.

“Goatee” doesn’t love me, but that’s okay, just eat my weeds.

Because Rippa was such a jerk last week and she’s in full blown standing heat (along with the Fury, which is a first that they came in together – and my vet was assuming she didn’t come into heat anymore), I decided to lay off ducks and sheep this week despite a trial coming up. She can be cranky on cattle, that’s fine. Instead, she was totally fine on cattle, but if I slowed the action anywhere near where a boy was tied up, she felt the dilemma of “cow? or sex?” She picked cow, but any release and it was like, “Well hellooooooooooo nurse.” Accidental DSW Bossies wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but let’s not.

Ever since I quit working on obedience objectives and just kind of let Rippa feel her out, a lot’s happened: she is reading her stock more, not cutting in, not taking cheap shots, and I’m able to watch the stock more to improve my own handling. In fact, on the cheap shot department? She’s a pro at hitting those heads now – and she’s getting more and more powerful as her confidence comes around. She will heel, but generally waits to see what they do first so not as much as the heading. She’s definitely a heading fool.

At the end of the session, I was feeling pretty good. Shannon said I was going to do better than most because I really, really put in the time and energy to understand things and told me that while she gets why I’m not putting much obedience on her anymore, I really need to watch two things:
1. My tone of voice. I can get excited and start yelling commands as corrections. Nope. Bad, bad Kristin.

2. I let Rippa blow commands sometimes because she’s watching her stock. Shannon points out that while she gets that, there’s going to be a time when you’re working pairs or trialing and one cow gets away and you DON’T want her to break her stay to fix it. So she says, work on those outruns and making sure she gets to get “all of them” but when we’re fooling with stuff, she’s got to mind the commands.

I haven’t been working on driving or anything because I really want both of us to improve our headspace with this new method, and I think that’s fine for now. I think I was focused too far on made-up goals when if I just give space to Rippa to learn to manage her sheep and me to learn to handle better, we’ll bet better for it in the long run.

So that’s where we’re at.  Happy Valentine’s day, friends.

Dogs on the rag and trusting what you know

Rippa came into heat this week. People talk about how dogs go “off” or what have you because of this and you know, as a woman, I get it. Sometimes you just feel awful. And heat lasts a solid month – yup. Cranky.

This time last year, Rippa completely quit ducks, and almost quit sheep. People blamed her heat and I thought it was her and . . . soul searching and what not, I thought – no, it’s totally me.

Well, she’s in heat again and it’s not TOTALLY me.

She was great on cows yesterday though started to give up toward the end – but these are not short little sessions at this point. The dog is working a solid hour or so with short water breaks or what not most of the time.  I’m fairly tolerant of her getting over it because it’s not doing a chore for an hour, it’s being messed with for an hour. It’s cool.

But today, I went out to sheep and my friend Roland was there. Roland was as excited to see me as I was to see him so we kind of chatted with eachother while I worked Rippa. Rippa did NOT have patience for that. And I figured that out right away.

We also had a lamb that would break off and not stay with the group, and she had very little patience for that, too. Normally that would mean she would go harder on the lamb and teach it a lesson, but today?

Toss your paws up in the air and say “Eff that lamb, I’m not working it.”

We stopped trying to deal with said lamb and just went to fenceline fetching and take pens and holding pressure and such and that made Rippa happy. Gathering that errant lamb? KRISTIN, I HAVE CRAMPS. WHERE IS MY MIDOL?

I took her and the Fury over to sheep after, and The Fury is doing just awesome there. Her leg is great and she’s giving to the pressure of the ducks and taking flanks, it’s awesome.

Rippa, however? SCREW YOU, LAGGING DUCK.  Where she’d normally back off and be patient, she literally scooped the duck up and dragged it forty feet before I was able to stop her and let her know, “Heck no, we do not do that!” And quit her.

Looks like Rippa’s fuse is short today. She and the Fury got into a tussle twice in close quarters and now she’s laying on my bed groaning. Ehhhh . . . cramps, man, what you going to do?

In other news, I entered another trial in March. My husband says that despite me not liking to trial, he feels it’s a good investment to get me to stop freaking out and be good at it. The Woods might go for support and to check it out (and the huz, too) but I don’t expect anyone to.  I feel pretty good about this trial this time because ever since I stopped worrying about how it looked and her obedience, we’ve found our rhythm.

