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. 

Notes from the Kathy Warren Clinic

I’m tempted to write my own thoughts from this week and the last few works, but I’ll never get this down if I do that.

Going to this clinic was sort of like going to lessons with her with mostly fresh eyes. Rather than having an ongoing weekly visit, I don’t think Kathy has seen Rippa and I together for over a year. I am so used to working on my own now that taking the clinic made me see the best use for it in a different way. I used to go to classes and really pay attention to everything, but after a while you look, you don’t focus, and you just do what she tells you. This round – knowing that this was a limited time thing to get her opinions and thoughts – I brought the notebook and tried to watch every dog work, asking questions as much as I could. Moreover, I paid more attention to the advanced dogs workings, as I’m about where I left off with Fury when we stopped training her consistently.

Because of this, and because I don’t have a better way to do it – I’m going to lump the different thoughts into categories. You can read them all, or you can look for what suits you best.

These are my notes – some things are direct from Kathy, but assume it’s my memory of them, not necessarily what she is actually saying. I don’t do that kind of skilled transcription.

General Thoughts

• If you raise your dog right, and don’t spoil them, they’ll work better for you. This means that kenneling them and not living with them, letting them be in your bed, etc is part of that. Obviously you have to make concessions based on what you want the dog for (a friend or a working dog), but it’s much easier to train if you have that kind of relationship.
• Do not trial until you do what you do at home in a trial (I had a terrible first work because I didn’t just start how I do at Stephanie’s or the Woods, or even on my ducks – I tried to do something else). That means, if you’re expected to pick stock up a certain way to start – you better be able to do that, without much thought.
• When training – ask your dog for something, back it up, then test to see if they need the backup the second time. If they do, it’s time to go back to basics until you can test and get consistent success.
• Doing the kind of things you want your dog to do with just you and the stock is helpful – if you don’t know where to place yourself, how will you know where to place the dog? (I think this is something I really appreciate from being able to work without anyone watching – I’m really getting this part down because I have no help.)
• Something I really appreciate about Kathy’s “culture” during lessons – you pretty much aren’t allowed to tell students what you think because Kathy controls those conversations. It cuts down on ignorant yapping and cross talk. I have had problems with this going to other people for lessons – I want to hear from the person I’m taking instruction from only. My temperament does not handle multiple opinions at once. I find most of those opinions aren’t that valid, either – you need to look at what you want from who you want to figure out where to take it.
• When working dogs, don’t have a lot of stops if you can help it – flow makes it all a lot easier.  It creates bad working habits and doggy emotions. (I’ve been asking for a lot of stops because I want that control. Oops.)
• Be aware of what you look like to strange stock. (I was wearing a skirt during one of the works and the sheep did NOT like it.)
• If you’re running backward, you’re doing it wrong. The dog should be giving pressure.
• People seemed to be letting their dogs get up too fast after handlers hit them with a “stay.” Make the dogs stay for at least 5 seconds if you do it or they’ll cheat you.
• Over exaggerate everything and you’ll have more consistent results and better trialing because it will degrade under stress or relaxation.
• Keep the stick low when you use it – make sure that the dog and sheep, which are two foot high, can see it; it’s not for you.
• If you’re going to be keeping a flock or herd, remember to keep light, medium, and advanced sets – especially if you give lessons. Heavy and extremely light sheep can work, but if you’ve got an intermediate dog that needs something in between, you’re in trouble, and mixing heavy and light will just make really frustrating work as one stays and one leaves.
• Light sheep just need a ton of space – half an arena at times. You have to work to get a dog’s confidence to allow that to happen.
• WATCH YOUR STOCK – more than the dog, even, if you can. You’re leaning, you’re getting bad timing, and you’re asking for the wrong things because you are not watching your stock.
• Don’t cheat yourself – work on fixing what’s not right before you move on to new challenges. It’s okay to go backward, too.
• Don’t let your “down” erode into a stay if you can help it. Use different commands.
• Some dogs need boots for the clinics – these are usually the ones that live on urban footing – carpet, concrete, grass. It’s the dry, hard ground that gets them because they aren’t calloused up enough.
• The “Steady” command can only be given if the dog has time to slow down and steady. Don’t give it if it has to slow down and stop (or turn to get out) unless you’re training it.
• A good way to learn whistles? Record yourself making the sounds and then practice along. Make up your own sounds.
• Duck management – keep pools and food out in the working area so it’s fun to go out to.
• Proof your dog a lot on the obedience stuff – if “stay” really means stay, they won’t move even if they’re getting stepped on. But then let them think when you’re working or you can get into trouble with that.
• Outruns: I’ve been crutching on keeping Rippa close so I can have her turn her shoulder and run around. Keep her far away and stay close to the sheep – if she doesn’t turn her shoulder when you ask for it, you have plenty of time to get to her to correct it until she does.

