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

Spoiler alert: day 1 loot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How much space?

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

The panels and me are well behind the tree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Starting to Think I’m Getting Close to Ready!

Shannon and Dustin Wood with their mentor, Merle Newton of Crystal Rose Cowdog College. I wish I could have gotten Sandy in the shot, too, but she seemed to hang back the entire time and never give me photogenics.

So where did this photo come from? This week I took hump day off and audited a Curt Pate cattle handling clinic at their suggestion (notes in the link).

One of my first thoughts was, “Crap, man, I don’t even know how to ride horses that nice. I’m going to mess them up.” Mainly because Dustin says they’ll put me on his horse come this fall when I go trial with them and I’m used to lesson horses. It’s going to be a WHOLE OTHER ball of wax compared to ASCA trials where the goal is for you to just sit at one end of the arena and command the dog. I mean, yipe!

They both assure me it’s way easy once I get the hang of it and they’ll get me practiced up when the time comes. I don’t know if they assume I’m an ace-rider or not, but I hope they assume not and it’s that easy. I’ve just started riding again after 15 years off . . . and I was doing hunter-jumper stuff primarily then, definitely not cattle work. (Though I did totally go to a camp when I was a kid to do just that.)

I’m way into the whole cattle horse thing now, too. That’s a whole other ball of wax compared to trail riding or doing some jumps. It looks like Western-style dressage, and with an end purpose to it.

Anyway . . . lots of thoughts rolling around in my head.

I got a chance to rent sheep this week and work ducks, and go to cattle with the Woods.

Sheep – sheep went really well. I tried this technique Shannon had me practice last time where I lay down Rippa and walk out ahead of the sheep and she needs to stay put while they drift with me. When they stop, she’s allowed to get up. It took  a few minutes to establish the rules, but it really got her minding the sheep and me well, compared to the constant “out out out” pushing I had to do. We were doing it all over Stephanie’s field, fencelines and not, and she didn’t break once. She’s getting more and more self assured – but still takes a bit to get the confidence to work out further from me. That’s okay. Baby steps. We’re still only just starting out.

Ducks went super nice, too. Now that Rippa gets the point, it’s almost automatic from the pulling them out of their housing to the take pen, then putting them out to the take pen, and put thing them through the obstacles. I only just introduced the chute and Rippa was like, “OMG, this is a take pen. I go to the top and hold them, right?” We’re working on that. I also don’t really have much experience with obstacles because Kathy likes to lay down the foundation without that stuff. So, I’m working out the best way to navigate them and where to put Rippa for clean runs.

Cattle went really well. We warmed up on goats and sheep and she was super good. She’s still a lot more power than I want for them – it’s so hard for her to just dial it back a bit, but I’d rather have power than not. I can control it, but it’s never just a casual stroll to start out.  Shannon put us out back with the obstacles this time and said I should fetch the cattle to the arena and then pick an obstacle. Which, I did. We put them in the take pen. Some of it was ugly, some of it was great, but the ugly stuff wasn’t Rippa’s work, it was just that she’s not precise on the commands and neither am I.

So that’s my job from here on out – stop working on being relaxed now and start demanding excellence from Rippa. I feel like my cattle handling’s weak still, but Shannon agrees that I should work on Rippa first ,because once I can relax that she’ll take all my commands when I give them, then I can work on me. She’s not bad. She just takes too many steps and tends to want to test me. Shannon stopped me and told me I needed to give stronger corrections, and when we went to start the next round, things changed even before I did. Rippa must have sensed I meant business, and it was NICE. She was thinking and she was obeying.

So, precision. I still don’t love her outruns yet. Just gotta do it a million times. Outruns can set the tone for the whole thing so I need to get it down. It’s really the weakest part of the link, and I think its because Fury was SO easy to teach in comparison that I didn’t have to work as hard as I do with Rips.

We also need to figure out how to do formal take pens. Rippa is good at chore take pens, but she doesn’t know how to do a little trial one –  the last thing I want is a “thank you” at the start. Nobody has a formal setup to practice that so I may have to travel when I get close to trial time and practice it somewhere else. That’s good for me, too.

All in all, I’m pretty psyched. It’s coming together and my confidence in myself and my dog is beginning to climb. I just might be ready for this trial stuff soon.

Broken Ducks, Rattlers, Goats, and Cattle–oh my!

