"INCOMING!"

I worked Echo in the small pasture Monday night. She was kinda naughty. She wanted to do things her way and I ended up fighting her almost the whole time. I was asking her to do rather difficult stuff, though, and she was stressing a bit. We started out by putting all of the sheep in the freestanding pen. I let a few out and they stuck to the outside of it (there's no solid sides on it -- you can see right through all of it). So I helped her peel the sheep off and we drove them to the opposite end of the pasture. It wasn't pretty, but I think she was getting the idea. The sheep continually wanted to bend around her and she continually wanted to let them and flank around them, and she was getting annoyed that I wasn't letting her do that. Later on, I would call her off, let her do an outrun, flank her a few times, and then we would set it up again. Hopefully she will eventually learn to enjoy driving. She's good at it once things are moving. (Gee, isn't that original?)

Tuesday night, Colleen and Katy came over and practiced. The sheep ... broken into two groups ... were quite flighty. I will be glad to get my regular ewes back after the trial, and get rid of these lambs - other than Mr. Pepe Lay Ewe. :-)

So we are hanging out in the house in front of the fire, having a couple of beers, couple of shots of some good whiskey, and it's getting to be about 10:00 -- and for my neighbors' sake, I bring my dogs in so they aren't barking at some ridiculous hour of the night. I go out to their kennel run, open it up, let them out, go into the house, open the door, and so smartly announce, "INCOMING!" Three dogs come bounding in the house and meet up with Reena (who was protecting her Findley) and Scout. Reena and Jag immediately get into it. Ms. Rocket Scientist (that'd be me) has completely forgotten that these two have gotten into it before. We break them apart, and Jag starts screaming and will not put his front leg down. His screaming excites my other dogs who are now coming over to "help" by biting him. So I put those two away and tend to Jag. He got his front leg bit and I'm sure it hurt like heck. He's walking better on it today, but still limping. Poor guy. I feel like a heel. Sorry, Jag.

J.D.

Some video of Zip from the other day ...

Happy tails!

JD

A Lightbulb Moment

Went out to Dianne's yesterday to work Echo. Katy was there with Scout, and Jaenne came out with Mo. Katy went first and I videotaped a bit of their run. I put music to it, and attempted to upload it to YouTube and Photobucket, but both places rejected it because of copyright issues. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong and can help me fix this, I would appreciate it. I've uploaded other videos with music on them. Is there a certain type of music that has royalties? How does this work?

I am starting to work on driving with Echo. She is quite comfortable on the away side, so I let her go to that side for confidence, but I am also intermingling some work with her on the come bye side and trying to make it as positive experience as possible. I need to focus on using "there" instead of "lie down" ... and then Dianne explained something to me that made my driving with Zip make all the sense in the world. She basically told me never to let Echo go to head when driving. That didn't make sense to me, so I said, "Well how do I get the sheep back here to set it up again?" She said, "Call her off and do an outrun." She said that by letting her go to head while driving to fetch them back, you're setting yourself up for a battle because the dog will always anticipate that happening. The dog needs to understand that while driving, they get to go to the hip and to the shoulder but never past that. Make the fetch an outrun and a completely separate exercise. It all makes perfect sense. So I'll be practicing working on this.

I took some photos of Dianne's dogs for her website (Zorro, Andy, Annie, and May) and sent them all to Ellie. I can't wait to see how the website eventually turns out!

Happy tails,
JD

"Blondie & Doll"

Colleen, Jaenne, Katy and I went to Janie's house to set up for the AHBA trial. When we got there, two guys were already there. Their names are Jack and ___. Jack has a very nice Border Collie named Spike. They came to practice the course. The problem was ... the course was not set up yet. So, as women do all the time, we put the guys to work. Despite that it was only 10:00 a.m., beer was appropriate - although I have a hard time calling Keystone Light "beer." I realized that I am starting to reach for Echo first pretty consistently when I need a dog to get something done now. She's been really good, and can move anything. The crew got both courses in the big field set up, and then Jaenne worked Kip, Katy worked Scout, and Colleen worked Reena. When Janie got back from her meeting, she brought the work crew some pizza. After we ate, Jack worked Spike. In the meantime, several people set up the AHBA arena course in the smaller arena.

The guys were pretty funny ... despite the fact that they came up to pay to practice the course a couple of times and instead got put to work ... they had a great attitude about it. They both had the hots for Blondie (Katy), and Jack even asked me like 3 times, "Is she married?" And when I would reply, "Yes ..." ... he would follow that up with "Happily?" The last time he asked me, I just turned around and yelled to Katy, "HEY KATY ... ARE YOU MARRIED?" Jack turned six shades of red.

The down home country boys ... funny how they come up with little "pet" names for women they don't even know. Kinda patronizing, really, especially after it's been happening all day. I can't count the number of times I said, "It's Darling ..." in response to being called "Doll."

At least I wasn't being called "Blondie" (for obvious reasons). That one was reserved for Katy.

All in all, a fun day and a great way to get the work done.

Here's Jack & "Blondie":



I think I have another couple of photos and will upload them when I get a chance.

