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.

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.

Curt Pate Cattle Clinic Part 1: Two photo essays

I’m not going to pretend to know who Curt Pate is, aside from what his website says. The Woods said I should really go to the clinic, and audit it, so I did. Best $20 I could spend anywhere.

I was very impressed with his lecture and just his style. Everyone, from been-there-done-that cowdog trialers to Cal Poly animal science kids (oh man, throwback to 15 years ago fro me) felt comfortable with him, asked him questions, and he was just generally a supportive, congenial, and good sport. He had a balanced perspective on things and really did demonstrate really beautiful low-stress stock handling (or as he called it, “Smooth Stockmanship”).

In the first couple hours of his clinic, he lectured, and I got about ten pages of notes that I’ll get down, but I did something a little different this time because I had the ability to do so as an auditor: I took photo essays of a couple things he was trying to get people to understand.

So, away we go.

#1: How you REALLY move a herd

Generally, if you see people go out to get herd animals, whether you are talking about in a field or out of a pen, the way I have been taught (and seen it done) is to get the influencer (guy on a quad or horse or a dog) to go out, around the stock and way from their sphere of influence, and then come in from the top. Curt had other plans and demonstrated this.

Basically, it involves turning some heads by getting around them, and then just letting the rest do the work. Movement begets movement. Once a cow is turned, the other cow will see him or her wander and start to follow. You don’t get all the way in the back where you can’t turn the lead head’s cow, you get where you need to. And here’s a photo essay illustrating that.

He not only gets the cattle moving, but he’s able, at the end, to create a little draw by sending a couple behind the complicated panel setup and bend them into a chute without any support. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

#2: Working cattle like you are a dog

This part was interesting to me. Curt has a theory that today’s society makes us line up all the time so we think going straight’s a good idea but it’s not. Dogs wear because they’re catching the eye and pushing the cow, but a lot of times the human doesn’t do that and isn’t effective. So, whether you’re on horseback or whether you’re on foot, being aware of the power of wearing (and how the cow reacts to your position) can get a lot out of them.

You can see him bending the cattle using eye the way a dog instinctually does. The horse moves laterally instead of just directly at it.

Notes to come. I just thought these two aspects of stockmanship were pretty cool and wouldn’t have come naturally to me. Though I do have to admit I’ve seen the herd gather style work really well with my ducks in the take pen. They don’t want my dogs to come at them and then stop at the top. They will move right on out if the dog is just far enough to tip the lead duck and keep moving. It’s not “trial pretty” but it’s effective.

More to come!

Back to Fundamentals . . . on both dogs?

So today, I went out  to Stephanie’s with the goal of working on Rippa’s fundamentals. I sorted out the heavier sheep and basically worked on her flank commands and getting her to both take her out and downs faster. And, of course, her outruns. I had posted this blog last week and Carol McLaughlin suggested I basically just do more fundamentals work with her and take smaller baby steps, which sounded about right so here I am.

We entered the arena really calmly and got ourselves set up nice for the outrun practice. I started facing her with the sheep behind and calling flanks and looking for her to turn her shoulder out to me and make a wide circle. When she did, I got next to her and did the same. Then I went behind her and had her come around me. It works. I tested it by going behind her and sending her but fail. It’s clearly just going to take some mileage there, but I could see the gears turning and I think I’ll have it where I want by the end of the month.

Then we just did stuff like I described above – simple, easy things with heavy sheep so I could easily get after her without losing them and without worrying so much about my handling and timing.  When we were tired, I put them up in a small pen and then got out the lambs.

The lambs are soooooooooo squirrelly that I wanted to take what she got from the early lesson about taking my commands and such and use it here to show her that when they freak, it’s not as useful to freak her self, either. It worked pretty well, but man, Rippa really has to charge those lambs to stay in contact and I have to work on my end because they’re pretty scared of me. Lamb work doesn’t last long because the little guys just give themselves a ton of running to do.

So, Rippa put them back up and went to water. I was going to work her again with the heavy to leave on that note but the huz had convinced me to bring Fury and I wanted to see if what I saw last time was the same. I figured five minutes off some outruns and balance work and putting them away would show me what I had.

Sure enough, like last time, Fury still has her nice outruns, takes her flanks, and works wide. She downs really easy, too.  She just comes in way too hard if I try to do balance work on her. I had started out with the big stick (I don’t use it much with Rippa any more because it’s made me get better at handling to use my body), but I could clearly see that Fury was so used to fighting me and my job was to show her that I wasn’t here to do that anymore, so small stick it was.

That made her relax a lot more. I didn’t say anything to her when she came in too tight and fast, I just kind of got out of the sheep’s way and pushed Fury around. She was getting it after a few minutes and I daresay in a few sessions I might be able to pick up where we left off and get that Started Sheep leg I need.