I have been doing not a lot with Rippa on cows aside from outruns and fetching and let her feel out how they work. She’s quit trying to take body shots and cheap shots and is pretty dang good at hitting the nose and poll to stop them. She’s also not taking shots at all and patiently waiting for them to move under pressure. Shannon says we both look a million times better and as Rippa gets to feel the cows out, she’s getting way better in the biddablity department, too.

Same with sheep. Roland was like, “Wow, night and day” (just like Maxine promised) and “Wow, I like that little dog.” She is balancing and working and being honest. No cheap shots because she has control.

It’ll be different in a trial situation for sure, but now I “get it” where I didn’t before. And by that, I get that “I know what is best” for my dog and I need to stay true to that. I think I’ve said it before, but this is a huge weakness for me in life. Other people trust their instincts, their guts, their feelings – I don’t. I completely mistrust them – I need to gather opinions and logic before I act a lot of time. It makes be a pretty good leader/team player because of that, but it paralyzes me in the face of adversity or accusation. Stockdogging is super good for your personality quirks.

And finally, I wish I had a video of it, but Roland was separating one lamb out and working just it with his border collie, Jessie. It was a thing of beauty. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try to deliberately do what he was doing, or if I have (because I can think of a few times), it was never so impressive. Jess was working them like a person would. She’d work slowly, methodically, watch the sheep – try something – adjust to whatever it caused . . . and all Roland asked for was a “there” or a “bring her.” No commands, just pure thinking dog, and it was a thing of beauty to see her hold that lamb’s pathway despite a billion other draws.

It was just . . . stockdoggy perfection.

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 Getting There

So I haven’t written in a while because I needed some processing time. After the trial, I was SUPER sore. Like I had an epic workout. I was also emotionally drained. The husband was like, “Well, duh. I expected you to stress and you did. You put a lot into this.”

We went on a big work trip scouting for a race we put on right after. The dogs LOVED it. The Fury was about 5 weeks post her big surgery to fix her leg and, you know what, I admit it, we let it ride. She was able to come along on hikes with us and we watched it carefully but no issues. We got cleared a week later and he said she looked phenomenal, especially for her age, so I don’t feel bad. I happen to think my huz and I are pretty good at understanding our dogs’ health.

Plus, they got to see snow. Rippa spent a lot of time post-holing in it, both of them eating it, and the Fury, well . . .

In the middle of the week, I had a lot of time on my hands because I was shuttling my husband on his bike because the dogs couldn’t come and sitting in the car a lot. I kept thinking about that trial. About how I couldn’t qualify after all this time and it didn’t seem right and really, if that’s the case, whose fault is that? Maybe Aussies really are crap after all and I should give it up. I mean, really, what I really thought was that I was probably crap and things weren’t ever going to get better because I KNEW what to do but I couldn’t seem to grasp it.

So I asked about it on the Internet and my friends helpfully suggested lots of things, but when the people at the trial chimed in, the message was “You did good. It takes practice to trial well. Calm down.”

I have been talking to a friend fairly new to the breed and she was saying she wish she’d gotten into it when she was as young as me (I was 12) but getting into it that young also messed me up a bit – I REALLY care about stuff. And as much as I get annoyed with “dog fanciers” and their competing to know more intellectually without actually knowing it common-sense/experience-wise, I’m one too. I have to stop WORRYING about what it all means and trust myself that I probably know things are fine.

So, I couldn’t WAIT to get back to stockdogging after the trip. I took everyone’s advice to heart. Maxine said that I needed to let her take control to start and then trust my dog and she’d be night and day. At the time I literally couldn’t understand that. Couldn’t put it into practice. A couple people who agree with her (okay, EVERYONE agrees with her), suggested I muzzle her when I work so I can relax because I just HATE it when she hurts the stock. I looked around for my muzzle but couldn’t find it in the move and decided that I could do what Maxine (and everyone else) said without it.




Wait for it . . .

 

Wait for it . . .

 

HOLY CRAP, IT WORKED! I stopped worrying about what Rippa looked like doing things and just went about my business. I put her into the take pen with the sheep, didn’t care how it looked, let her bring them out, didn’t look to see what was happening behind me and closed the gate. Rippa had gone out, collected them, and brought them to me. No cheap shots.

I walked out to the alley-way across Stephanie’s field, opened that gate, walked the sheep through, when they tried to run, Rippa stopped them, held them . . .

And then we worked on just getting out in tight quarters a bit, and every time I said “No” she would back off.

We opened the gate to the bigger field, did some fetching (heeding John’s advice that I just do fetching until my shoes wear out) and worked on “out” and outruns, then put them through another fence with a HUGE draw to a gate, and the Rippa bear caught them, brought them back. I walked toward the gate while Rippa went to head and then behind and head, behind, then figured out where to be to hold them along with me and stayed there.