Starting Young Dogs

• When you first start a keen dog – you’re really only worried about keeping them off the stock and learning “out” and how to work the flight zone. If the dog learns to balance him/herself with you and the stock from the get go – that’s all you want. Don’t ask for fetching or being perfect on both sides until they understand to stay off the stock. (After watching a dog this week, though, I wonder what happens if you have a sticky dog – no sticky dogs between the BCs and Aussies this weekend.)
• Watch the head of your dog – they’ll hold it higher when they’re not thinking “biting” thoughts. They will lower it when they go in for a challenge – be there as soon as you see it. You want to keep the dog thinking “calm” thoughts.
• Teaching flanks is easy – just label it when it happens. It’s the square corners and the “out” that are hard. People get excited about the flank commands and don’t spend enough time on the hard stuff.
• Read the dog’s personality – be ready to deal with bad habits and instincts so it doesn’t let it start. If the dog is wild-minded, work at keeping them calm. If they are sticky, move a lot. Etc. Whatever is in there to start will be in there later, so better not to let it come out until it’s controllable by the dog’s intellect and handler’s skill.

Driving Tips:

• Don’t start driving until you can have the sheep parked in front of the handler. Get that “there” command by walking backward with the dog at the top when you give it.
• Handy drawing – I wasn’t doing it right so Kathy physically made me work her like a dog with the stick until I got the body english right. Here’s my notes on that.
• 
• STAY OUT OF THE DOG’S WAY. People have trouble with this – I feel like I don’t, but I probably do.  Plan the draw of the sheep when you give your flanks and “there.” Turn and go with the dog to hold them out. All you need to start is following with you getting out of the way and stopping them when they get to head (either a stop or a fetch flank command)
• Handy picture:
• To start, you’ll be close to the stock as in #2, but when you stick a stick out, the dog has to go around you and you have to change directions a lot to get the dog and you used to driving.
• As you get more advanced, you’ll want to be ahead of the dog’s path, out of the influence of the sheep, and when you stick the stick out, the dog has space to get the flank and stay driving (as in #1)
• If you’re too close, you’ll just feed sheep or force a fetch (as in #3)
• On the drive, you want to stay in front of the dog and out of the way of the sheep’s flight zone so you can fix the outside flank. Logic makes me think you should be behind the dog, but being in front of the dog allows you to draw him to you and then give a “there” rather than the dog do an outrun around you. (see figures 2 and 3)
• If there’s a lean to your dog, fix with a short flank command.
• The next steps are the following – with Kathy’s classic drawings:
1. Verbally, without body english or stick work, get the dog to balance up with a flight zone around the sheep for you and her.
2. Start a drive, but only expect about two steps, then end it with a stop or a flank fetch command.
3. Now it’s time to stop the lean  of the dog (who wants to go to head) with flank commands by watching where you go and helping the dog get it.
4. To start, there will be big flanks that start and stop the drive until the dog fixes herself with no flank commands.

