Spring of Herding?

Winter of Herding: Day Twenty Four

I thought today would be the day we would finally have some bad weather, there was wind and rain forecast … but, no, it was a little breezy, but warm and dry in Scio. I continue to be deeply suspicious, there was some pouring sideways rain LATER, but not during herding. We remain pretty charmed in the weather department.

Haku and I were not quite on the same page today, but on the upside, his outruns have been, as I was told, ‘consistently better’ for the last two practices. Today he slowed down at the top without me having to get on his case, though I had still started up the field with the intention of fixing a mess. So that meant I had to get BACK to the post, which didn’t go well. And our driving was horrible, Haku keeps having issues moving grumpy sheep and then we lost them and he couldn’t move them again. This is getting to be a theme, poor guy.

So then we officially looked at penning, and I tried hard to absorb all the theoretical things I should do – which did not transfer super well to actuality. Damn sheep. We did better after we traded sheep though, but I think my idea of driving sheep ‘to the hinge in the gate’ is not what Ian’s idea is. And when sheep aren’t being cooperative and Haku is getting frustrated when they won’t move, it doesn’t go super well and I’m left in a constant state of wondering if I’m just giving bad handling info or he just needs me to go help him out. We did do it, twice, eventually. I will put that in the column of yet another thing in herding we can now do badly. I can hardly wait until we shed badly too.

I’m hoping to get some video on Saturday for our herding vacation ‘graduation’, which will end up being 26 days of herding over the last 4 weeks. It’s entirely possible we may just be a hot mess on Saturday, in which case it may not LOOK like we’ve made progress – but we definitely have. Maybe not CONSISTENTLY though. Once again, I have been assured that with a good handler Haku has lots of skills … just not necessarily with me. I will continue to work on it, and Haku will continue to be patient – it’s a good match.

Meanwhile, Navarre is just so fricken jazzed about herding these days. As usual, I have been assured that he has ‘a lot of talent’ and could do ‘very well’ with a good handler. As he’s just got me instead, and we talked about my goals for Navarre. I made it clear that I have no interest in trialing him at the moment, and I’d much rather spend our time and energy working on his skills for him to be easier for me to handle once Haku retires. I really am quite content to work with Haku, we are a good match for learning the ropes in herding. Navarre needs a better handler at this point. I am not that handler.

So Ian wants to work on Navarre learning trained skills rather than handling skills, at least, that was my interpretation. So instead of working on teaching him to respond to specific handling cues requiring the handler to actually, you know, say them correctly at the right time – teaching him to figure out how to fix his own lines, move the sheep without the handler’s help and be able to do a lot more independently. But it takes time and training, so if I had grand expectations of trialing him soon, it wouldn’t be the best approach. I thought having a dog that could cover my ass sounded like a grand idea, so we’ll see how that works this year. Navarre thinks it’s all great, that is one lover of sheep.

And, meanwhile, Bright is having to ride in the front seat what with me taking Navarre, Haku, Dove and Riot in the car – and she hates it so much. Funny how weird it is for dogs that always have been in crates in the back to suddenly realize they’re in a MOVING CAR. I’m hoping she’ll get used to it. So much drama.

Winter of Herding: Day Twenty Five

Back at Dave’s in the big field, Haku wasn’t listening – at all. It wasn’t even that far, but it was new ‘location’ in that we were in a new part of the field. Haku seems to really struggle to listen to me when we’re dealing with a new place. Wouldn’t lie down, wouldn’t flank, I’m screeching like a harpy and nothing is happening. And Dave has told me for however how long that I need to move up there physically and take the sheep from him and stop trying to fix it and ask twelve times, but at a certain distance both Haku and I just seem to fall apart. So, naturally, it took one repetition of running up the field at Haku to fix the issue. I’m a bad listener, he’s told me to this pretty much at every lesson.

Now, to be fair, Dave is a much faster runner than me, and didn’t seem to worry about falling in a hole or tripping on all the tiny little stumps all over the field like I did, he got there way before I did. Haku was shocked, then I arrived and Haku was like, “WTF?” And after that, yes, Haku was super careful – downed when asked at distance and did not rush the sheep. I’m not sure why I assumed it wouldn’t really make a difference, as by the time Haku actually noticed we were running up him he was WELL past the point that I actually asked for the down he didn’t give me – yet it seemed to make an impression anyway.

So, yeah, alas, it looks like I get run up the field – and apparently even if it takes me several minutes to get out there, it will still make a bigger different than yelling, “Hey!”. But the good news, it only took once. Unlike Navarre, who needs MUCH more running. Good thing I’m not the one training him. So that was pretty much our whole lesson, we never actually got to DO anything, but we got to fix some things. And hopefully can continue to work on them.

