Karen Norteman and Duncan met Bryna and me at the Raspberry Ridge Sheep Farm last weekend for a herding trial. Duncan was going for his second leg of an HT, and Bryna was trying for her first leg of her Started (HS) title. We arrived late Friday night, and stayed at the farm. Since we expected a big crowd there, we brought our own (no cooking) picnic with us to eat in our room. We started off with crackers and salmon pate. Our main course, supplied by Karen fresh from Maine, was a lobster salad. This was accompanied by fresh French bread, and a salad of baby greens, ripe avocado, pine nuts, and a sesame oil vinaigrette. For dessert we had La Reine de Saba chocolate cake (from Mastering the Art of French Cooking; hereafter called "The Cake"); this cake contains a total of 3 sticks of butter, 7 egg whites and 4 egg yolks, 5 tablespoons of rum, and a lot of chocolate and is a guaranteed cure for cholesterol deficiency anemia. And a Clos du Bois Sauvignon Blanc. On the other hand, some of us had lobster dog biscuits, garlic dog biscuits, beef jerky dog biscuits, and kibble, with fresh tap water.
We borrowed a video camera to film each other, but there was a concern about whether we could be free to film each other what with conflicts between handlers meetings and our own runs, plus the fact that I have figured out that Bryna does best if we go on a brisk 30 min walk before her run as she carries a 10 lb saddlebag. (Don't worry--she is used to carrying a 6-7 lb load, and I don't let her run or jump with this on.) As it turned out, Karen went first, and I just managed to get there in time to film nearly all of Duncan's run.
Her judge was Wink Mason, a very accomplished border collie trainer. His big emphasis was control on the dog, and getting the dog to lie down on command and stay off the stock. I had never seen a judge ask so much of that during an HT, and most of the dogs I saw had some considerable difficulty with this. Karen was told repeatedly to make Duncan lie down, walk up, lie down, walk up, etc. She had not practiced this much in previous training, though Duncan was managing to do it, even if he seemed thoroughly puzzled by the whole thing. But Karen got a nice call-off, which has sometimes been hard for Duncan, who is a don't-quit-now sort of herder. I sort of expected that many of the HT dogs would not qualify given this emphasis, but in fact most of them did, including Duncan, who is now an HT! Yeah! I figured out that Wink was trying to build foundations in these beginner dogs for what he felt would be good work later.
I wish I could give a full report on Ken and Diana Clayton's Bosco, but, alas, I had to go take Bryna for a last "Walk with the Pack" before our own run under Kathy Christian. Bosco did get his first HT leg, and Ken deserves a lot of credit, since he had hyper-extended his knee on the 11th, and it wasn't clear he could make it to the event. Yeah Bosco!
In the handler's meeting, Kathy emphasized that she hated to see crossovers on an outrun. (Crossover: a dog standing to the left of the handler runs to the right and rounds up the sheep going counterclockwise around the sheep to bring them to the handler; or the reverse.) Gulp. Avoiding crossovers is not Bryna's long suit. She said that we could (indeed were encouraged to) put our leads on our dogs as soon as we penned the sheep in order to speed things up. (Great--since Bryna never wants to leave the pen on her own.) And Kathy really hated to see any gripping, and planned to come down pretty hard on that. (Fine--Bryna very rarely grips.) Our turn came. I took Bryna's lead off and went in. My first problem was keeping her with me as we went to the post, rather than having her race to the gate, and tap dance in front of it in hopes of getting the sheep out faster. I know I can't get her to do a real heeling exercise in a sheepy setting, but I have trained her to "With me", and "Lie down" if she starts to get ahead of me. I nearly lost her, but managed to get her set up, and to hold her stay as the sheep were brought in. The stock setter went out, I signaled to Kathy that I was ready, and she nodded to say we could proceed. I sent Bryna on a come-by. She did NOT cross over thank Dog, but the sheep were coming much too fast, and she did at least 1 full circle around them, but still on a come-by. The minute the sheep got to the post I started trucking on off. I said to myself "Sharon: Keep Moving! Cindy: Almost Never Retry a Gate!"
We kept the sheep in the alleyway pretty well to the Y chute, although I think Bryna almost went ahead and a few of the sheep started to turn back before we got there. I got Bryna to stop in the right place, and all of the sheep went through the gate the first time although unfortunately Bryna followed them through. When a dog does that, the front sheep tend to come shooting out of the chute like watermelon seeds in a spitting contest, and that happened here. Bryna got anxious and rushed even faster, with the result that we had a rodeo between Y and Z, but all within the alleyway as far as I could see on the video. Kathy said we could cut the diagonals, so we went straight for the Z chute. I stopped Bryna at the right spot, and she held them while I walked around the chute and then she pushed them in. Indeed, I think she is beginning to get the concept "Mom wants these sheep to go through that thing, so I had better park my bottom here." In other words, I didn't tell her exactly where to stop, she went to the right place and I told her to stop there. Unlike the Y chute, she went around the outside of this chute. The result was that there was less of a whirlwind between the Z chute and the runway obstacle.
But I got the sheep to the right place, told her to sit, and the sheep went through as I walked around the runway. Then we went to the cross drive. Bryna went between the sheep and the fence, nearly nipped but missed, came back out, and saved the sheep from bolting to the exhaust pen. Just when we got to the center panel, Bryna's excessive efforts to keep the sheep at, under, around and on top of my feet reached a crisis as one of the sheep stepped on my left foot just as I was stepping forward. This caused me to trip down into a 3 point landing right in the center panel. Sharon, you will be happy to know that even as I got up, I Was Still Moving Forward! (Well, lunging is more like it--I felt like the receiver brought down a yard or two short of the goal line -- unfff--just another yard for the coach....) Honest! This is on the video! We went over to the opposite fenceline, and Bryna held the sheep from bolting to the gate again.