The key was giving her tons of space to not feel constricted and me not being hyped up about how she was dealing. It was just basically me watching where Fury gets worried and doing my best to show her she has nothing to fear. I’m actually really, really impressed with her. She’s so much more responsive to me than Rippa is – Rippa’s more a chore dog to Fury’s ability to finesse when she calms herself down.

So, we’ll see if Stephanie is up for having me rent sheep for a second dog. We talked about it a bit last time I saw her and it seemed like it wouldn’t be an issue.  More $$ for me, but I’ll feel a lot of satisfaction being able to both let Fury do something she LOVES to do and also being able to come back from the bad place we ended things. How many people have the chance to take their first “broken” dog and go back and make it right? That’s a real opportunity.

And what happens on Wednesday? Cattle!

Sheep looking good (on video), duckies getting ready!

Today the huz and I dropped by Stephanie’s to rent some sheep for a bit and then head out to the Best Family Farm to finish up the “Duck Fortress” (it cannot be called a “coop”).

As I have said before, training just isn’t linear, is it? Last work I had – we only had lambs again because I was with CA Sharp and she gets the heavy sheep for lessons while I rent unattended. I was thinking about doing a farm trial at the end of May, but it was so ugly that I really thought better of it. Plus, Kathy was judging.

If you haven’t had to be judged by your mentor, you won’t get what I’m saying when I felt sick thinking about it. You want to do your mentor proud, your dog proud, etc, so there’s a lot of pressure. One person I know who totally gets how I feel is Trish Alexander, so I called her up and she convinced me to wait until *I* felt ready despite everyone telling me to trial now when I’m out at sheep. Them telling me got me off my butt and getting ducks and a cattle situation, but I still want Rippa’s outruns better – and I want her to work as well on lighter sheep as she does on heavy sheep.

We’re at a weird stage now where working heavy sheep bores the crap out of her so I do a lot of chore work, interspersed with tweaks to work on stuff, to start her out mellow and then add lambs later so she’s working a larger group and having to pay attention.

It went so well today – so quiet and nice on both our parts that even though the huz doesn’t like videoing, I ask him to. I’d just had a slam dunk penning job and thought I’d video what I was doing just then to show you, and also get an idea of how I look from the third person.

The pen work is not a slam dunk because I didn’t set it up right (lazy, so lazy), but I knew she’d get it done if I just helped her, and she did. We haven’t really practiced penning. Rippa is just really good at these sorts of jobs. I think we’d done it twice before and both other times it looked this nice if not nicer. She even knows to go around to the other side of the pen to push them out – and in this case the sheep didn’t come in and I asked her to “get em” and she totally knew what I meant.

The handling after the pen work isn’t great on my part, either. My stickwork and body language aren’t helping things.

If I’m not getting what I want out of Rippa, it’s because, again, I’m lazy, lazy, lazy.

She was pretty over these sheep so I added in the lambs again, but as I was, Fury came over unattended. I guess Y had her off leash and she’d gone to the bathroom and he was occupied with cleaning it up. Fury hasn’t been on sheep in a very, very long time. She popped in unhurriedly, and I downed Rippa because I knew I’d have to handle Fury on her own here to keep it calm. Sure enough, Fury does her bat-out-of-hell method of going up to the sheep and then picking them up and bringing them to me, but it was so nice! And she was so wide as she started getting into me! I popped her on the head with the stick to get her out, and she took it – going really wide and suddenly being very biddable.

She still has that “RUN AS HARD AS YOU CAN” thing that I accidentally taught her years ago, but I felt totally in control of what was happening and that I could totally handle her and fix it with time. I don’t know if I will or not – I’ll need to talk to Stephanie about that. But . . . it was interesting, it was SO CLEAR that Fury was so much more comfortable in the arena compared to when we had her stuck in the duck pen back when I was doing lessons with her. It seems like if I had just got her into the arena and then relaxed, I could have fixed it pretty quick.

Of course, I’ve had a lot of miles on me with Rippa since then and have learned to CALM DOWN a lot more, so I am quite sure that’s really the element that was missing. It was pretty sweet, however, to know that I’d come along far enough that I felt like I was easily able to handle Fury. I was tempted to just use her to put them up but not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I called her in and handed her off to the huz and finished working Rippa.

It was  a pleasant surprise all around, even though, you know, oops for letting Fury get in there in the first place.

And then we went to duckies.

It was time for their first grass and sunlight so huz and I set to fixing up the fortress for them. And man, they loved it, snapping at the weeds and grass.

The dogs were pretty excited.