More Advanced Stuff:

• Even if it looks nice, never let the dog cheat the fence line on a take pen.
• As dogs get more advanced, “Out” means “Just relieve pressure” and you let the dog make the call how (turning out of flight zone, slowing down, which direction to turn, etc)
• “There” should literally mean “bring her to the hole in front of you, not to me, wherever I am.” I wonder if it’s helpful to practice using the command with gates and panels to help the dog understand the point of that.
• Teaching shedding
• Start with a person doing the shedding and just let the dog hold the sheep on their end, like a wall, the fine tuning comes from the person.
• Two steps is all it should take to create the division, then call the dog to you. Then let the dog put pressure on them to separate them, but it will fry their brains to let them do that. Have them hold only one group, but do it nicely.
• It’s tempting to drill the heck out of advanced dogs and fine tune them, but remember that you also need to work on things to relax them or that fine tuning will amp them up – do NOT over train. if your dog is doing great, let it be fun! Think of advanced training as times tables. It starts to REALLY suck if you keep forcing the issue.

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.

And we begin anew . . .

Ever since I got back from Montana, I’ve been really bugging on my stockdog situation. Despite my best efforts for the past year or so, I still haven’t figured out how to get my own livestock. We are looking at a house sometime that’s $800 more in rent and probably not worth it, but there’s a potential to have sheep training there so my husband was supportive of a possible move while we wait for the house buying situation to shape up.

But here’s the thing. If I’m paying $800 in rent, that’s just rent. That’s not the added cost of having sheep there, and I’m not someone who should be giving lessons so it’s not like I’m making any money back. Almost $1000 a month, and then having to hire a sheep caregiver when I am away . . . and I’m supposed to be saving money for a house and just to be a responsible adult. And we’re starting to think seriously about kids and what happens when I do that?

So basically, I really want sheep and I know I probably shouldn’t get them yet because none of the situations presented themselves that worked right. I feel like I should either give up altogether until much later or DO this. I’ve got a dog that can and I hate that she’s not.

So back a year ago, at Kathy’s recommendation, when I thought I was getting sheep, I wrote to Stephanie to see if she had any, which she didn’t. Kathy had told me it was a good idea to rent Stephanie’s sheep, but if you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that when I’ve gone to other places, it hasn’t gone well and I’m stressing on hurting their livestock. Plus, in the middle of this back and forth with Stephanie, she didn’t reply to an email and my stupid ego kicked in.

Not in the way you think, I bet. I’m super insecure when I really want something and don’t have something equally exciting to offer someone. In this case, I really wanted access to sheep and Stephanie had them, and if she thought I was a joker, she didn’t need to take my money. Instead of having confidence that I wasn’t a joker and she didn’t think so, I just assumed that was the case and dropped that option altogether. I knew a lot of people went to Stephanie, and liked her, but I’m THAT insecure.

I talked to Pat Lambeth about local options and she told me she talked to Stephanie and that I should try her again. And I don’t remember why I didn’t. Maybe work. Maybe I was just shy, I dunno.

But yesterday I decided that I wasn’t a loser and I should trust Pat that she likely didn’t think so and I contacted her again. Her not knowing me from Adam was like, “Where are you. I don’t let dogs harass my sheep.” And me being me . . . I’m like, “Well, she’s a border collie person and I’ve been warned I handle a bit harshly for some. WHAT IF SHE THINKS MY DOGS HARRASS HER SHEEP?!” I mean, by very nature, putting beginner dogs on sheep is kind of harassing them. There’s a spectrum. So I sent her a link to this blog with the last time I’d worked Rips at Trish’s, but not before she came back and invited me to her house today.

I didn’t need to send the video, but it turns out Trish works at Stephanie’s, too. That’s a good thing in my book.

Anyway, so I show up with my big bean pole with a bottle on the end (thanks Donna for that) and my new W Lazy J stock stick and tell her I’m nervous because I don’t want Rippa to chomp her sheep and I want to be sure she’s comfortable with everything.

I decide we should start in the round pen since it’s been over a year since she’s been on sheep and I am sure we have some foundation to put back in after the cows (she wasn’t taking “out” much).  I go in there with my long stick and tell Stephanie that I have to do this “z” obedience call off thing to warm Rippa up to taking commands and being easy and as she’s watching it, she’s like, “You should get her off that soon. Also, she’s going to be fine. You can send her.”

And I am like, “No she isn’t.”

So we go back and forth in our little exercise where I lay her down and then walk off like I’m doing a slingshot send but am just calling her to me and slowly approaching the sheep going back and forth to keep her focused on me and not the sheep.

