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WANNABE STUFF
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APPRENTICE STUFF
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MASTER STUFF
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And for our former harrowing adventures, there's always the archives
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Good News and Bad News . . .
The good news is that Phyl really did a great job of holding the pressure on her fetches at Old Chatham; she flanked easily to her away side and stayed right there the whole way down the field (we didn't make our panels on either run, but I didn't try too hard to do it: I really wanted her to feel how nice it felt to hold the sheep on her weaker side more than I wanted to risk having it fall apart just to push the sheep through the panels. So we were a little bit offline on the upper fetch, but I was pleased nonetheless). It was a pleasure to see such a nice fetch, especially knowing how much she'd messed it up at this same trial last October.
The bad news is that Phyl stopped on her outrun on our Saturday run--this stopping on new fields is starting to become a dangerous pattern. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, although I *am* sure that she's not getting locked up because of eye: she seems to be a little insecure and awaiting more information. I got some good advice at the trial: Amanda Milliken thought I should practice outruns where the sheep are held very still and tight, possibly with corn. Lori Cunningham told me about a similar problem that she had had with one of her dogs: Patrick Shannahan had advised her to spend a few trials blowing prophylactic whistles on the outrun, just to give the dog a little more confidence. She did that for a trial or two, and the problem disappeared for her dog. I tried that on Sunday, and the outrun went pretty well. I guess I'll try it for the first run at Oatlands (my next trial), and then see how it goes on day two. I find myself thinking about outruns all day and dreaming about them all night--all I want to do is go to strange new fields and set Phyl loose. Obsessive much?
Other than that, Phyl handled the Old Chatham sheep (who were *very* tough cookies!) better than many dogs, but I just couldn't get them into the pen either day. (In fact, the first day I was actually DQ'd because I tried leaning back against the sheep to "encourage" them to move from the mouth into the pen itself--these are milk sheep that are overly fond of human beings. I never consciously realized that shoving sheep into the pen is technically a disqualification, but I sure do now! :-)
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Things that Make You Go "Gulp"!
Tomorrow I'm off to Old Chatham, and it's the first trial that Phyl and I were in last year (well, last November, but it feels like last year!) that we'll be in again this year--in other words, it's our first time running in a trial on a field that we've seen before. Last time Phyl's outruns were good, but her fetches were horrible--the sheep pulled hard to her right, and she didn't cover well either time. (By "didn't cover well," I actually mean "had the most miserable fetches in the history of fetches, including the time that your great-grandmother's Pekingese tried to stalk a mouse.) The trial had some bright spots: Phyl did a great job driving some difficult sheep, and people seemed to be impressed with her. But that fetch really looms large in my mind, and if we manage to do it better this weekend I'll be very, very happy. I've spent the whole week trying to set up situations with a lot of pressure to Phyl's right, getting her to move there fluidly on her own (or at least to listen to my entreaties to go there and to stay there. So we'll see how it goes--I'm filled with even more than my usual share of fear and foreboding. Stay tuned!
Sunday, April 20, 2003
Borders on Paradise
Borders on Paradise, a Pennsylvania trial put on by Lori Cunningham and Dave and Debbie Fetterman, was a lot of fun and a good experience for both Phyl and for me. Borders is the sort of trial that I like best: a casual farm atmosphere, not many spectators, and run with the sort of organizational skills that make everything look effortless. I'll definitely be back next year. The outrun was challenging for Phyl: it wasn't long, but it was up a hill, and I'm pretty sure that the sheep dipped out of sight occasionally. Phyl got a little lost on her outrun the first day, getting confused by the exhaust sheep and needing to be whistled on a couple of times. Ultimately, she pushed the sheep back into the setout pen and had to lift them off that. Her fetch was as decent as it could be, given that awful start. The beginning of her drive was fine (she made her drive and her crossdrive panels). But for some inexplicable reason she flanked in front of her sheep on the last leg of her drive (thus crossing her course), and for some even more inexplicable reason I thought that meant I had to push the sheep back to the crossdrive panels before I could turn them to the pen. Suffice it to say, what resulted was about the most unprofessional-looking work this side of sheepdom, and even a week later I prefer not to relive it by writing about it. (I told someone afterward that not only should we have lost all our drive points on that leg, but that we should have lost all the drive points of our next five trials!) We penned after a little trouble, and then I couldn't get the sheep to settle enough even to attempt a shed.