Ladies and gentlemen, there she was. That was it.

No cheap shots, no handling by me . . . Rippa just taking care of business and being cool about it. I understood what Maxine said about kicking her out and letting her get control now. She can do it, and so can I. I get it. For some reason I just didn’t.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a little clip I made to show friends what the heck I do.

Pretty nice, yeah?

When it came to cattle – I had been thinking long and hard about this because I thought I had handled well at the trial and then didn’t qualify because of control points. People ALWAYS think that Rippa is stubborn but time and time she proves me right that she’s more of a thinking dog. If she doesn’t get something, she gets sullen and will quit working hard until she figures it out. It can be frustrating and easy to judge, but I specifically wanted more thinking when I picked her site to breed to the Fury who is like, “GO HARD ALL THE TIME!” and sometimes can’t think because she’s too committed to just doing something.

With Shannon and Dustin, we’d been working on responsiveness and tweaking. Putting her in the right place and getting the job done. And that’s what I did at the trial mostly (not all of it was pretty, as I said). But now I think I understand where the BC/Aussie difference is. Rippa doesn’t need to be put somewhere, she just needs to understand the job. So, I told Shan when I came back that I would rather just work on fundamentals because she clearly felt out of control during the trial. I needed to stop telling her what to do and let her “feel” her stock out like she was doing with the sheep (and ducks).

What we have been working on is outruns and fetching.

The Woods have two places for cattle to go in their backyard. One is a smallish arena with obstacles set up and then there’s this “L” shaped alley way that’s wider up top and on a hill.  Shannon and I work on her outruns up there. It’s a little annoying sometimes because the cows will go down the leg of the L we don’t want them to if the pressure’s not right, but the exercise is neat and it works.

Here’s the setup:

Cows                       Me                                               Shannon                Rippa

Shannon generally has to place Rippa because her pressure is sometimes too much for the dog. Boss lady intimidates her. So what we do is lay her down, and both of us post up by the fence line but letting Rippa still see the cows (not blocking her view).

And then:

So, we send Rippa away (Shannon says it), and then walks toward the other fenceline to keep her out. When/if she cuts in, I am then there to walk forward to kick her out and then she’s nice and out when she comes into the cows. Then we fetch backward.

It’s working really well, but the fetching needs a lot of work. We moved to the arena and the job changed from just this exercise to navigating around the obstacles and just much harder so Rippa got slower and crankier and wanted to quit. We got her to do some stuff and left it. I get really frustrated with that, but I also think with time she’ll get it so I need to stop judging one go like that. She just doesn’t feel in control on cattle yet, and I was taking what control she did have away by worrying more about her obedience.

So anyway, that’s where we’re at. Pretty happy. Definitely planning on entering the next trial – even though I thought I wanted more mileage. I think this time I understand it.

I thanked Stephanie today for having faith in me and letting me make all these mistakes so I could eventually figure it out. It takes a brave, trusting woman to let my dog take cheap shots on her sheep and know that it will come out okay eventually.

When I get my own stock someday, I’m definitely going to remember the value of working stock away from a watchful eye and trusting people to figure it out on their own. I’m also just SO grateful to the people that made sure that Rippa’s ancestors had all the instinct they needed. Being able to sit back and let her work and make the right decisions is so key in MY development and if she were missing something somewhere, I couldn’t be in this phase of learning.

Our first trial–miles to go!

Well, it’s done. And I feel like I need to work backward to get the most use out of this blog.

I am an emotional mess tonight and I don’t know why, exactly. Partly I’m sure it’s sleep: I was so worried that I would miss my alarm that I woke up a TON last night. Partly I think it’s relief that it’s over.

Prior to this experience I trialed a total of FOUR times and the last was seven years ago. I think, “Oh, I have been training forever,” but you know what? I’m a real beginner. FOUR times, seven years ago. I knew jack. I spent all of last week being like OH NO! There’s strategy! What do I do?

I started out the day with plenty of time to do all my little rituals and listened to power music on the way to the trial. I sat in my car before trials and tried to clear my mind. I took Rippa out and spoke softly to her.

All of things were good. Our first run was on cattle, which I had much confidence about because a – we weren’t going to get in trouble for biting them and b – we have a lot more mileage than most people there. We had some problems with taken pen (it wasn’t perfect) but I expected that, and while I expected to fetch the cattle, I just didn’t trust Rippa to do that nicely so we drove the whole way. On the way back to repen them after getting the panels, I decided to try fetching to get that control again, but the judge yelled for me to calm her down and so we quit that. She was just too amped to fetch the whole trial.