Fury got a tiny round of working them before we went home. I’m not really sure when you can start working them for real, but I figure I’ll wait until they at least look adult-ish. I think three months is the magic number? Will do research. They’re currently three weeks.

The fortress:

Video goodness and is it really time to trial?

So, today I had the husband in tow for training. I thought I was going to be on my own (no Stephanie, even) so it would be a good, mellow time for huz to learn to see what I need him to (stuff you’ll see in the video – handling things) and tell me I am doing that from time to time.

No such luck. Another gal was there with her two dogs, and Stephanie had been working one of hers when I arrived.

We really only have one set of lesson sheep right now as the others are lambs or lambing, so by the time I was up, the sheep had been worked at least three times. I was nervous about this because I don’t like overdoing it with them, and there was a baby lamb in there. Steph just told me to pull the lamb out if we had troubles.

The previous lesson person had left the sheep in the middle of the arena, so my usual system of “sort sheep into the arena and then get them set up” wasn’t in play.

Oh, side note . . . here’s the area I sort out of:

I think you should give me props for being able to use a young dog and have her go around that thing and set them up on the gate there in the far right and sort out three or four sheep out of twenty.

Let’s have it. Now.

Okay, THANK YOU.

Anyway, so they are there in the middle of the arena, and as I told you before, these sheep don’t like to stay put. Rippa doesn’t have a beautiful big, wide outrun on her, so I have a choice to just send her and let her get them her way or try to set up a nice outrun.

Stephanie and my husband were both there, along with someone I’ve known for years from working at Kathy’s. Which do you think I picked? The latter. Because I wanted to show that I was well behaved, not because it was best for us.

As good ol’ Norm Andrews would have said, “It should have worked!” But it didn’t. So ugly. Me chasing dog because I can’t get to the sheep in the arena, sheep running full out for the gate. I pick up my dog and Stephanie is like, “You need to get over the fact that I’m here. This is going to happen at trials.” You think? Yeah, I do.

I get so hung up on what I think other people should see that I make bad choices sometimes. Twice, I will point out, twice. Finally, the second time, I let Rippa just get them her way (powerful, straight, and fast) and Stephanie’s like, “Don’t let her kill them by running them into the fence!” and I yell back, “She’ll balance up when she gets up there!” Which she does, get’s out, runs them up to me, and then eases off when the sheep are in contact with me. It’s totally fine for ranch and chore work, but not so much for trials. Going to take time to get that right, and it’s okay.

But that little lamb is not keeping up so, in front of everyone, I’ve got to sort her off into a side holding pen (you’ll see it in the video). Stephanie’s like, “You want me to?” No, I say. Rippa is an excellent penning dog.

And so I ask her to walk up, lie down and try it. The older sheep take the open gate bait, but not the baby one. Steph says I need to his Rips with a “way to” and push them up more.

”I can’t yet. She won’t take it.”

”She will.”

”Way to.”

What do you think she does?

By golly, that dog does a beautiful baby Way To and puts herself in exactly the right spot and I get that baby lamb in the pen with no stress and go right back to work.

So proud. She is SUCH a nice dog. I am really proud of her. I get more and more proud the further along we get.

So then we fool around on the hill and I work on that “out” round  me thing I talked about in the last entry. This eventually bores the crap out of Rippa so I have to watch it.

It’s at this point that hubs  decides to shoot some blurry footage, so now you get video!

Anyhow, I get out of the arena and Stephanie asks me when the next trial is. “Not yet,” I say. “You need to trial to get over some of your being nervous about me. Besides, you’re ready. That dog could win in started.”

Sparkle. But also not. I try to protest as Stephanie says, “Your problem is you – all of that, it’s you. She’s a nice dog.”

”I know, I know.” Then my huz chimes in to agree.

”Just enter.”

”It’s expensive.”

”You two make enough money to trial. What, it’s $150.”

”But I want to do all three stock, that’s not cheap,” I look at my husband in protest. He’s quite supportive of this stuff and doesn’t care, despite other pressing financial issues.

“Heck, she could probably qualify in Open right now.”

”But I don’t have a drive on her.”

“You could soon.”

Anyhow, as much as I protest, hearing it from the huz and Stephanie, I have to acknowledge how scared I am to actually trial. I don’t get it for any other dog venue or anything . . . but this is stone cold serious time. People will judge me if it goes badly or I handle badly. People already liberally judge me and my dog to my face and I hate it. If I do this, the dog needs to have the best chance at success she can.

So, here’s the plan: I get my ducks and I get Rippa a baby drive. I get at least one lesson on cattle from someone so I can tune her up on them. Then I will trial.  Okay?

Like, maybe fall.

Here’s a photo of sheep the huz took:

Laziness, new places, and meditation on power and presence

Over the weekend, I went down to this competition thing for work, which afforded me a morning at Doug Manley’s “Pasture” where and a number of other friends work their dogs.

