It is starting to come together!

Remember how I said I needed to work on outruns and take pens? Hmm.

So, following yesterday’s cattle runs, I took Rippa and Fury out to Stephanie’s for sheep this morning. I was SO tired. It was a late night accidentally and I could barely keep my eyes open. Perhaps that has to do with it.

When I got Rippa going, on new sheep, nonetheless (not our usual heavy ones – we usually have a rough go of it when I take CA along – which I did today - because my heavy sheep are occupied), things were pretty much close to perfect.

I decided to work on her outruns, but found that she was naturally turning her shoulder out and going out wide without me asking. If she turned in too much, I just had to lay her down and ask again and she’d go further out. If she was going too fast, I just had to ask her to be “easy” and she’s slow to a trot. There was not a single out of control moment. I was doing outruns from 50 meters away and I never do that.

When we did fetching, she balanced up super good and if she got too close, it just took a “no” for her to get out. The sheep actually lined out instead of bunching up because she was chilling out enough to let them naturally cruise along.

I credit this monumental leap in training to Shannon and Dustin (though mostly Shannon lately). They’ve been having me put a little more obedience on her – and ask for more than I usually would – when I work with them. The day before, Rippa was worried about going to a cow on the fence and buzzing, so we had to lay her down before she got close enough to really get in a mess and since the stakes were higher with the cattle, she was down with that. I think that she found that taking my commands kept her safe and helped her be calm and she carried that forward with the sheep today.

The balancing up on the fetch I also totally credit to a method she taught me where you lay the dog down and walk ahead of the sheep, letting them drift and not letting the dog get up until they need to get up because the sheep aren’t feeling the pressure. No commands, you just lay the dog back down if they get up too soon. Otherwise, the dog is allowed to get up and work, and as they start moving faster you slow them down with either a down or an “steady” and if they take it, work continues.

I’m trying it with Fury, who has had a very hard time balancing the sheep because of bad experiences. She works ducks and cattle fine (no, my 11 year old dog isn’t on cattle anymore), but sheep is issues because of my bad handling in the past. Once she gets that relaxation thing and the game, it should go well, too. Pretty neat.

The other thing we “worked” on was take pens. I don’t have a really good take pen setup at any place. The ducks have a full trial setup now, but it’s hard to practice take pen skills on ducks because the are different from other stock and the take pen is so small. That said, we have inadvertantly been doing that because the ducks like to mash in the corner where the door to their enclosure is, so both dogs have learned to be patient and how to get them out of that corner.

Rippa’s been doing pen work via sorting her sheep out at Stephanie’s but it’s a smaller, weirder setup than what you’ll find at a trial. I figured it was good enough to try it today, so I did.

The first go, the sheep got packed into the back of the pen (it’s not square, more like wide on one side and narrow on the other) and Rippa couldn’t get enough space to get around them. Instead of telling her what to do, I let her sort it out. The sheep would stamp at her, and after trying a couple things, she went outside the pen, got into a bow and gave them ugly face and a little bark and they made space. When I got her back in the pen, they came out and she was nose-to-sheep leg, calmly waiting for them to file out. We did it three times before I was satisfied we had that dialed and. . . that was that.

Sometimes I feel like I’ll never get there – so much power and drive and so little perfection on my part and then my dog goes and shows me she’s getting it. It’s one day and she will likely get worse before she gets consistent, but it’s in there. We got this.

Psyched!

Going to work ducks tomorrow and sell my obnoxious call duck and one runner that just refuses to work. Next week we are off – the huz and I are going to do some epic canyoneering and climbing in Yosemite. Give the dogs plenty of time to think about this awesome week.

Second lesson on cattle at the Woods’

This afternoon, I loaded Rippa up and we paid Shannon and Dustin Wood’s little spread in Atascadero, pretty much on the same road I use to get to Stephanie’s sheep rentals, just the opposite direction. Highway 41 is the big win in stockdog land.

I’m still feeling out how to approach the Woods’ lessons. They’re pretty open to me just doing my thing, but also super psyched to help me out and I’m trying to learn when to do my thing and when to take their advice – my thought is generally to listen to what they have to say, give it a try a couple times and I or the dog aren’t getting it, to go to what we know and ponder it. I think it’s working.

For example, Dustin had just built a round pen on his property (a dang fine one, by the way – post-holes dug and strung tight) and he says since they put it up, they’ve been using it every day. They like to warm their dogs up on it with their goats before putting them on cattle, and work on fundamentals.

Rippa and I haven’t been in a round pen in forever because of how Stephanie’s set up is, so we gave it a go, trying some outrun training handling advice but not getting so far so I went back to what she and I know well.  Basically, again, is that the message is, is that I’ve been lazy.

With Fury, who naturally took her outruns pretty easy from what I remember, I never really had to worry about the finesse of starting them (for example, laying them down with their shoulder to the stock so they’re facing the way you want them to run), and so with Rippa, who I had had so much trouble starting in the first place, I have been letting just laydown facing them. No more. The Woods got on me about consistently asking for it and it would come. Good. Thing #1 to work on. Okay.