And then I send her, and it goes well, but she goes at it a little hard. I’m out there with my 8 foot pole pointing at her shoulder and waiting out her excitement where I can give her the sheep as she runs hard around them. Eventually she does and balances them up but comes in hard as I point the stick at her.

Stephanie says put the stick down, but I don’t know what she means so we stop the action and she gets the stock stick out and shows me how you can use it to put some pressure on the dog with body language and sweeping it at them, but that I really need to take the pressure off Rippa with the stick – it’s what’s keeping her keyed up.

She says it’s like horses, too. A little pressure, but ease off as fast as you can and trust your dog. I’ve heard the “trust Rippa” with Kathy before, but this time I kind of  “got it.” Maybe because of my recent experience with the cattle where I could see really clearly that Rippa got grippy and got kicked when I had pressure on her.  I also see it with Fury – how she works nice off me but when she comes into contact with me on the other side of the sheep, she keys up. It’s me. My pressure is too much. My anger and my position and my not trusting the dogs and myself to handle right.

So I start up again with the short stick and when she doesn’t give, I run into her like Kathy has me do to push her out. Stephanie stops me again. “No. That’s what’s making her get upset. Pressure OFF. If she bites the sheep, it has a lot of wool, it will be fine. Pressure OFF.”

She bit the sheep. It did,  indeed, have a lot of wool. She had me lay Rippa down and calm down. We tried it again, but I felt lost so she came out to handle but Rippa started shutting down because someone else was telling her what to do. I really appreciated that instead of thinking Rippa was stubborn, she could see that she was just feeling too much pressure. “It’s okay,” Stephanie said, “She’ll desensitize if I work with her more over time.” But since she wouldn’t work and Stephanie couldn’t show me, I  told her this was a lot of information and I was having to learn too much quickly, so could I go back to the big stick for a little comfort while I tried what she was saying. Yes.

So now that I had the big stick and experience with how to handle it, I tried the pressure off thing. I sent Rippa without the “z” because she was being easy, and she got around nicely and balanced up. When she got tight, instead of going into her with the stick, I eased off and focused on me walking back and letting her bring them and Rippa calmed down.

As I write this, I think about how Kathy handles and while it felt like all new information, that’s what she wanted me to do, too . . . but I just didn’t get all the pieces until now.

When we had her fetching and balancing, I figured that was a good place to quit and we took a break, with Stephanie working her dogs and showing me how she starts a drive (quite different, but we’ll get to that in a different session).

Next session, I started out with the big stick, but sent her on a flank command with no “z” and just trusted her not to eat them, and she didn’t. Whenever she sped up, I thought about where I was and got out of the flight zone and she’d clam down. I even got her to lie down with the sheep balanced on me and start up walking from there as I backed up (which used to be too much pressure for her to handle without biting).  Since it all went so well and so easily, I switched back to the short stock stick and handled the way I was now beginning to understand. We did circles and such around the round pen, had her stand balanced up, had her walk up from there on them, worked on flank commands and “there.”

The biggest take home for me today was this:
Your dog is intense for two reasons: because it is intense (maybe not used to the stock or working, a new location, being young, or because it just is) and because you are intense. If it’s because the dog is intense, then absolutely I would think that following with the stick until the dog calms down and gives, and pushing out with the stick and being heavy handed can work. But, at that point you need to learn when YOU are being intense. What are YOU doing that’s causing the dog to get nervous. Whatever that is, do the opposite and relax if a dog makes a mistake. When you stop being intense, so will the dog after it gets over the causes of its internal intensity. 

I think I get this so much that I really want to try Fury with Stephanie and see what I can get out of her. At 10.5, Fury has not slowed down at all, and she has all that training on her that if I can fix MY intensity with her and handle better, I wonder if she can’t get some solid training in as well. (I could be pie in the sky on that one – but that’s how much I feel I “get” this now.)