Doug took me on a tour – the many holding pens, the different sheep, the ducks, the geese, etc. It was a nice little setup in the middle of an agrarian suburban neighborhood. I was about to go into the arena and just do what I always do, but then it occurred to me – no. I have a set of eyes now, and I have something I want to work on.

That thing is Rippa going in and “slicing” off the top. Something I can’t work on well at Stephanie’s is the outrun because we have this huge arena to work in and the sheep start to take off if I get too close to set Rippa up.

So, that’s what we did. Doug put Kathy’s “flower” method (I’ve discussed in early entries) into a new and useful perspective for me – he says it’s more like thinking about it as the dog wanting to orbit the sheep and the orbit degrades. My job is to teach the dog to want to widen the orbit. Okay. Cool, I see that. Less flower, step in, step in, more consistent “out.”

He also showed me something I might have been missing with my “slingshot” outrun because I haven’t been working with Kathy since I started it – he calls it moving laterally. I set the dog up with me and the dog between the sheep, but I move wide out of her way and then when I give her the flank, and as she moves around me, I go to the sheep to hold her out on top. It doesn’t sound much different from what I told you I was doing but . . .

“You’re lazy,” Doug says, as he points out that when Rippa balances, I step in front of the sheep instead of have her bring them . . .

Yup. I started looking for cheat ways to get what I wanted to see and . . . there you are.

So anyway, back today to the regular spot. I remembered what Doug said and worked hard on the orbit and outruns. My sheep have gotten more easy to work with time because they know who my dog is and I’m able to sort them with very little stress because Rippa keeps calm and starts out good.

Toward the end of the lesson, I realized that maybe all my telling her what to do wasn’t working and since she takes pressure off pretty easy with a reminder, I would just look for her eye (she looks before she starts coming in too close) and tell her “no” when it happened. That worked really well. I was really happy with Rippa. It made her slow way down and just walk, which made everything go nice. For a bit.

The sheep reeeeeeeally want to get back to their gate, so if I so much as point that way or stop holding my end aggressively, they bolt and Rippa has to go catch them again.  So, if that happens, she starts to speed up – she has to, but I get really disappointed by that.

Stephanie was suggesting I take her out to the bull field – a space that’s like four times the size of the arena with access at the back of the arena – “out back” equivalent for Kathy’s training facility. I told her I didn’t think we were ready for that, but actually – it’s not like Rippa loses her sheep  - it might help the sheep  stop trying to escape if it’s somewhere unfamiliar – and that gate work should be good for the Rippa bear. We’ll see how things go.

And someone commented on my bite article that a dog doesn’t really need bite if they have presence. That could be true – I admit that a dog with confidence and power may not have to bite, but I like my dogs to have it anyway – it’s a tool. Given that the reason I do this is not to win trials but
to really get the whole point of these dogs (these cattle-bred dogs) and eventually have an influence on local ranchers with them – helping them have good dogs and preserving the breed’s utility.

Anywho – so what’s presence? Well, ask the sheep. When I first got into that arena, they were like HOLY NO! when we walked in. They were used to intense stares but not intense, direct movement toward them. A BC can be mighty scary to a sheep that has not seen one and only been worked by loose eyed dogs, but after a while, that events out.

Presence/power is a measure of intimidation, I’d say. When the stock sees the dog, they think, “I will not call this dog’s bluff. It is small, but I do not want to mess with it.” That’s why a dog can get away without bite. Kind of like some huge bodybuilder dude acting as a bouncer – do you really want to find out?

Fury, Rippa’s mother had it for being so tiny. I remember Kathy telling me that I needed to be careful with her on cattle or they’d call her bluff. She used a lot of bluster to make her point and it worked. I have this great photo of a cow that’s literally leaping to get out of the way of my 26 pound dog:

I love that photo.  Problem with being wee, though, is had the cow decided to challenge and she not be able to get out of the way . . . squish goes the tiny dog.

Anyhoo, part of the reason I decided that she could contribute to the breed gene pool is that she did not ever go squish.

And that’s a thing altogether to talk about – how some people think putting dogs on cattle is just mean because it’s dangerous. Sorry, but Fury and I had a deal and it extends to all of my Aussies henceforth: you were bred to do this and if you get hurt, I love you, but you should do it. I will not protect you from potential harm, but I will do my best to not put you into a situation you can’t handle.

I feel like that’s fair. I mean, sheesh, these dogs go nuts when they see cattle out in the hills when I’m driving around. Not horses, not sheep, not poultry, not even deer. Cattle. It’s hard wired in there. I want it, and I’m okay with us all taking some knocks to do what’s hardwired.