I should also note that working with them, with their dogs, I feel like the laziest trainer ever – their dogs take commands. Rippa takes the suggestion and I have to handle her harder. Partly, Rippa’s never been fast on the response during stock and I was happy to get what I got, and partly I am being lazy. There’s no reason I can’t get the same level of obedience out of her at this point, so I need to start working on my expectations of her trained behaviors. She’ll take ten feet to down, five feet to stop, and a while to “get back” or take her flanks. I need it now and I need to remember to make sure I get it now. It will help her outruns, too, if I an get her to stop and take her flanks. Thing #2 to work on.

Shannon talks to me about how I really need to train Rippa to respect the stick. She shows me with her own dog on a leash how if she points the stick at her dog (off stock), she’ll immediately turn her shoulder and try to get out of her space. I take the stick and poke at my dog, who looks inquisitively. We laugh. This is a really big point to me because when I worked both my dogs, I saw the stick as the enforcer and direction giver, and both Stephanie and the Woods see it as a little something more. I’m not sure I’ve seen Kathy Warren do the kind of stick ground work my BC people have suggested, but I may just not have been “seeing it” back when I was regularly taking lessons. Either way, thing #3 to work on.

We then moved into the cattle. They’d recently lost one of their Holstein heifers so picked up some replacement beef calves at the sale. Dustin said they hadn’t really been worked or dog broke yet so if we had to separate them out, he would. Well, no worries there. Rippa went right to them this time and got to work and they stayed just fine with the dairy cattle, with one red heifer seeming to always get herself out and chased back in – but I’d also say that she was also doing that because Rippa was too tight and pushing her out to start.

I started Rippa by just having her walk up their heels to keep her easy and cranked down (because Rippa is PSYCHED to actually WORK CATTLE) and once she started lifting them off the fence, we started the real training. The Woods’ have a lot of panels set up in their arena for finite obstacle work and to use to help teach the dogs to work in that kind of pressure, so I was able to use the panel to send Rippa out wider than I could without them. Once she figured that trick out, we had things pretty much dialed to lift them and fetch them to me. 

Despite me starting her at the heels, Shannon observed that I should send her to the heads, and so I did, pushing her back after they turned. The one time I didn’t was the one time the fetch didn’t work out, so I learned a really good lesson there for my dog – despite her early starts being more heel work, she’s got big head instinct and to let her use that to feel in control.

The other thing that the Woods taught me was something I definitely wouldn’t have thought about . . . what happens when your group divides? In the beginning and occasionally toward the end of the lessons, one or two of the cattle would break off. This blows Rippa’s mind because she has a really strong sense of group but she’s also a bit insecure about working without me at a distance on the cattle (and I mentioned this is an issue on bigger distances with  the sheep, too). She doesn’t know whether to come into me with the lots of cattle or to go get the ones she wants to. So Dustin told me, hey, if she has a group handled, you go to the other one. Doing that makes her feel secure and she’ll think better and just bring the cattle over, which she did. In the same vein, if I have a group handled and one lone cow, if I want her to bring that cow to the group, just walk up to the cow without saying anything to her and she’ll go pick it up and then I can walk back to the group. Generally you want to follow the “bring the many to the one” rule I like to live by, but if you have a relatively easy straggler, man, that works so well.

Well, it works so well if your dog has the instinct and power to do it, which, hey, sparkle, mine does.

When we finished up, Dustin was very effusive about her, “She did really, really, really, good. That was really nice. By the end there she was getting them out of the corner, biting them where she should be, and 100% better than the first time in there today and way better than last time you were here.”
That means a lot coming from them, as they’ve got some very, very fine dogs and their handling is beautiful, quiet, and confident.

Rippa’s improvement is pretty in keeping with how it’s been with her. Once she gets it (or I do), she gets it pretty thoroughly. Having done what we did in there with half unbroke calves and only our second time on cattle in almost a year . . . I can confidently say we’d get through an ASCA started course, no problem. Maybe not get the highest score out there yet, but like her mother, she’s definitely more a cow dog. All that power and grip she wants to use on the sheep and goats stops being quite as stress-gratuitous on cattle and she settles down really easy and reads her stock.

No problems walking up on their heads if the cattle we standing, lifting out of corners patiently, lifting off of fence panels. It was pretty dang awesome.

And it looks like I have a standing weekly date with them if we’re both available. Can’t wait to learn more. Better get started on that ground work.

Zen and the Art of Sheep Moving

I’ve always been a student of spirituality, though it took me a bit to accept it. In grad school, as an avowed agnostic, my Christian friend told me one day that I was the epitome of “Spiritual, but Not Religious,” and for the first time, coming from her, it didn’t sound like some kind of weak cop out.

I think no matter what banner I fly overheard, I’m probably a lot more that than I realize, and I’ve spent a long time learning from spiritual masters of all ilk, looking for the secret to a quiet mind and open heart.