Sunday, luckily, was considerably better. She still needed a little help on her outrun, but not nearly as much. Her lift was good, and fetch was adequate. We made our drive panels, wiggled a little on the crossdrive (mostly because after the horror of the day before I couldn't trust myself to let her hold a line and drive, and missed the crossdrive panels through my inept handling. I somehow blew the pen--the sheep were under good control on the last leg, going right in, and then I guess I let Phyl get too close. The sheep went into the pen but wouldn't go *all* the way in (we didn't have a gate on the pen to help them along--and when I tried to put more pressure on them they blasted out. After another couple of tries, we got them in. The EXCITING NEWS, though (drum roll!), is that we got a shed! Really . . . a real, live shed! My only goal in the shedding ring was to get the sheep nice and settled; I didn't really think that I'd get a hole big enough to call Phyl in at this stage. But miraculously, a large hole opened up and stayed open. I thought about it for a second, and then called Phyl in. She came in and actually turned into the single that she was supposed to hold. AND THE BLESSED HORN OF SUCCESS BLEWETH! I was very, very psyched; this was our first complete Open course. Maybe we'l be able to do it again someday!
For now, I'm realizing that I have to get Phyl on fields with outruns up hills, and blind outruns. She needs to realize that she has to keep going when she doesn't seen the sheep all the time. So I'm going to try to get her to other places whenever I don't have a trial myself; it's going to be tough to pull off, but I think it's going to be really important to her development as a trial dog.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Ok, maybe it isn't so much fun . . .
Back from Sherry Smith's trial, a trial that feels like the first of the new season even though of course the "new season" officially starts in August. All things considered, I'm depressed but not suicidal yet. The field is very, very tricky: a 400+-yard outrun, with lots of dips that make it impossible for a dog to see the sheep the whole way around. On the first day Phyl got really lost on her outrun. After a lot of redirects, she managed (after crossing over) to find her sheep. The upper fetch was very offline, but we made our fetch panels and had a decent line on the lower fetch, good turn around the post, good driveaway (made the panels), semi-decent crossdrive (but missed the panels), and a nice, clean pen. No shed for us, but at least the sheep were hard to shed and almost nobody was managing them. (I like those situations--it's nice when you're a newbie with no real hope of getting a shed to think that even people like Tommy Wilson aren't getting them!). So Phyl's score was lousy (it's hard to have anything BUT a lousy score when you lose 19 points on your outrun!), but the run had some pretty moments to it. The second day, unfortunately, wasn't any better--in fact, I'd definitely call it worse, since it didn't have a single "pretty moment." This time Phyl ran out as if she were going to do a good, wide outrun, and I yelled at her to "keep off" at a critical moment just to get her to widen out even more. But she lost site of the sheep and she stopped moving; unfortunately, I couldn't see that she was stopped (she was in a dip) and it took awhile for me to figure out what was going on enough to help her. After another stop or two, she managed to get behind her sheep. They pulled hard to her away side, and she didn't cover them well at all. By the time she got them down to me they were very wily and determined to beat her, so our drive wasn't exactly poetry in motion. She covered them well going from the cross drive panel to the pen (they were trying hard to bolt for the exhaust at that point), and we penned them after a slight mishap in which the one lamb ran around the pen after the two adult sheep were penned. No shed, of course.
Scorewise, the two days were comparable (both pathetic scores of 37 and 38, respectively if not respectably). But the second run was by far the more depressing of the two. It occurs to me that Phyl and I have an awful lot of fetches in which she fails to cover on her right--I picture myself yelling and whistling frantic away's to her a lot of the time, and I can't remember ever having to do it on her other side. So I guess it's an official problem. I plan to work on lots of fetches this week, in preparation for Lori Cunningham's trial next weekend. I also want to work on a lot of flank commands while she circles her sheep, to make sure that her distance is good and that she's responsive on the away side. My goal for Lori's is just to get a nice, clean, controlled fetch: if I can do that, I'll be happy no matter what else happens with the run. In the long term, I've got to get her to as many big, tricky fields as I can find, to see if we can work out some of these outrun problems.