After all, I personally am hard wired to do foolhardy stuff for fun that other people never would, too.

Off to go look at photos from that trial because I do love the Fury dog and loved working her . . .  (you can, too, if you want)

Take Pen Work and Relationship Building

Well, we took CA Sharp out to lessons with her dog today and I rented sheep. The drawback to me renting while she takes a lesson is that she gets the sheep I use in the arena and it’s lambs for me.

What happens with lambs? They are SO SCARED and they don’t like to stick together. Rippa has a lot of power behind her – and her instincts are to go in hard – she’s bred to work large herds of cattle. Lambs do not deal well.

They shot around the arena again like our “heavy” lesson sheep did when we first started, but I knew I just needed to let it go and she’d take care of it, even if it wasn’t pretty. And then I did it – I didn’t trust her. She would come in hot and I’d yell at her to lay down and then POW! Those sheep would be outta there and she’d have to get them again. I knew I was doing it, but my instincts are to make it look nice and I need to stop it. I took Rippa’s power away. Yes, she comes in hard, but she doesn’t go through them anymore. She’ll come up when they hit the fence, but I just can’t trust her.

And not trusting her is when I fall apart. She totally showed me why when we got the sheep back to the draw. I’ve said this before, I think, but she has an interesting arena setup – just past the draw where the sheep live, the pen jags in in an 8 x8 open area. The lambs would go hide in there and at first, Rippa would make an appearance and they would explode out of there.  After they settled, Rippa showed me she is trust worthy in a number of ways:

1. She eased up considerably when she saw them exposed and would get out of their flight zone without my prompting.

2. She walked up (straight up) easy on them to push them out, balancing a few feet out and waiting to see what they did.

3. She took her flanks and stayed tight against the fence.

This is a big deal because I haven’t had the opportunity to train 2 & 3 because of the conditions of Stephanie’s setup. This means that my method of just waiting for Rippa to learn how to handle the sheep is working – and that she’s got enough instinct and smarts for it to work.

SPARKLE!

Stephanie is bringing Jack Knox to the field on my birthday and I think I’m going to do it. I decided that since Kathy wasn’t around locally anymore that I would take opportunities to go to other clinicians just to see what they were about. It was a nice experience to do it with Betty, so might as well stay on my home turf and find out more about that. Stephanie says he should be very good for us because he’s good at relationship building, and that’s clearly what I need. I’m also prepared to have to fight for Rippa on this, though, because if anyone is a Border Collie trainer, it’s Jack.  I don’t know much about him, but I’ve heard that about him.

When it’s time to let the dog just do the work . . .

So the last two sessions (if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m working twice a week at Stephanie’s) have gotten better and better. So much so that this session, I thought, “Well, I should get off the big stick crutch and use the little stick.”

But this is a bad idea. We get so ahead of ourselves we forget how much foundation we need to lay to change so many things. Rippa is just now starting to figure out how to work in a larger space without the fence for help – why would I add something else to that mix if she hasn’t got it dialed? And so, no, I stayed with my 8 foot stick.

But I have to say, this work today was pretty flawless in terms of my setting expectations.

We are now just sorting the sheep ourselves. Stephanie generally lets the sheep out and then sorts out the sheep she wants into a smaller squeeze chute off the arena, but I’ve been taught how to sort with just a gate so all I need to do is ask Rippa to walk up to the sheep, and she’ll easily go around the barn obstacle and bring them to me and the gate. They didn’t really want to do that today (instead wanting to circle), so it took a few goes, but once Rippa got what I wanted, she positioned herself in a balanced spot so that the sheep would stop in front of the gate.

It takes some work to pull the adult lesson sheep out of the lambs, but she would inch forward without my asking as I needed it and we got a good batch of four sheep today.

As soon as we got them out, they headed to the middle of the arena, so while I closed the gate, I let Rippa get them without giving her a command. She starts out slow to see if I want it to happen and if I say nothing, she starts heading toward them.

It’s not a beautiful outrun where she stays way outside their flight zone and then dips in at the top – it’s a pretty rough gather in that she just kind of tips in and banks them toward me, but she does it, and then when they come up to me at the gate, she stops herself. I’m good with that. That’s healthy, happy, functional work and we can work on the fancy later – the foundation for what’s expected (calm control of the livestock) is laid and she’s half-way out of the arena getting them so hey, I’m happy.

The sheep are nearly always spooked, but I have figured out that if I show them how Rippa controls them (unlike the eye-dog BCs she’s used to who work them very differently) by doing silent half-moons on the fence while Rippa balances up and reads her sheep, we can start going.

And so we did. We headed out all the way to the end of the arena and back – not straight, mind you, lots of zigging, but we did it.