We went down the fenceline, around the corner. There I made an unfortunate handler error, misjudging the distance to the gate. I stopped the sheep much too far from the gate, and put Bryna on a stay that made the hold too far away from me. Two of the sheep slipped passed her, then they all did since at that point she decided to bring all 5 to me. I had to set her up again, closer this time. She held them, and I opened the gate. The sheep went in, Sweet Pea stopped, and I slammed the gate shut. I told her what a good girl she was, and she bounced out of the pen, looking back at the gate a couple of times. Had we passed? Or did our crummy outrun or the 2nd attempt at a penning stop us? I wasn't sure, but I felt good, and we had done a credible job, if not one that would get us a placement. Karen and other friends congratulated us as we went out. As it turned out, we got a 75, losing 10 of 20 points on the outrun--JUST enough outrun points to qualify!!!!!! We were going to get our first started ribbon! I took Sweet Pea back to the room and told her at length, with biscuits, what a good girl she was! So Duncan, Bosco, Bryna, and Nixon (in PT--Sandy Weiss) all got ribbons! What a wonderful day! Karen and I went to the room for a lunch of sushi, cheeses and French bread, apricots, dates, more salad, The Cake, and fruit fresh from our coolers. Dogs got servings of gourmet dog biscuits. We spent the afternoon watching other dogs do their runs. Then we took a nap and walked the dogs after dark.
That evening, dinner was a simple affair: more different cheeses (Port Salut, havarti with dill, soft cheese with morels & leeks), more salmon pate and crackers, French bread, salad, The Cake, and (piece de resistance) Trocadero champagne (brut). We ate our appetizers as we watched videotapes of our runs and our dessert was accompanied by Mazie's tape of the specialty. It was a very fine evening.
Karen and Duncan had a lovely run. Duncan held his stay until told to go. While the sheep broke up sometimes, Duncan was able to get them back. You know, in a way I realized that videotaping was a handicap, since I was so concerned about telephoto and close-up shots, and about avoiding back-lighting that I am sure I did not get all the details. Karen will have to fill you in on them. But I do know that Duncan did well, and there was no question at all in my mind when they finished that they had passed. His call off was very nice.
After she and Duncan finished, I dashed off to take Bryna for another fast walk with her 10 lb pack on her. I hoped to time it so that we returned just a few minutes before our run. We returned more like 7-8 minutes before the run, so I carefully took Bryna to a spot where she could not see the sheep nor any of the runs. (I have figured out that she has to have a lot of exercise to mellow her out before her run, and that watching other dogs herd is just a sure formula for disaster for her.)
Bryna had learned something since the previous day. She now knew where the orange cone (handler's post) was, and her gaze shifted from sheep, to Mom, to cone, rather than just sheep to Mom. She now knew we were going to the cone to start out, and was much more willing to go there this time. I thought that was pretty good, but resolved that from now on I would frequently put orange cones at different places in the training areas where we worked, and walk to them before we started working.
She held her stay as the sheep were brought in. The stock setter left, the judge signaled that I could begin, and I said, very softly, "come bye." Off she went, or I guess flew. She cut way in before she got to them, but did not cross over. On the top side she charged in, thought better of it, flanked back to the front (near me), went back, charged in, and then repeated the flank once more. The sheep were against the fence at this point, but Bryna never crossed over.
The sheep finally got near me, and I could move on. We got our momentum going, and the sheep bunched around (not behind--sigh) me. We got a nice stay at the Y chute. Wink didn't want to let the handlers round the corners as much as Kathy did so we went a bit closer to the corner this time. Again Bryna stopped at the right spot, and the sheep went through the Z chute. There was another small rodeo between the Z chute and the runway, but we got there, and the sheep went through. I discovered on the videotape that Bryna followed them through this chute, and her charging out of the chute was probably part of the reason they reversed course (though not back through the chute) before we reassembled our parade.
On to the cross drive. I did NOT fall down this time, although the sheep were still too close to me. Bryna kept them from bolting to the gate. We went to the opposite fence, down the fenceline and back to the gate, but much closer to the gate this time before we stopped. I got Bryna to keep them off of me, though there was some milling around before we got it set up. We got them into the gate, and I shut it. I was happy, but I really thought that our very stinky outrun would keep us from a 2nd ribbon.
I was right. This time we got a 70, of which 15 points were lost on the outrun. Oh well. It was a very fair score, and we definitely did deserve to lose a lot of points on that part.
Later, I saw Sandy Weiss, and said "Guess what I want to work on at your clinic next weekend?" "Outruns?" she hazarded. I nodded.
Anyhow, I learned that we need to spend the winter working on our outruns, to put cones out before starting our work, to work on keeping Bryna from following the sheep into the Y and Z chutes (thereby to avoid crises immediately afterwards among panic stricken sheep), and to put even more effort into keeping Bryna off the stock so that Mom doesn't get herself killed one of these days. And I decided that the strategy of taking her for vigorous exercise before her run is a very good one.
I also learned that Sharon gave excellent advice about continuing to move. Cindy's advice was not useful, but not for the reason you might think: we got all of the sheep through all of the obstacles the first time on both runs. It wasn't bad advice--we just didn't need it! I also learned that I can certainly trust Bryna to keep the sheep to me. She covered the sheep very well at all times, and never let them stray from me.
So it was a very good weekend. We finished off most of the goodies we brought (but sending some of The Cake home to both Maine and Virginia) at lunch, gave the dogs more gourmet dog biscuits, and drove home. We hoped that Duncan and Bryna had very happy dreams that night, because they deserved them. So did Karen and I, come to think of it.