So, after the last session I had, I suddenly began to understand that I could use stockdogging to that end, as well. Moreover, I probably needed to.

So, after a couple weeks off after the sheep’s owner traveled to border collie trials, I returned today with really only one major goal: a pacific mind and a quiet voice.

When I woke up this morning, I was a little nervous about if I could turn that on and wanted to sit down and read this blog because that’s the point – me thinking and getting it out really seems to be a way for me to remember it for good, and reading it again can provide insight.

BUT I DIDN’T.

I didn’t because of something in a book I used to teach college students: in it, the author makes a statement that we read a science book and we don’t constantly need to refer back to it and study every word like people do with the Bible or any great religious text. My take on that is this: you may know what it says in that religious text, but you constantly need reminding of it because you live and think so in opposition to it just because that’s how the world works. It’s easy to understand and work with gravity. It’s harder to deal with complex relationship and mind stuff.

I intellectually knew that my goal today was to simply be pacific in mind and body, and I didn’t need to read what I did last time that worked because I KNEW, I KNEW, like I know gravity, that if I maintained that practice, things would go okay. And if I didn’t know, I didn’t have any business with that as a goal.

So, when we got into the round pen, I checked my mind-body connection and felt peace. I connected to that, and I think, showing that to Rippa, I sent her to fetch the sheep and . . . it was fast because she was excited, but it was also fine. No sheep bowling or inappropriate behavior.

But as I asked more and more of her, I could FEEL my body losing it’s peace. I had a talk with a naturopathic doctor who had a booth next to mine and at an event yesterday and she said that the panic state of mind is a constant today for us, and it wasn’t like that before, which is why we have all kinds of odd and troubling diseases.

“Back in the day, people couldn’t work all the time or form overly complex relationships and plans. The fire went out, you went to sleep. And your adrenaline would only kick in when a bear came into camp and you’d have to run from the bear.

“Today, however, we’ve got complicated relationships, intense work, money troubles, etc, etc and we are always running from the bear. Our adrenal glands never give up and we get into this habit of freaking out easily. It’s so bad.”

So I am standing there and I can feel my body telling me a bear is running. I always think I am calm, at ease, not stressing this stuff, but I can feel it, like a cowbell vibrating in my chest.

So it’s time to call a break (this is why renting sheep is awesome). I pull Rippa out of the pen, go get my phone, then go back in and sit there with Rippa, doing email and seeing what’s going on for Facebook. It’s good for Rippa, too, as she finds out that sheep can just hang out. Then we just sit some more until I feel pacific again.

And it starts over. And with me being like that, instead of focusing on the wrong, or even the right, I’m starting to see what Rippa sees and feels and it’s pretty obvious that Rippa doesn’t understand some of the basics of this game: like that she is supposed to quietly lift the sheep up and bring them to me. Or how, exactly, to do that.  She does mostly fine when we’re in a moving fetch, though she’s flat on the go-by side, and I’ll get to that in a second.

So, now I add something else to “be pacific” – which is – teach Rippa how to pick the sheep up quietly and just bring them to me. I determine that the best way to do that is to start over and get right up close to the sheep and send her on an outrun, verbally telling her to get out (but quietly) and giving her space to get around them. It works. I think I have to do a lot more of that before I start trying to slingshot send her – which turns into sheep bowling – because I think she just isn’t getting that particular part for some reason. Maybe she forgot it.

Anyway, in general she’s really good on the way-to side, but not the go-by side. Way-to, I get a really excellent square corner, where she’ll turn away from the sheep and move perpendicular to them until she’s just out of the flight zone before turning in. Go-by, she’s a lot more slanty. It almost looks like the photo above, but it’s enough that she’s slicing off the flight zone of the sheep and they just can’t get balanced to me with her there.

I think, “Man, I really want the long stick.” And then, pacific mind says, “No you don’t – Rippa is softer than that, you need finesse.”

So we know that my usual method of chasing her out of the flightzone is scary to her, and we know that Rippa doesn’t know that when I send her, it’s to pick them off the fence and bring them to me or she wouldn’t sheep bowl if I wasn’t there to babysit her. It’s probably a likely thing that she doesn’t know she needs to square her go-by corner.

So we do some half moons. That works pretty well, and when she looks good and square, she gets her sheep. When it doesn’t look like she’s going to balance up, I skip ahead to some pre-cursor drive training and teach her to “get around” the sheep, all the way around me and the sheep and back to 12:00 and try again. All of this falls apart after a couple laps around the round pen, but I think if I keep it up, she’ll get it pretty quick. The instinct and stock sense is there, but I just see some holes in Rippa’s understanding of what we’re trying to do.

Anyway, so we just did some laps around the round pen with her balanced up and getting praise for giving me nice square corners and here we are.

Once I know she understands things, I think we’ll be able to move into the arena and work on things there, but I don’t expect it will be soon. She’s had way too much time off and obviously, I’ve got a lot of mental training to do myself.

Anyway, it’s definitive: a quiet mind makes for happier herding. Ohm.