At this point, I think I need to focus on handling my end of the sheep because they are light enough to just blow past me if I don’t sometimes block them and let Rippa figure out where she needs to be to stop running like crazy as she wears them back and forth  - she’s getting wider and wider and will go “out” if I remind her, but I don’t really want to have to keep “out”ing her, so I’m trying to keep it to a minimum – right now my goal is less command oriented and more just letting Rippa use her instinct and knowledge to work the sheep.

I have to say – it’s fun to watch. Now that she’s learned not to go flat on the top but that with sheep like this, you win by getting further out, it’s cool to watch her do it. She gets a massive workout because the sheep don’t easily settle  and she can’t just fall in behind them – she’s got to move to each side to check on the sheep and she’s got to poke them back in (but then they over correct and it’s back to the other side), but it looks good from where I sit.

Last lesson, we did some center pen work (FABULOUS) but I made the mistake of opening the gate to send her in and the whether with horns fully rammed her. Rippa didn’t blink – she just went back to work – not even made at the ram, but definitely watching him.

This work there was a ewe that kept breaking off (I mentioned this ewe in earlier lessons a couple months ago) and Rippa did a great job of not letting her get too far. She tends to drop the singleton if they get out too much and go, naturally, to the bigger group and bring them to her – I can hear Kathy yelling, “Bring the many to the one!” I’m impressed the dog is doing it. I’m not sure I want her to do that in trialing scenarios, but it shows me her stock sense and I’ll let her  have it.

And then, since she’d been working so hard, we got back to the gate, she balanced up, I opened the gate, and we put them away.

It was pretty great. Not all days will be that great, but it’s tangible progress and feels great after a few weeks ago when I was nervous that the arena was too big and the sheep too light.

The plan now is to keep putting miles on until Rippa manages them herself, then go to the short stick, and then we’ll start working on some issues (the less than beautiful outrun, she goes a little flat on the top instead of staying out) and refining our commands.

Transitioning from Round Pen to Arena

So, this week we went back into the arena to work on our foundation, but it wasn’t as seamless as I had hoped.

We were in the the round pen and we had good balance, good responsiveness to my needs, and her outruns were pretty good, and probably only getting better if I got out of that tight space.

I’m used to transitioning from the round pen to a smaller pen that Kathy called “the duck pen” for duck trialing – it was a good size to move into because you still had the control on everything and then the dog and sheep got some more space to work in, usually for the better. I found moving from there to the arena was pretty painless in terms of expectations – the dog could do good outruns to pick the sheep up and had a fetch, and now it was time to just work on finite training and drives.

So, jumping from the round pen where it was getting pretty boring from one perspective, I am now in the arena.

I went in on Wednesday, but Stephanie forgot/didn’t know I was coming (email lines crossed) and so there weren’t sheep set out for me. She trusts me not to mess stuff up, so I decided to sort my own lesson sheep out and give it a go if everything went fine.

Rippa did an amazing job in the pens holding her ground while I sorted. I am really used to Fury’s abundant energy and intensity, and Rippa is far more laid back than I give her credit for – it was really not a big deal for her to lay down and let me sort sheep, and this is something we’d never done before.

So the sheep are now in the arena, but they are BOUNCING ALL OVER THE PLACE and I can’t set up anything for Rippa. These are the same lesson sheep we used in the round pen, but now they have space to escape and my green dog doesn’t really know what to do with that. So, we walked around a bit, I downed her, tried to get them to settle, but even I was too much for them. After five minutes of realizing it was going to be “chase sheep around the arena,” I put them back. I figured not to mess with stuff, especially if Stephanie didn’t know I was there.

So, as soon as I got home, I let her know what I did, and as I expected, she was fine with it, so now we’ve got it going on that even if she’s not around, I can come out, which is super.

I came out today and rented sheep after she did a lesson for someone in the arena for an hour or so. I gave the sheep a big, big break, and then we went in.

Same thing. Sheep bouncing everywhere – they are lighter than I’d like for this. I had thought about the earlier fruitless work and knew that Rippa wasn’t going to seek and destroy, so I probably just needed to let everyone get the feel of things without expecting too much out of anyone.

Now, armed with the assurance that Rippa gets what I want, I aimed to get them on the fence and let Rippa do her thing until she figured out that she needed to take pressure off them. It wasn’t pretty, but after me sitting there and just marking good things with “yes” and bad things with “no” we had the sheep settled enough to fetch a bit and stop and they wouldn’t bail.

It basically feels like starting over again, but Rippa knows commands better. Toward the end of the lesson, I tried to kind of teach Rippa her distance outruns by obediencing them – I’d tell her “out” and if she gave the sheep shoulder and moved laterally, she got a “good” and tried adding “out – go by” and it worked pretty well, but eventually she’d had enough and we put them away.

