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!

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.

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.

My first NCA trial–and not my last

I don’t really like trials very much of any sort, or pretty much any day that involves sitting around waiting for my chance to go or do something. I go to them because it’s time and because I need to look for dogs I like. Otherwise, I’d be doing something else. I like to be busy.

This weekend’s trial definitely kept me busy. When I got invited to go by the Woods, I of course leapt at it. I imagined I’d probably pay my dues, potty their dogs, wrangle their delightful boy, and learn some things. Instead, they asked me if I wanted to time and I said sure.

Well, in a time trial, that makes me the judge. Woah! In ASCA, you have to go through a fair amount to qualify to be  one. Put championships on your working dogs, have a solid background in livestock management, etc. Then you go through a review and training period and then you’re able to judge. Of course, the judges also are looking for something other than points and time: they’re looking for how the dog gets it done. In these trials, it doesn’t matter. It’s just points, with ties broken by time.

A couple things about NCA (National Cattledog Association) Trials: they’re horseback, you have to have western gear (I guess I better get a new hat, my straw one has seen better days), and the divisions are interesting.

Open – this is the pro category: if you give lessons or train dogs for money, you go in here. You’d think it would be the most competitive category, but I didn’t think it was in the end. Just because you’re a pro doesn’t mean you have the best dog or handling ability.

Intermediate – I think this is if you’ve won too many Rancher classes and have to be somewhere. I’ll eventually get here. And, since people like me get here, it gets competitive. I was shocked to see how well these dog and handler pairs did after watching Open. But, you have a broader pool to pull from.

Nursery – for dogs under 3. Again, you’d think this would be a beginner class, but it really wasn’t. Some dogs were in one of the other two classes and ALSO in this one. Some of the best dogs out there were under 18 months! I couldn’t believe it. Aussies seem to mature slowly compared to the BCs, because these dogs had confident swagger that I’ve never seen in an Aussie at that age to date.

Rancher – it’s kind of a misnomer. This is where I’ll start. It’s the beginner class, but again, not really. The ranchers were mostly actual ranchers and their dogs were awesome.

Bottom line – this is a whole other thing and I love it.

I LOVED their attitude of, “Hey, we give you this job, you seem capable, do it.” I feel like that has never been the MO of the Australian Shepherd world. I wasn’t just doing the timing/scoring with the help of new friends, I was doing the announcing (yay for Toastmasters and being an Emcee at events when needed) and people went out of their way to tell me how much they appreciated my efforts. I loved how they had cards signed in thank you to the people who put the trial on and the sponsors that gave the prizes. Cowboy chivalry is alive and well, friends. Heck, had the environment been the same when I was back in school in the ag program, I might have stayed. I feel like I came out of the weekend with many new, sincere friends. And that I’m now a part of something really organic and cool. In school, I was in the ag dorm in an ag program and I never wanted to look the part. I didn’t want to be a part of it to begin with. I only recently bought a pair of boots to work and ride in. Here, I didn’t care if I didn’t look the part and neither did they. It was just people giving mutual respect and appreciation of people. A really rare thing for any gathering you go to. Beautiful.

So, anyway . . . I put a lot of thoughts together watching these dogs this weekend that I think are fairly interesting if they’re not already obvious:

• I’ve been thinking this for a while, but this weekend proved it: if your dog has mostly all the tools in its head, stockdog training is really about mileage. That’s it. If you work a lot on sheep, your dog will confidently handle sheep. If you work a lot on ducks, same. And same with cattle. People have been telling me for years that Aussies at National Finals just don’t have grip and power. I think they probably don’t because most of the finals dogs aren’t regularly working cattle – and new cattle. Aussies have a reputation for being barky and bouncy and out of control and from what I saw this weekend, it looks a lot more like the dog just is intimidated by the cattle and doesn’t know what to do. Rippa was like that and she’s settling now. Miles on cattle can make a cowdog.