Anyway, as I made turns with Rippa in the round pen, I felt like no time had gone by at all, or, more accurately, like time had gone by and someone else had been working with her in the meantime. Maybe it’s that she had time to mature. Maybe it was the cows. Maybe it’s me putting things together, but I feel like I had a major break through with handling and a couple more lessons (in the arena this time), and  I should be ready to start a drive, she was so nice.

Stephanie remarked as I was finishing up some fetching in the round pen that she was a nice dog and I was going to get a lot out of her. It shouldn’t matter what other people think, but I’m glad to hear it from her: here I was afraid of Stephanie and that she wouldn’t like my pushy, bity Aussie because of stuff I put in my own head.

Part of that is something else entirely. You hear BC people talk about pushy Aussies that can’t do a thing or you hear about BC people who say this. You hear Aussie people tell you that a BC trainer can’t do anything for Aussie people. And sometimes these things are true. But they weren’t true this time in the least. Stephanie impressed me with her understanding of dog behavior and her insights. I liked something she said about the difference with Aussies and BCs. BCs you don’t have to teach to get out or get an outrun with. With Aussies, you do, and she calls it mechanics (which is funny because Kathy doesn’t like “Mechanical training” either, but what she does to start a dog with the stick and pushing the dog out is what Stephanie calls mechanics). She said, “With Aussies, when you start them, you absolutely have to apply mechanics to them to get that behavior solid, but as soon as you do, you can stop and train naturally again.” (Naturally meaning let the dog learn to rate and move its stock on its own). In context, she’s not wrong. I just never thought of the stick and push method as mechanics, but that’s exactly how I perceive how Kathy starts dogs – show them what you want, and when they get it, it’s time for miles added just fetching and letting the dog learn how to do it without your commanding all the time.

I feel like I’ve got a new dog friend, and I’m finally going to go somewhere with this after so much time off – she’ll let me rent sheep outside of lessons so I can go up there a couple times a week and just get some mileage and then go back to have someone else’s eyes on me and fix what bad habits I pick up or continue. And it’s not going to cost me $800 a month.

Moreover, I’m really appreciating this going to other places now. Getting a solid foundation on dog behavior, stock behavior, and the principles of training a working dog from Kathy as a consistent mentor was so valuable, but what’s making it the most valuable is hearing other people say what she did and it clicking more because I’m out of my element and it sounds all new from someone else. I feel like I’m about to grow as a handler and trainer, and that when I feel like I am not getting something, it’ll be time to attend a clinic or go somewhere new, at least for a bit.

I guess I feel a little more grown up. That I can do this after all. I know Kathy said I was ready, but I didn’t feel ready. Now I do.  I hope this feeling continues.

Rippa gets handled and you get a mini Kathy Warren clinic.

So the video is fuzzy because my computer wanted to take FOUR HOURS to render this 9 min video and I was not having that. It’s not as pretty to look at, but you get the idea.

Circles and Circles and Circles

I haven’t had time to digest the video yet, but I know some people are waiting on Rippa Puppy updates. This past weekend we did three solid days of training.

We worked on Rippa’s outrun (she’s quit splitting them for the most part, and quit doing that “change direction thing” that I talked about earlier that was hard for me to figure out how to manage), on her obedience (she still doesn’t stop before pushing the sheep past me), on her outs, and on my ability to hold the sheep.

First thought is: why do *I* run more than everyone else at lessons? I forgot to ask Kathy about this, but I think it’s partly that I can (when other folks are retirees or injured or just not in shape) and partly that I have more high-powered dogs than some. You gotta MOVE to keep ahead of them. Kathy’s pretty nimble herself and she gets out there, but I think timing has a lot to do with it, too. I need to hustle to get where she was two seconds ago.

Second is, MAN, am I tired of saying “Out.” The thing that you have to understand is that our dogs were not developed to work 3-5 sheep. They were bred to work a huge flock. That pressure is really important because when you have a huge flock, the front animals don’t feel the dog’s pressure, but they certainly feel the pressure of their compatriots urgently pushing on them. So, at this stage in the game, you’re trying to teach the dog to stay out so you don’t end up with a mess. Rippa listens for the most part, but there’s only so much she can take. She’ll get up, control herself and then . . . munch! Those lamb hocks are just too tempting that close up! MOVE, sheepies! Rippa is very pressure sensitive, both with stock and people. I think this makes her a nice cattle dog, but we’ve yet to see. She does not like a lot of pressure up front.