I have to admit it’s frustrating that it didn’t go as cleanly as I’m used to it going from one pen size to another, but there’s not option for something intermediate. Rippa has to learn how to rate her sheep with no help from the fence pressure, and I think I probably just have to settle into things not looking as nice in the round pen until she does.

I also think it’s time to bring the big stick with a bottle back – in the arena, the extra space makes her turn on the pressure too much and I think she’s going to need help getting out to take it off. Me running at her with the sheep running in the opposite direction won’t help us out one bit.

So, we’ll see how that goes. I did a lot of searching the Internet for something about that transition, but it doesn’t appear to be “a thing,” so  . . . I guess I’ll do my best. Advice welcomed.

Arena Video Footage–I need to calm down

Thinking I was going to fly to Canada today, it turns out I’m going on Thursday. So, I thought, why not one more lesson in the arena? There was some neat stuff I saw here that people learning about this might like to see so I roped my husband into video taping it for me. Boy howdy, did I need to see the tape. I am really lucky I have tough dogs, guys. I need dogs who keep going even though I’m being hard on them, because I really, really need to work on that.

As I said, last time was the first time in the big arena for us and she showed me a lot of really neat stuff, but I was having a hard time with outruns and such. Watching the video, I’m pretty sure someone needs to put a shock collar on me. I am so freaked out that the dog is going to be bad, I don’t set her up to be good.

Case in point – when I start her, I start her maybe twenty feet from the sheep in an arena. Watching the video, she’s totally being responsive to me, but she’s excited to go and I’m worried so I don’t send her, and we amp up. It’s not until I get way back and give everyone space that everything goes mostly well for newbs in an arena. Watching Rippa like this reminds me this is how Fury used to be before I put too much pressure on her when she came into contact with me. Sigh.

Anyway, things I am learning from working in the arena: I need to take advantage of that space because Rippa and I both ease off if we give eachother room to make mistakes without being harsh. With the sheep close in on the initial outruns, they have a whole arena to run at, so they do, and I’m making Rippa work close under real pressure from me instead of JUST GO. So I need to JUST go when we start and stop stressing if it’s not perfect. This is the stage where Rippa and I have to learn to read our sheep and control them without fencelines, not worry about perfection.

So, here’s the video. It’s pretty long but it’s because I wanted to include a couple things: how hard I start Rippa and where it’s really obviously I need to stop doing that. Working on teaching her to pick the sheep up off the fence and bring them to me without too much help – you’ll see her fail a couple times, and do her customary “shut down” I talk about, but then it gets it together. And then, in the end, we have a nice lift off the fence and I take the sheep for a jog. I don’t know why I felt like jogging, but I did, and she kept them balanced even then.

I did take the time to start a little drive on her that doesn’t show. I’d noticed that she was really taking commands from me so a little “it’s okay to drive the sheep” in there wouldn’t fry her. It lasted like two minutes. I decided I shouldn’t add too much new stuff. Now that I’m getting used to being my own guide, I’m quite liking how it’s making me feel. I sense myself relaxing into everything I’ve learned over the years and finally taking ownership of it.

So now I really am off for a month and we’ll come back on work on my crappy starts on sheep and just letting Rippa learn to handle her sheep (including that damned red one that flips out all the time).  Oh and the #1 thing: Trust your dog, Kristin . . . TRUST YOUR DOG. It’s when you’re a jerk that she freaks out.

Playing with the Big Kids: We Move to the Arena

I try to write every time we get on stock because it helps me solidify thoughts and feelings, and it’s pretty realistic to look at the archives and see how much work/how many sessions have gone into this. I skipped a work on Friday.

After the nice session we had in the round pen, I decided it was probably time to move to the arena to give her more to do, work on outruns, and not let the small enclosure become a crutch for us. I thought it was a good time to take a lesson with Stephanie to transition, so signed up for one. Her style is very different in some ways, but the changes she’s encouraged have made a world of difference in our partnership so I think it’s a good idea to have her involved when I feel ready for it.

When I showed up, she had sheep in the round pen for me and not in the arena like I wanted, but I went with it. She said she’d seen me using the flag wrong and wanted to fix it. “You were moving into Rippa – but with the flag, you have to move away. And you can’t use it too much or it will become a crutch.”

So, back to the stick. That went fine, but she started throwing lots of new things at us – she critiqued how I started my outruns, and after a bit of confusion which riled me and the sheep and the dog up, I had to stop and find out what exactly she wanted. What she wanted was completely the opposite of how I’ve learned to teach outruns (go between the sheep and the dog, then transition to slingshots, then move further and further), but was more about trusting the dog to learn to pick the sheep up while it makes mistakes. I kept trying to do it, but it was really, really difficult. Eventually I figured out a hybrid of the two that worked for us all – which is that instead of slingshotting, I walk in the direction I’m going to send Rippa and then send her. It keeps her out wide when she starts.