• Miles make the dog make sense. Rippa tends to freak out and go for a body shot. I always worry about that because it’s pointless and stupid, but I was sitting with a  lifelong cowboy who has produced some very nice dogs, and he said, “Ehh, that’ll go away when the confidence comes.” I agree, because see above.
• Cowdogs need bite and lots of it. Terry Martin is always saying that the ASCA stockdog program is weakening cattle dogs because of the sheep/duck requirements to championship. This is because dogs can’t bite those stock, and since it’s 2/3 of the whole point, you end up with dogs who don’t grip cattle first. It’s been really frustrating to me with Fury and now Rippa that they both are a lot more chompy than most dogs I see and it makes trialing harder. It says a LOT that Fury got her started cattle title and doesn’t have ducks and sheep. I saw a LOT of gripping (and took a LOT of photos of it) over the weekend. These dogs had it in spades and even when it got a little wild, everyone was fine with it.  I had a chance to talk to a cowboy helping me out in the box and we got to talking about it. I said I’d seen all these videos of dogs ganging cattle and it seemed like a mess. He agreed. So I said, why all the bite? I mean, people cross breed border collies with pitbulls. He pulls back a bit and says, “You need to.” And he basically says that all these dogs out here need that kind of tenacity or they won’t last in a cattle operation. Day in and day out getting beat up, they need to have the edge to keep doing it for years. That’s why people do the pitbull breedings. Of course, he says, you never know what you’ll get, maybe you’ll lose some things when you do that, too. This, combined with what I saw, made me sad that I was not in a better position to do what I do now with The Fury. She would have been awesome. I specifically bred Rippa to take the edge off a bit, and she is a lot more thoughtful, but she’s missing the balls-out bit that would make her last years in and years out working hard stock.  At least, theoretically.
• Buying and selling dogs. My friend told me that he used to train crossbreds and sell them at auction but then he figured that purebred dogs with papers made more money, so that’s what he’s doing now. I figured the market would bear whatever the best dog was. Au contraire. Lines matter even in the working cattle dog world.
• Puppies in ranch homes. He also said that if you had a rancher that had never had a dog before, you’d better place a finished dog with him or make sure you give him some lessons. Otherwise, he’s not going to know how to use the dog and he’ll tell his friends your dog is a piece of crap and that’s how your reputation goes badly. But, once a rancher has a finished dog, he’ll know how to use the next one and start it as a pup. This is a good reason why a lot of Aussies aren’t in working ranches anymore: people don’t start and sell started/finished Aussies. I know Norm Andrews wanted to do that, but too bad he isn’t here to talk to anymore.

Shannon asked me after it was all over if I felt ready for the next one. I told her not yet – my dog doesn’t mind well enough and she’s got to get some more confidence before we go in. There’s a trial Easter Weekend I might be ready for if I get enough mileage in. There’s a lot riding on me representing Aussies well if I’m going to do this – I’m conscious of the prejudice and, honestly, if the Aussie has no place on the ranch any more, there’s definitely no point in breeding working ones with reserved attitude, bite, etc when there’s plenty of lovely family pets and trial dogs for people to pick from. There’s also plenty of people trying to get me to switch to BCs next time (and at this point I know what I’d get if I did), but I’m more than ever encouraged to go as far as I can with Rippa and start with a new generation to see where it takes me. Keep learning, keep looking, the world just keeps getting richer and richer.

The line between instinct and self control: we have found it.

My view on the way to Stephanie’s.

An interesting thing has happened with Rippa that hasn’t happened with Fury. When I started training Fury again on sheep and ducks, Rippa and Fury worked a lot a like in terms of how they were reading and the control that was happening. Granted, I was giving Fury slack for bad handling mistakes of the past and not working in a few years, but I felt like they were kind of in the same spot with training.

Rippa has utterly surpassed Fury in the last few weeks and the contrast is making it really obvious to me. It may be mileage, but I think it’s more to credit our work on cows than anything.

My dogs have a lot of drive and instinct to DO SOMETHING with animals. It has felt, with both of them, that I have a lot of raw energy that I have to keep under control with my handling, but something has definitely shifted with Rippa.