This week was nothing if not exciting. In order of least to most, I’d go with this for stockdog land:

• My attorney met with us to discuss corporate structure and tells us – get this – that it would be a smart investment, based off of what we’re up to, to buy a farm. HE IS THE BEST ATTORNEY EVER.
• Rippa got to work cattle again after time off of them to work on fundamentals. She did good.
• The ducks, myself, and Rippa almost stepped on a baby rattle snake when practicing our center pen. Jennifer, the gal that takes care of my ducks for me when I am not out there (which is not often), saves the day by beheading it.
• When putting the ducks away, one of them gets  her foot caught in a gopher or snake hole and breaks her leg. This isn’t that exciting. The fact that I somehow got convinced to leave her with the Wildlife Center to get four pins installed to fix it is. We named her Lucky Duck.

Let’s start with the most, because I know you’re dying. I’m not a bleeding heart – I’m not. I literally was like, “Well, there is a 4th of July BBQ coming up, but it would be a shame.” So I called my husband who didn’t know what to do. So he had me call my friend who is a surgeon to see if she could set its leg. She couldn’t, so she called our friend who works with wildlife rehab and brought her down. It’s broken really bad, confirms the vet there, but we should get x-rays. That’s where it starts. She’s currently in the wildlife center recovering from surgery from yesterday. You can judge me, but it was probably going to be a dog or me if not a duck so if making a donation and getting a duck surgery makes me feel better about the whole thing, then there we go. A lesson learned and I feel good enough about it to share, right?

Here’s the X-Ray.

Bruce Nelson made me a poem, even:

You fucked up raking,
And and came close to a duck baking
The vet said ah shuck
Thats one fucked up duck.
But for a few bucks, we can unfuck ducks.
No need to baste a duck, down on his luck
With a pin, a stitch and a nyunk nyunk nyunk ,
We will have the duck unfucked with just some luck.
So be kind to a duck, it brings you good luck,
And as Rickles would say, carry on you hockey puck.
Glad his quack up can be fixed.

So there is that.

I’ve been kind of down in the self-esteem department with the dogs lately. We’ve been working by ourselves for two weeks because both the Woods and Stephanie were out of town last week, so it’s just been ducks. Which has been plenty of time for the dogs to realize that they can cheat me by coming in too close to the ducks for me to stop them without smashing a quacker and grabbing them. Again, they grab them pretty light, but they’ll do some jerky stuff to them now because they’re used to it. I really wish I was a better handler and they never get chances to do it, but I’m not. So basically it’s a pattern of the dog starting off nice because they are cautious, losing the inhibitions, and then getting ratcheted back to nice – or so I think it goes. I’m in the inhibition stage so that’s what I worked on this week and then a duck broke its leg and I felt like a bad animal keeper/handler to have let it happen.

You have to understand that I have a LOT going in my life. I’m not a simple person remotely. You can’t expect a lot of attention to detail and perfection out of me because I’m always in about three places at once. The stockdog stuff is pretty much the only time I’m focused on just that. That or climbing are the only things that make that work, aside from meditation.

So, now I’m going to spend tomorrow in the 100+ degree heat raking out the duck pen and finishing the fences by pounding t-stakes in and just DOING IT RIGHT instead of cheating and calling 80% good enough. I don’t regret this attitude, it makes me extremely productive, but stuff like this can happen.

So . . . anyway. I was feeling a little like, well, what am I doing here, really, when I drove to the Woods’ tonight.

Shannon and Dustin are incredibly supportive and mellow. I really appreciate their entire vibe. We’re holding babies, their kitten is hopping up and down on my thigh, there’s a bunch of dogs tied to a fence, but it’s all good. We’re close in age and from the same area and stuff so it’s really different from my usual stockdog land where I don’t have a whole lot in common with dog people. Common friends outside of dogs, we both used to work on the same ranch, etc, etc. It puts me a lot more at ease so I knew I’d be okay. I also told Shannon how I was feeling as soon as I got there and she, in her usual way, was just patient and good natured about it all and reminded me what to work on and away we went.

We’re back to using the big stick again – fundamentals. Two steps forward, one back. But getting a lot out of it. I don’t think Rippa is taking her outs great but I’ve been working more on my handling than worrying about hers, because, well, BIG SECRET – YOUR HANDLING MATTERS MOST.

I’ve also tried whistle training a bit now that I can do it well enough. Fury was like like, “That’s cool – where’ s my treat? This must mean “down.”

Rippa was sure that stuff in my mouth and weird noises meant the apocalypse was coming, but she would try a little and get her treat but . . . let’s just keep our distance and see what happens for a bit, shall we? That’s Rippa. Not stubborn, just wary until she understands. I was talking to Fury’s breeder, Tracey, about it and she reframed it in a cool way: “Self-preservation instinct.” Fury is like, “What is it, let’s do it!” She’s missing a lot of teeth from being a little too easy to commit to stuff, too. Rippa hangs back, generally gives the side-eye to new things, and then as she gets it, then it’s fun. Doing weaves in agility used to make her cringe and now she lets little barks out while she guns it for the poles.