I’ve been dutifully chucking dog food at Rippa at feeding time after she lies down at a distance and Kathy says she sees improvement, but she needs to learn that lying down is a good thing. She just doesn’t want to. She looks really guilty when I ask her to down and go to her. Funny little dog.

The outrun issue, for the most part, have been fixed. She will take direction indications (ie, my body and stick placement), but she still runs pretty fast and flat at them. I have to run to keep her out around them, but I can feel her getting more control of it as time goes on.

Overall, good improvement over the three days. I started not being able to figure out what to do and Kathy stepped in to get Rippa right for me. The difference is night and day. She balances up (walks straight along with the sheep) with Kathy handling her, and with me she wears back and forth (what it sounds like, checks the outside eye of one sheep, runs back, checks the other, repeat). Why? I have a hard time holding my sheep – which is also how I broke Fury so badly. The sheep get past me because apparently when I run out to her to push her out, I run into the sheep’s flight zone and Kathy manages to stay out of it, so the sheep stay pointed toward her instead of going wide around me. We’ll see in the videos soon and hopefully get a clue as to how to fix this.  

Happy sheepsies in the mean time!

How cattle and ducks are different from sheep.

So we got rained out of lessons, and there was an interesting discussion prompted on one of the discussion boards I frequent that made me think, hey, this is a great opportunity to discuss flight zone and dog safety. So, here we are.

Some of you may be wondering why everyone always trains on sheep. Or perhaps not, but if you live in California, the ratio of cattle to sheep has got to be something like 100:1. Now, it didn’t always used to be this way – I learned in my animal science courses in college that the sheep industry tanked after WWII because the soldiers were fed mutton all the time and it was nasty and reminded them of war. When you get home, you don’t want to eat sheep. And don’t get me started on how expensive it is to have wool sheep around these days.

And while this breed was developed for stock versatility (they even used to have a “hog” trialing division), nowadays, your real ranch dog is going to be working cattle. So why sheep?

For one, they’re cheaper to maintain, buy, and need less space. Two, they are not very dangerous for people or dogs compared to cattle (or not likely to get easily squashed like a duck would).

Definitely folks on ranches start their dogs on cattle, but most of us in this little world are hobbyists and it makes sense to start on sheep. It’s also WAY easier to train.

You cannot reach over a group of cattle with your stick to get your dog to take pressure off. You can’t walk through a group and get your dog and stop him when he’s bad. If he’s really bad and he’s fetching, you have a herd of cattle headed straight for you. Capice?

Now, with ducks, as I said, they get sqaushed pretty easy, but there’s another reason why sheep are still better.

Sheep are the ideal stock to teach your dog to fetch on, and, as I said before, your dog probably mostly wants to fetch to start anyway.  And you want to fetch a nice, manageable sheep.

The other interesting thing is that many times, your cattle will be a lot less tame than your sheep. What this means is that they will fight your dog less, need less overall space, and be able to handle you fetching. Many times, unless you use lesson cattle, in trials or in real life, you’re getting cattle pulled off the hills or from some dairy operation that have never seen dogs. That’s part of the reason why in ASCA, the advanced dogs go first – so they can break in the animals for the beginner dogs/handlers.

Ducks are like cattle in this way in that they’re mostly just terrified of what’s happening so, like cattle, you as a handler do best staying way out of the way and letting your dog read the animals and work accordingly. In trials, you’ll see dogs mostly driving both cattle and ducks, whereas you can fetch some sheep.

I’ll get into this later when I get Rips on cattle and sheep, but it’s just a good point of reference to understand. It’s all about your flight zone affecting your dog.

The other thing that’s important to note that’s different in cattle than the other stock is that your dog doesn’t have to concentrate on the stock as much. With sheep, there’s some forgiveness. They aren’t as sensitive as ducks (you’ll see some dogs get lots of eye when they usually work pretty upright because of this concentration), and your dog can see you like she can’t with cattle (often times, when you’re starting your cattle out on a fetch, the dog will overrun the flanks to check to see where you are).