We’d been working roping steers the last few weeks and they have a way different dynamic than the older cows and the calves the Woods now have. There was this one steer that was a bully to the other one and made it really hard to control the whole herd. Rippa quickly ID’d that steer and wanted to work him and sacrifice the group because she was so annoyed with him (I assume – I felt the same way handing him). But with the careful, patient prodding of what to do with that situation from Shannon, I’ve been handling Rippa different and putting more obedience on things. When she goes to pick them up, I drop her just before her adrenaline takes control and she goes too hard to control them. I call her off the steer, etc.

It, in turn, has given her space to make decisions and think, finally. Our last session on cattle was really nice because she was doing that. A lot of the reason we’re not killing it at this point is that I’m still bad at handling and reading the situation, but Shannon had a nice thought on that: “You’re worried about what your dog is going to do. Keep worrying about her until you don’t have to, then you can worry about what you’re doing.”

But this all really came together on Stephanie’s sheep last time.

She has a LOT more sheep than when we started now because lambing season’s over (though there are some late lambs in the mix) and everyone’s all together again instead of separated out. That means I have a bigger herd to sort from and it’s a little harder because if I try to sort out of the pen she keeps them in, the light ones stay to the front and the heavy ones to the back, so I have to let them all out and then go over to this small, weird shaped pen with a point at the back and sort them into there because the leader sheep go first.

But, never overfill your pen, ESPECIALLY if it has a point at the back that they can get stuffed in.

It’s happened before and it happened again, I had one of the rams in there and when Rippa went to move them out of the pen, he wasn’t having it. Backed up and faced her, stamping, ready to charge. That kind of thing in a little pen isn’t good so I tried a couple things to fix the situation (like sending her on the outside of the pen, but he just rammed the fence), so I ended up putting her on a down and dragging him out by his horns. He was still being a jerk and backed himself into a corner and wouldn’t move. I tried backing Rippa’s pressure up with my stick but he wasn’t having it.

Rippa’s frustrated, but patiently waiting for me to do something. She doesn’t want to walk up on him because he’s going to charge her so she wants help. She literally says, “I don’t want to start a fight with him, but I don’t know what to do.” This, the dog that was bite first, ask questions later six months ago.

So, I told her she could hit him. She did a lot of yelling and feinting to try to make her point, but finally decided he needed some hits, so she would hit, reasses, hit again, reassess. This happened a few times, great shots to the poll until he still wouldn’t move and she hit him in the ear. That worked. For a bit. 

We had to have a couple gos with him, and I got some sheep out to get him moving nicely again (she had to heel the sheep to get them to move out of that little point, which was a bummer – not what I want her take pen experience to be like)– putting him away quickly, but the key was that even with Rippa hitting him, she didn’t let her instinct and stress get the best of her. It was hit, reassess, warn, hit, reassess.  She didn’t get him fixed with the hits, but I really don’t know what she was going to do because he would rather get bit by her than just run and give to the pressure.

Moreover, that would have had her all emotionally charged for her work the rest of the time, but she settled into the basic working jobs just fine . . . penning, working on calling off the top, driving.

I’m still sucking at the driving thing still – I can do fine with it along fencelines, but neither I nor Rippa feel like she’s got control on the drive away from them. It’s fine. I’ve been working on getting better responsiveness before we move on to that seriously.

And talk about giving to pressure – we have a cat who hates the dogs. Fury cannot help herself but to growl on back and charge the cat, but Rippa? She just turns her head away and gives the cat her space.

It’s very cool. I feel like we’ve hit a milestone in maturity with her. I had been wondering if it would ever be a natural, easy fetch and plain work without a lot of me having to watch her – the answer is yes, it is.

Good dog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what is it I should be evaluating?

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

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

And what components beyond that trainability?

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

• Desire
• Instinct

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

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

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

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

Responsiveness to livestock:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bravery

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

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

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

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

Desire to Dominate, Not Chase

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grouping

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

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

Rating or pacing self on stock

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

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

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

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

Heading

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

Heeling

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

Barking

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

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

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

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

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

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

Couple thoughts from this video:

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

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

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)

Dogs Gripping

I have it in my notes to write something up about dogs gripping (aka, biting) because the whole point of this blog is not just to talk about what I’m doing but help leave a trail of notes for someone trying to learn to work with their dog on livestock, too.