But I walked out of that run just . . . psyched. The crowd clapped and cheered for me (I think everyone knew how scary that first run was for me after all this time) and I felt great. The people at this trial were great. I’ve always been scared to trial on home turf because people make judgments about you and they stick – and I have a hard time with that, but I felt nothing but support. Love to you guys.

On to sheep – again, not a great take pen, but it happened. Then I drove them. I NEVER drive sheep. Ever. But I just didn’t feel like I could do anything else. We Q’d pretty low because I wouldn’t let her stay in contact (contact after I ramp her up from driving is bad).

Ducks were a no-go because they needed a dog to stay off them and Rippa wouldn’t. That’s okay. I don’t think anyone in started Q’d on ducks.

And that’s when I was feeling pretty good and stopped making it my business to watch myself and keep the zen thing going. I timed for Maxine, one of the judges, and asked her lots of questions about how she judges and what ideal stuff looks like and she told me I really need to trust my dog and let her work.

Have we heard this before?

So, I let myself get slightly cocky (thinking, oh boy! I am going to get my titles today) and I let myself lose focus, and in our final runs I tried pretty hard to be chill but . . . I stopped watching my stock and started yelling at my dog. And that is never good. No Qs there.

I was super nice to Rippa, though. I tried real hard to keep my voice quiet and supportive and I always made sure she got loves for her work after runs, and I never figured anything that was happening was her fault (and when I asked the judges, they confirmed it).

Nonattachment to outcome. Going into something just to learn. Treating it like a lesson. All things I need more practice doing.

Both judges were very supportive of her, telling me that if I got my team work with her solid and came back, she’d be the dog to watch. Like, wow. But I went from being cocky to being freaked out.

OH MY GOD – I HAVE BEEN TRAINING FOR SO LONG AND I MAKE ALL THESE MISTAKES HOW WILL I EVER BE ABLE TO BE THE HANDLER MY DOG NEEDS SO THAT WE CAN LIVE UP TO THIS?

Nonattachment to outcome, Kristin. Go into things just to learn. All of that.

I had to calm myself down on the drive home as I played back what happened, good and bad, and the things we need to work on, let’s be honest, I knew it. She needs to work on balancing up more. I got lazy. Nobody needed it out of me so I stopped worrying about it and worked on other details. My stick with the bottle on it is broken. I haven’t used it in SO LONG.

It’s coming back. After my last cattle run, while Maxine was judging, I sidled up next to the other judge who was just watching (John), and asked him what I needed to learn from that.

• Stockmanship – yeah, see, I know that by myself, but when Rippa’s involved, I lose it. This is because I watch my dog too much because I care about the outcome on paper and not the job of moving the animal.
• Trusting my dog. Maxine said that if I figured that out, I’d go back into the arena with a different experience altogether (positive).
• Fetching – he said, “If you haven’t worn out a pair of tennis shoes, you haven’t done enough of it.”
• Don’t get emotional – dang it, I clearly failed there. That was job #1.

And then he told me to read page 1-110 of Virgil Holland’s Herding Dogs and I have it on my desk as we type this. He said, “Read it 3x and then do it and if you don’t have it, keep reading it.”

Back to basics. I knew I should have been working on them, I really did. I can’t call Rippa off the top anymore and I can’t get her to hold sheep on a fetch to me, we still have to turn, turn, turn, or I have to rely on mechanics.

I KNEW BETTER – does this sound familiar?

And so, there you have it. I know this stuff, I just need to make it a habit.

As I was driving home, I kept thinking about this – if I have these bad habits that don’t work, it’s time to try something different. Unfortunately with stockdogs you can’t focus on one thing at a time, but I feel like keeping my notes, writing this blog, working on myself and my ability to stay calm and unreactive.

It seems like an insurmountable path to be able to be the handler I need to be so that Rippa can be what people saw in her at the trial – and I also have to be non-attached to that outcome to get there.

I guess awareness is the first step? If you’ve got ideas, I’m up for them.

And so when’s my next trial? When I fix this stuff and I enter it not “knowing better” that I have to put a band aid on something. I always hear this, “People enter started dogs way too trained stuff” and that’s why I did this. Rippa was trained, but I was right to hold out this long, and we’ll go back again when I don’t have to take her off contact to be comfortable running her at new places.