Happy tails,
JD

Pepe's Plight

Jaenne came over to practice last night. Ann also stopped by. Took Echo out to take a look at what sheep I have here. She is about to outrun the entire length of Russ' field now, and does it well. However, if I am standing on Russ' house side of the pasture and send her, the away side is beautiful, she covers nicely, but then the sheep draw to the east fence and she needs to go "comebye" in order to pull them off there. Instead, she holds them on the fence while walking up and bringing them to me. When she gets close enough to me, she will peel them off the fence. I need to change up the routine ... go stand on the opposite fence, etc. Oh the drawbacks of a small place.

Anyway, she is getting to be very trustworthy with me. I am finding that I am using her more and more. I had her bring the sheep to me, I grabbed Pepe and schnuggled him all up and put him through his daily kissings. By the time I was done with this, the rest of the sheep had wondered off, so I again sent Echo to go pick them up and bring them back to poor little lonesome Pepe. She did wonderfully. I had her hold all the sheep to us while we discussed them and inspected them ... figuring out which ones were Ann's, which ones were pregnant, etc.

In the meantime, Jaenne was busy shoving other sheep in and out of the trailer, getting them used to it for the trial. She had the nasty black ewe in a pen and she was very reluctant to come out. So Jaenne and I used the opportunity to introduce our young dogs (Jaenne used Mo -- who is looking great, by the way!) to a tought, tight situation. Taking the dogs by the collar and showing them how to scoop sheep out of a pen like that. Even doing so, the black ewe still wasn't buying it, so I gave Echo a "ssskkkkkiiiiitttt 'er" and Echo was all too happy to oblige. Good girl, Echo!

Putting proper bite work on the list of stuff to ask Dianne about.

Off to Janie's today to go set up the course and put the sheep through it. Both Echo and Zip will be going with me. I can see how Echo's outrun goes in Janie's field.

More later.

Happy tails,
JD

The Repeater

Something interesting happened last night. Katy came over and we videotaped eachother working dogs. I am interested to see how the videotapes come out. It was actually kinda fun, despite the fact that I will have to look at my fat ass live ... on video! Yikes. Scary.

In watching Katy work, I noticed there were times when she would be repeating herself. When I went out to work Zip after her, I am wondering how much I did it ... or didn't do it. She asked me afterwards (something to the effect of), "Do you think that when you watch someone else work before you go work a dog that you're more conscious of the previous person's mistakes?" And yes, I do. So while I may not have repeated myself much THAT time working Zip, I know I do it all the time. I know I start out very calm with "liiiiiie downnnn", which turns into "Lie down!" which turns into "LIE DOWN!!!" .... and I've now said it three times in as many seconds.

And I know I do it with Echo.

A lot.

So I need to start practicing what I preach.

Go to your dog.

Go to your dog.

Go to your dog.

Ok, ok ... I'm going.

I will not repeat myself to my dog.

I will not repeat myself to my dog.

I will not ...

I should have been a comedienne, eh?

I know ... keep your day job.

Happy tails,
JD

"You don't know what you don't know."

On first glance, that looks pretty insulting, doesn't it? Think about it, though. It's true.

The minute I start to feel like I know what I'm doing, I go to my lesson, and it reminds me that there's a myriad of things I don't know that I didn't know I didn't know. You know?

I recently ran into someone that frequently shoots off at the mouth about all kinds of stuff she has zero experience in ... like ISDS style trials. She's never run in one. She's never trained with anyone who competes in them. She's never trained dogs to the level that would be required to run in one. Yet she is going to tell me that they (all of the trainers I referred her to) are "all" giving her the cold shoulder, and that the low-priced clinic she just put on with her trainer is every bit as good as a clinic put on by one of the big hats -- even though she's never been to a big hat clinic. How do you convince someone that they don't know what they don't know?

Then there is the whole conformation crowd that likes to talk about what a dog's build should look like in order to perform at its maximum working capacity. How does that work? If they have never even so much as seen a real working dog work (this does not include the lovely cutesy trials the ACK puts on), how do they know what goes into building a good working dog? The show crowd talks about working dogs being "rangey" and diseased because working people don't test for the umpteen things show people do, and yet claim that their boxy overcoated short-legged dogs are built to work. So why is it then that the only dogs on the trial field are the rangey, diseased version? Where are all the "properly built" dogs? How can you build something for a purpose you don't yourself use? I guess you don't know what you don't know, eh?

Another example: Sitting at a stockdog trial. My motto is, "You can't learn anything with your mouth open." So I sit and watch ... and listen. To my right is a novice talking to a big hat. The novice asks the big hat a question. While the big hat is trying to respond, he keeps getting interrupted by the novice who insists on sharing their wisdom with the big hat. The big hat stops talking, and eventually slinks away. The novice is none the wiser. A newcomer takes the big hat's place and proceeds to ask the novice some questions about what is happening on the trial field. The novice proceeds to give the newcomer their profound wisdom, most of which is horribly inaccurate information. But ... you don't know what you don't know, eh?

Witnessing all this makes me very conscious about when to speak and when not to. I am learning a whole lot more with my mouth shut.

Happy tails,
JD