Navarre and Dave looked good, they’re still in the smaller field – less running! But Dave is not having to do as much, and Navarre is feeling more comfortable with driving. This herding vacation has really boosted is confidence, I think he kind of understands what the humans are wanting now, as opposed to just finding them out to ruin his fun.

Winter of Herding: Day Twenty Six

And our final day! Let it be said, twenty six days, almost continuous during the very heart of winter in the PNW – and not a bad weather day among them. Talk about an unusual winter! I feel bad for all my waterproof gear in the car, it has never been used. I was prepared to tough it out through it all, and now I feel like if it ever DOES actually rain on me when herding I’m going to be totally shocked and offended. It really does feel like the universe is trying it’s very best on many fronts to say, “Just do this, trust me.”

Today did not go super well, but, being herding, I was not totally shocked. I think all the dogs left on a better note than we started with, which is nice. When I look at the overall picture from a month ago to today, we have all made a lot of progress. I feel like I have a much better picture of what should be happening, which was definitely missing before. I don’t feel like a total noob, we have made baby steps towards knowing more about all the things that I don’t know.

So definitely worthwhile, and it helped jumpstart me into committing to doing a lot more this year. Haku is reaching the double digits this summer, but continues to look strong and healthy. My hope at this point is to have at least another year with him, hopefully more, but I think a year is a reasonable goal right now. At least with the farther distances. As long as his hearing stays good, I think smaller arena trials are still a good option if the bigger distances get too much for him.

As for Navarre, I have informed Dave and Ian that they have a year to train him.  While they both have very different approaches, they seem to complement each other – and Navarre works well for both them. He’s made huge strides just in this month, and that’s with getting way less days and time he’s actually been on sheep. Having someone experienced work your dog makes things go WAY faster! But I don’t need another dog right now, and I don’t want to deal with two dogs in herding right now. I want to feel more confident in what I’m supposed to be doing, and Haku is the perfect partner for me to learn with.

So, yeah, I do feel like there are a lot of things that continue to point me in the direction of herding, so I will continue. I do find it fun … parts of it. Other things are very unnatural for me, and I’m thankful my dogs don’t seem to mind.

As for the specifics today, both of my dogs started out as total goobers. I had hopes of getting some video of Haku, but, oh, such a disaster. We did go through a phase before where Haku was quite certain he knew better than me in herding, and I’m not saying he’s wrong, but it doesn’t work if he chooses to ignore me when he thinks I’m wrong … even if I am. So, yeah, a month of herding has really increased Haku’s confidence with sheep … less so with my handling, apparently. So, yes, it’s clear that we need to go back to stopping and just working on making sure we are both on the same page, no matter what the sheep are doing. And that involves running across the field, and letting sheep escape and just being consistent.

Which went back to Ian’s Five C’s, which I found amusing from the OMD 3 Cs, but they are different:

1. Calm

2. Confident

3. Consistent

4. Commanding

5. Correct

I think that was it, ‘confident’ may not be correct, I have a terrible memory. But the ones that stuck out to me the most were ‘calm’, ‘consistent’ and ‘correct’. Which I think our biggest issues at the moment. I tend to not be correct, which makes me inconsistent, which means so is my dog and then I’m not at all calm trying to fix that mess! Hard to be correct when you don’t know the right answer though, that’s a tough one. I CAN be consistent though, and make sure Haku believes what I ask, even if it causes us to lose the sheep.

Now me, as a good little dog trainer, want to set this up with small exercises where I can focus on the specific issues and set Haku up for success. Ian is like, “You’re going to fix it while you do it.” Heh. Herding people do things differently. But, funny enough, when we came out again and did the whole pro-novice course and I was ready to fix shit – things went a lot better, and I didn’t need to fix things, at least, not what I was planning to. Go figure. Of course, ‘better’ is a relative term, I was thrilled that Haku did come in softer on his outrun, and sheep were considerably slower on the fetch! I had lead out ready to run up the field and was so shocked. Ian was less impressed, as apparently while the sheep were moving much slower than before … that’s a relative term.

When I had a dog working with me, things are a hell of a lot easier. I still struggle quite a bit about driving in terms of ‘Should I flank? Is that too much? Not enough? Damn, too much! Back the other way, but not too much – crap – where are those two sheep going?’ I have been accused of taking WAY TOO LONG to give my dog information, which means he’s not moving and then loses the sheep. It’s very true, driving is not the time for a lot of internal struggle – Haku, especially, needs to keep moving, even if it’s wrong. However, on Thursday he was TOO CLOSE to the sheep. Today I attempted to make sure he stayed back … and we lose the sheep. Hrrumph.

Still, we did our drives, got MOST of the sheep in drive panels and, shockingly, ALL the sheep in the crossdrive. And I had zero clue where they were in space. I did know that previously this week I was ridiculously offline and given the hint of heading for the handy bucket to know where to shoot for. Hopefully all cross drives will have handy buckets in the field in the future. And, maybe just to make me feel better, we penned the sheep perfectly. And maybe these sheep just wanted to go in there anyway, but I’ll take it.