The PC term for “biting” in stockdog land is “gripping.” Ideally, the grip is measured depending on the stock and what it needs. The dog will use its bite to get the livestock’s respect. Ideal reasons for a bite are to get them moving (like biting a hock of a cow, or heel (hence it being called heeling)) or to make them stop fighting (like biting the poll, or forehead, of a cow).

Odds are, however, your dog is going to bite a lot more than that (or not at all), in different locations, and I wanted to address this.

There are some “nevers” that apply to trialing, but in real life, they don’t apply. A dog should “never” bite poultry in a trial, and very rarely should it bite a sheep (only if it’s fighting, and that’s really depending on your judge). But, at home, you can bet your sweet bippy that when Rippa got headbutted by a ram she was working I let her correct him for it.

But what’s appropriate correction? Let’s start with NOT MAULING. A strong, simple, non-vindictive correction that ends when the animal gets the message and goes back to calm movement.

Does that come naturally? Sure. But odds are, if you’ve got a dog with enough fight in her to go against a huge cow, she’s going to have to learn to control that fight with practice.

Let’s talk about your dog with no fight. Some dogs just don’t come with it – they will work as long as they’re not challenged and when challenged, it’s over. This seems to be a confidence thing that is partly inherently in the dog’s personality and can’t be fixed, and partly it’s just  lack of confidence from lack of experience. The latter you can work with. It’s key, however, not to force a dog into a grip situation when they are getting started, because it’s just as easy to shut them down with the pressure there.

Okay, so back to bites. A dog’s ideal target areas are the poll (spot where the horns are) on the head and the bottom of the hock (or heel). Some dogs will instinctually go for these spots right away. If so, hooray for you!

If not – your dog may never hit the ideal location – but most times they will learn through experience.

Most dogs grip for reason other than what the ideal is. It is almost always a function of confidence. If the dog feels like she has no other choice or option, out comes the bite. It may be because the dog is inexperienced and doesn’t know she has other options. It may be because she is inexperienced and it seems like the best option at the moment (not thinking of the consequences that a bite will have – such as losing or overly stressing the stock). A lot of times the bite comes out when the handler makes a mistake – feeds the dog the sheep, loses control the sheep herself or stresses the dog from yelling, fighting, etc.

I know these things because I did all these things. I know that things are bad when my dog starts biting sheep and it’s time to take it easy and reevaluate why.

1. My dog is just an alligator that wants to kill sheep

2. My handling is feeding my inexperienced dog sheep

3. My handling is frustrating my inexperienced dog and she feels like that’s all she can do

4. The sheep are not handling well and my inexperienced dog feels like that is all she can do.

5. The sheep are being bad and my dog needs to correct them.

6. The sheep aren’t moving and nothing but a bite will stop them.

7.  My dog just really likes gripping.

1 & 7 : nothing you can do here, that’s instinct, except maybe yell at them or let them get run over by cattle until they calm down. At which point, they might calm down because they are dead.

2-4: take a deep breath and get better at handling. If you can’t, it might be time to try heavier sheep, a more experienced dog, and definitely get a second set of eyes on your work

5-6: Do not correct your dog. This is okay. It’s easy to get upset when a dog grips at any point, but take a step back. Appreciate that your dog has enough power and judgment to make the call.

Now on to bite placement – as I said, not all dogs will start out with that ideal placement, and not all will end up with it. But . . . if you put your dog on cattle, they will eventually figure out that bites anywhere else are pretty dangerous. Newbie dogs tend to hang on to tails, bite higher up the thigh, bite the nose, and grab onto the sides of the livestock. Cattle will teach them quickly that this isn’t okay (but there is a risk of injury in letting this be the way they learn. If you’re just working sheep, experience can help there.

Anyway, just my observations at this point. Feedback welcome.