So, anyway, the sheep/goat runs weren’t superb in the scheme of things, but we’ve only been working ducks, but good enough for Shannon to say “BRING IN THE COWS!” again after many weeks off of them.

And, well, Rippa has some learning to do about how to manage them more efficiently because there’s a lot of wasted power and bark right now, but it’s also a lot of me not handling right. Dustin tells me as I go in, “Now remember your rules are still in effect. Expect on them what you expect on the goats.” And these cattle are SUPER gentle so once I got comfortable enough to go through them to get to her – it went from a little too much yahoo, to one good reinforcement and Rippa settling down and keeping them in good control.

She still is a real strong header, which makes me happy – as I remind you again, she started out not willing to go to head. This means she’s probably just as strong heeling if she needs it since that was her first instinct during first exposures. I think, like her mother, Rippa’s going to shine most on cattle.

One thing I don’t like about cattle that I’ve seen with her is that her hits aren’t great – she aims too high. I talked to Shannon about this. She’s probably seen cattle now as many times as Fury has in their lifetimes, which is not much – probably 10 days worth of exposure total – and big spaces in between. Would she settle out and not hit as badly? Shannon: “Maybe” though she sounded more “yes” than maybe. We’ll see. It’s not fancy heeling I need to see, but “self-preservation” heeling would be nice. Especially since her Slash V lineage is pretty well known for good positioning hits, it’s got to be in there. In time we shall see. At least she hits, right?

And, well, I feel pretty good. Rippa settled out tonight really nicely when I got my stuff together, the duck is on the mend, I’m committing to put the work in to make my duck arena nice, and we’re moving forward.

Oh, and I buried this one a little intentionally because I know the anti-AKC people won’t be thrilled at this bit of news, but I have to try . . . I found out Fury’s full sister is somehow AKC registered and apparently there’s this “open AKC” registry where you send in a certified pedigree and photos of your dog and for $20, you get a registration back.

We shall see. It’s way too easy, if you ask me. No DNA (she’s parentage verified, fwiw – not that I was worried), no microchip, nothing. But hey. If it opens up options for me down the road for selling dogs or just a new place to trial (because why SHOULDN’T good stockdogs represent at USASA Nationals?), it cost me a total of $30.

The videos are taking forever to upload so I’ll post one or two here when they’re done.

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:

The Chain of Positive Thinking

Well, I think that the chat with Stephanie and my huz worked. Today, Rippa and I did our thing and it was mostly glorious. She’s getting out when I ask and not shaving the top off like she was. She pens spectacularly. We did some arena obstacles (free standing pen and some panel work), she fetched for me and kept pretty balanced up, she drove a couple feet, and her outruns are getting better – I’ve actually gone back to standing in between her and the sheep (which I couldn’t do for a long time because she’d dive in and fight me) so that front looks like it’s going to progress. And all with the stock stick and not my big ol’ bottle pole.

But, yeah, I definitely can handle a started class in ASCA at this point, so long as I hold it together and the sheep aren’t awful.

I’ll talk about my driving technique next time probably, but I wanted to muse on this a bit.

I have a Kindle and it comes loaded up with a book called “The Flinch” – its premise is simple: we wait for our showers to warm up before getting in them to avoid “the flinch” – being uncomfortable. He says, “No! Get in right away! Get used to the flinch. Embrace the flinch!”

The flinch is that tiny push out of your comfort zone, that, if you do it enough, becomes within your comfort zone. I tend to live my life this way in general, but the dog stuff had me stagnating. I finally got my sheep, and then when I got into the arena, I was like, “No way can I do this, these sheep!” and then today, it all came together.

Our sorting wasn’t great to start, but we got ‘er done. We had mistakes and hiccups in training and handling, but yeah. And I realized that I’d pushed out enough by going to Doug and reminding myself that I have to get out of the comfort zone and work to HANDLE that dog and it came together. This made me realize that my comfort zone of “we’re just learning, not yet” isn’t cool.

It’s why I haven’t actively tried to get my duck setup and look for cattle to work. Yesterday I went out to the Best Family Farm and we looked over the setup and got a plan together – I think the huz is looking at next week to build out the duck housing area and it’s time to order my little runners.

On the drive home, I realized I should also probably act on another thing in my head – getting Rippa on some cattle. With all the cow-calf pairs out there, it’s soon to be weaning time and  that’s when I get some nice calves to work. I had my husband write an email to a friend of his that does rodeo work, and I have a couple other ideas for that, too. But better to line it up now than sit on it.

Because sitting on it avoids “the flinch.”

That’ll do, reader. That’ll do.

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.