So, better than our first disaster attempt, but I do feel LESS prepared for the infamous Feb trial now than ever. And if it weren’t Haku I’d be in no rush to enter as we’re clearly not ready, but Ian continues to think we should do it. Ian is always optimistic that things will just work out. If we wait until we’re ready we may lose our chance. I’m just going to try to fix everything before the trial. We at least can theoretically do the pieces, but we definitely need to work our communication before now and then. My goal continues to be to do a little better than we did before, right now I feel WORSE, so we have work to do.

Herding homework:

• Come to hand with distraction for shedding (eventually)

• Lie down cue on whistle

• Consistent lie down at extreme distance when he’s committed to sheep

• Stay calm, consistent and correct (don’t try to fix issues that come from Haku not responding when I asked, don’t try to fix issues that come from Haku responding when I DID ask)

As for Navarre, he was VERY excited when he got there and was just running around like a total goober. He got ejected. After a while he got another attempt and was much more focused and remarkably calm. Ian started working on teaching Navarre fix his own messes. Basically the theme today was ‘keep your sheep together’, so not many actual cues, just getting Navarre to understand the concept that it’s his job to keep the sheep together in a variety of situations. Navarre was probably much calmer because he had to figure out what Ian wanted, he had his brain on – and there were a couple of these sheep that did have their own agenda. I continue to be surprised how thoughtful Navarre can be on sheep compared to what he was like even six months ago. Maybe not all the time, but he can be thoughtful when he wants to be. And I think he was getting the concept, he’s a good boy. Sometimes.

So ends our herding vacation, but not our herding adventure. I still have plans for much more access to sheep this year, and some specific goals and progress I want to make. We’ve come too far to let it go to waste, I want to figure this out.

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Back to agility this week! I’ve been getting back into my agility mindset, I always think breaks are good for me and for the dogs. While I don’t have any particular competition goals with the dogs this year, I still am very much looking forward to running them again in practice. Navarre will be four this year, but the wise choice I think is to wait for any bigger goals with him when he’s 5 or 6. He continues to mature and I think by that point we’ll be a pretty good, consistent team. So maybe WTT, or the UKI Open or something fun in 2020/2021.

As for Bright, contemplating putting her down to 16 in AKC as well, we will not be going to any more big competitions, and 16 is just really easy for her. I think she’s fine at 20 too, but agility has never been about jump height to me – and lower is just faster. As I still haven’t decided when we’ll be returning to trialing, I don’t have to worry about it just yet. Maybe one more year at 20, I’m not sure. She’ll be 8 this summer.

Still plan to debut Navarre in obedience in April, we have done zero obedience practice over the break. It would be fun to get a practice group together, it’s something I’ve considered as I have enough agility friends that enjoy dabbling in obedience that it might be a fun thing to set up. Finding time during the week is the tricky part. Ian said obedience would be good for Navarre, “He needs to learn that sometimes he has to do things he doesn’t want to do.” Ha! I spent four years working on making obedience something he DOES want to do. Hopefully. We shall see, April is right around the corner. Once I see what he does at the trial will show me if it’s something we’ll continue to put energy into. Still, we’ve put enough into it I feel like we should at least get his novice title! I think he has the potential to go farther, but only if it’s something he’s enjoying.

Very much enjoying watching Riot this week, such a sweet, SWEET puppy. I thought I knew sweet, but Riot is ridiculously cuddly. Just a happy, fun, solid little puppy – nothing seems to phase him. Taught him to stay in like 2 minutes out in the forest, he was a great little hiker and checked in constantly. The crazy part was when he found a huge pile of horse shit and was just bolting it down I tried to call him off and he was oblivious. So I went and physically moved him off of it – he was DEVASTATED. He went and ran under a bush and refused to come out. OMG, he’s such a sensitive little princess. I had to sit there and convince him that all was forgiven before he would come to me again. Good lord. I had actually corrected him for jumping on a cat at home and he didn’t seem to take that personal, but being removed from a pile of horse shit and his world came crashing down. Definitely a softer dog than I’m used to, and not at all what I expected from one of Ian’s dogs.

I really do like him a lot though, and I think he’s tipped my preference that we’re getting another boy when the time comes. Bright doesn’t like him as much the girl puppies, but she tolerates him just fine, and Navarre seems to genuinely like him – much more than the girl puppies. Could be an individual personality thing, but boy dogs are just SO much easier.

But the nice part about all the herding is that I feel like we have more than enough to keep all three dogs busy this year. I really don’t want to get another puppy, especially if I think they’re going to do herding. I’ve already got a spare herding dog I’m going to need to learn to run at some point – I don’t need yet another herding project I’m not ready for. Haku will continue to get his time until he tells me he’s ready to retire.