But, like sheep, you want to teach your dog how to work those animals with a fetch, first. If you spend your time directing them on what to do, the dog doesn’t learn the nuances he needs to keep him, and you, and the livestock safe.

Some Stockdoggy Terms

I thought since I will be dropping a specialized vocabulary like stink bombs, I should first start out with some basic terminology  . . .

First, the great herding vs working debate. The PC and proper cowboy way of saying your dog is herding sheep is to say your dog is "working" sheep. You are "working your dog" on sheep or cows or pigs or whatever. (Yes, you can work dogs on pigs - ASCA even had a title for it once.) So while the URL of this blog is "RippaHerds" I only did that because it would be easy to remember. These are stockdogs, not herding dogs. That's just the parlance where I come from.

Some terms:

Head - meaning a single animal, but also, well, the head of the animal. Heading dogs work livestock by watching their heads, and very often their eyes. That's why they are called "heading dogs." Heading dogs run circles around livestock because they are always chasing the head, which is always turning away from them.

Heel - Just like heading dogs, there are "heeling dogs" that work the heels of the livestock. Dogs like this are typically things like your Corgi, which is built low to the ground to work heels in stockyards (they fit under the bars of the pens in chutes and keep the cattle moving). The tend to follow stock, rather than run circles around it. Dogs of all breeds can do both heading and heeling, but one comes more naturally usually.

Fetch - This is what your heading dog will learn first to do - because that's what comes naturally to it. They will go out, seek out livestock, bunch it, and then bring it to their handler in a . . . you guessed it, fetch.

Drive - This is what your heeling dog learns first - follow the stock and keep them moving. Our Aussies learn this after they master the fetch.

Flight zone - This is the space around the handler and the dog that the sheep avoid staying in for any length of time. Imagine a Hula Hoop around you and your dog. The sheep are usually calm or not moving at all until the Hula Hoop touches them (their personal space bubble). If it touches them lightly and calmly, they move lightly and calmly. If it touches them fast and heavy, they move . . . you guessed it, fast and heavy. Flight zone is rough to learn for people - we are used to working with just our dogs, and not with another sentient being in the mix. You may work your dog's flight zone, but you fail on working your own. That's how I broke my first stockdog, Rippa's mom.

That should get you started, I think.

Rippa and her first intro

So Rippa was exposed formally to sheep when she was about four months old, which is pretty young. The point was actually to get video of another puppy I was looking to place for someone, but we put her on the sheep there anyway. Here is the video:



Now, I have been working dogs on stock for about seven years on and off. Sometimes really consistently, others not. I can tell you this - I broke my first dog, Rippa's mother, who used to be really cute and natural, but I taught her to work against me instead of with me (more on this later), and we don't want to do that to Rippa. What you're looking at is the handling of someone who has no idea what to do to start a tiny puppy on sheep. I was just trying to get her to show some interest and see what else she would do.

With that said, at this point, even if my handling needs plenty of work, I can *see* things now, and I was pretty happy about Miss Rippa. Ecstatic. This video was shot on my birthday and it was one of the best presents I could have asked for, that feeling I had all day.

I like how she was looking at them, even if it wasn't "boing!" because she's a baby, and "boing!" is pretty dangerous at this stage. You can see her getting braver and braver and then . . . bam! I like how her first instinct with them is to go up to them to a point - a little natural caution there, but also awareness of sheepy space.

When I finally split the sheep to get her really going, she immediately picks a group and runs between them and the fence (a brave thing for a puppy to do - imagine you're that size doing that) and runs out wide around them to bring them back. Natural fetch, and nice space. I will explain terms later.

I like how she turns away from the sheep squarely, rather than into them, giving them space and her control. You can see her moving them and thinking about what happens when she does what - she splits two off and  then goes to fix them. She holds them on the fence - she thinks, she learns. And she's only four months old!

And when she gets them all split up and tries to fix it and can't, she chills.

Yup, I was really happy with this puppy. But then we "put her up" for a while to grow up and have fun non-livestock-type adventures.