Then Stephanie started trying to make me send Rippa on her flanks but I know that we’ve spent time just trying to get easy flanks and she really doesn’t take flank commands yet, nor do I expect her to. So Stephanie was like, “Well, then, lie her down if she doesn’t take them and make her.”

It was just a lot of change for both of us, and my handling started to fall apart and then Rippa stopped covering her sheep, and then . . . I admit . . . I started crying. I haven’t cried doing stockdog stuff (at least during a lesson) that I know of ever, so I thought it was a good sign that I was comfortable with Stephanie’s reaction to the crying to allow it, while also being just REALLY frustrated.

Everyone tells me that Rippa is stubborn or spoiled, but I do know my dog and I’ve been training dogs for years so when I say I know how she learns and “make excuses for it” I really feel I do know. When Rippa shuts down, she does it because she doesn’t know what to do at all. Stephanie was like, “Just make her do it” but my inclination was to just go back to what we knew to reinforce us both. It’s frustrating taking lessons from people when you have your own idea about how things work. I need to work on one thing at at a time, and I think Stephanie may be a bit eager to have me improve in leaps and bounds and thinks I can take it, but I can’t. And I cried.

So we took a break and she moved me into the arena and said to just do what I normally do and forget everything she said, and we did. And we did pretty well. Rippa behaved well and you could see her learning how to manage the sheep in a larger arena, but definitely we had work to do.

And so here we are today. I am taking off for an entire month of travels next week, and I was pretty booked but I wanted one more lesson in the arena before we took the time off so she could think on it (yeah, I do think they do, because they seem to always come back a little better after time off).

So, I just rented sheep. I brought the flag and the short stick and here we were. Rippa has some eye to her, and some power, so we spent the first couple minutes just following the sheep to let them settle after we went into the arena. I started out with the flag because I have no confidence (see me thinking hindsight here) and she picked them up a little sloppy, so that was what we worked on. As soon as it was nice, we started trucking around the arena (the goal for a bit here is mileage and letting Rippa learn how to balance to her sheep in this environment with minimal “training” from me for a while), but she got too close in so I started trying to push her with the flag. And then I remembered what Steph said about the flag and put it back, picking up the stick.

And from there, things went well. I used her method of starting the out runs and then trying to take walks into the arena. Rippa would do really good, then put some pressure and lose her sheep, come back and get them, etc. Eventually she started to settle and handle things a lot more evenly – without much guidance from me except some stick and pressure and then, more importantly, taking it off. She was like, “Why yes, sheep can walk” which was pretty awesome.

We’d get about halfway and then this one particular sheep would peel off and return “home” to the gates and I would take the opportunity to leave the parked sheep and encourage her to “look back” and get the sheep. She built up her confidence on this task and by the third time, she wasn’t carefully following her and looking back at me, but charging after her to stop her and then backing off as she turned and headed back up to my other flock.

She also started doing distance gatherings with me far away – slow, easy approaches, I could see her “outing” herself along the fence and really reading her sheep. She’d take it slow and easy with me a 100 meters out and seeing which way they leaned, fixing it, and bringing them to me. Once they got to me, she’d balance up and we’d take a walk. Eventually she’d push too hard, and we’d have to start cleaning it up again, but I think probably just mileage and confidence will help there.

I started trying to do Stephanie’s out-run flank “down” thing that I talked about above for a bit, but decided this was way too much new stuff and to leave it be.

I saw some really good stuff today. Calm, thinking, and I think she’s going to have an easier time learning the drive than most dogs I’ve seen start because of this. I remember when we first started and Trish made a comment after working her that she was a “finals-quality" dog that really got me motivated but I haven’t really felt that way about her until today.

All that battling and her going hard and all I needed to do was take the pressure off and she’s gathering sheep up half a field away without ever doing it before like it’s old hat. Her stopping and listening to my commands without me having to yell. Me just being pretty sure that no one is going to get harassed and injured enough for me to just stand there and watch what happens.

We’ve both come a long way in this. I was terrified to do anything on my own without someone “who knew” watching me, but I am starting to really feel that I do know, especially when it comes to my dog, how to do this.

I don’t think we’ll make it to finals – I just don’t have the years of experience trialing, and I honestly don’t love the trial atmosphere and never really have, so I probably won’t get the experience you need. Like that book I was really excited about says, to be a champion takes real sacrifice and I’m not motivated to do that.

But I hope when I’m ready to go for this, that we do well.