Flexibility

Pam and I went out to Mindy's ranch yesterday. Mindy has a great little place near Kiowa—well, it's hundreds of acres, so it's not so little, I guess. We had our choice of working in a giant field, a big pasture, an arena, or a fairly small pen. I immediately wanted to work in the big, open areas, since that's so much easier for my pressure-sensitive dogs. But Mindy, whose Wiz is similarly pressure-sensitive, recommended the smallest pen. Informed by her expertise with horses, Mindy is a firm believer in getting things perfect in smaller areas before moving to larger ones, and that if you don't have good control on your dog in the pen, you can't count on it in the field. Taz actually listens to me better in big areas, but anyone who has watched us work can attest that my control on him is not exactly what one would call "firm." In addition, he doesn't yet have much flexibility in the tighter areas, and this is something I should work on.

Mindy defined flexibility to be loose enough to readily go around the stock either way, stop on a dime, and generally be responsive to whatever is being asked. I hadn't ever thought in these terms before, and I realized that Taz isn't very flexible at all. Especially in closer areas, he prefers to hold the pressure and tends to then home in on the stock when he gets close to them. He also works in double speed and tends to be reactive instead of proactive.

Much, if not most, of this is my fault. I have not felt so awkward as I did yesterday in years. Because the space is so much smaller, everything happens much quicker, and my pea-brain can't work out what I want to see happen quickly enough. I hesitate, and then Taz locks in, or he stops and starts abruptly because I'm not fast enough to establish an easy flow. I also bring on trouble by often stopping Taz short, so he's not covering them when I ask him to lie down. I have a bit of trouble enforcing it at times, because he knows it's not right and he ends up just getting nervous that the sheep are getting away. This is probably one reason we work better in bigger areas—it's easier for me to stop him when he's covering because he's off them enough to stop a bit out of position and still retain control. I need to stop placing the dog where I think he needs to be and remember to look at what the sheep are doing while working the dogs and react accordingly. Ask for a change in the dog's behavior or position when the stock turn their heads or begin to change direction at all. Finally, I need to stop allowing Taz and Craig to work by themselves while I'm otherwise engaged. This is counter-productive and I need to prioritize stopping this behavior. Phew, lots to think about!

Mindy said she had recently come to some of the same realizations of herself and Wiz (as far as working in tight areas goes), so she recognized the problems we were having and coached us for a while. She suggested exercises such as putting the sheep in a corner, then standing between the dog and the sheep and sending the dog on both sides to peel them off until the dog was working slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully. We also moved the sheep around the sides of the pen, putting them into each corner before moving on. It was surprisingly tough! This was especially difficult on the corner where the puppies (Callie and Willem) and Craig were tied up, as the sheep obviously wanted no part of entering that particular area. We never did conquer that corner, but we were eventually able to stay sort of close to the fence and move around in a semi-orderly fashion.

I found that we were most successful when I had a definite plan in place before I sent Taz. I mean, this is probably pretty obvious, but I usually think one step ahead of what I want to see, and yesterday I found that I really need to think two or three steps ahead or I'd get stuck (I need to work on my own flexibility as well). This is so so true with whitewater kayaking, so it makes sense here, too. Also, figure out what I want to do—then look at Taz, get ready to send, and send. Stop the endless prepping with him ready to go—that just builds pressure for him so that when he does eventually go, he's like a cork being sprung.

I'd like to continue to work on all of this with Taz. It's too bad Mindy lives so far from me! I can set it up at Bill's though, if I ever get back there. And Bill did have me doing some of these exercises the last time I was out there, before we had to stop due to the endless snow at his place (and word on the street is that enough has finally melted so I can start back up there again, hooray!). However, I think the biggest lesson for me today was this idea of flexibility. It's the underlying principle to learn in doing these exercises.

I did work Craig a bit, too, in the arena, and here I was able to pay a bit more attention to where he was positioning himself. There was a very strong draw back to the barn, so I could send him on these small outruns and really notice how he was covering them. I was surprised, because I did tend to think he was overdoing it, but the sheep would come directly to my feet each time. So where I thought he should be was not correct; Craig was correct. It was the same with driving, but here Craig does tend to overdo it or underdo it (I couldn't detect a definite pattern, though I may simply need to spend more time watching for this), so I need to be able to help him find the sweet spot. This is why he turns them back to me—he just over- or underdoes it on the pressure side a bit too much. I definitely need to play around with this!

Unfortunately, Craig couldn't work too long (we worked for about 20-25 minutes), as I noticed some blood in the snow and realized two of his paws were bleeding. Poor Craig, he really doesn't do so well in the snow. Even though this snow was not icy at all, his paws are a little more delicate I guess. I'll have to remember this and keep his work times shorter if we're working in the snow.

Anyway, a great time was had by all. Pam and Wink made some progress as well, and I left feeling pretty elated at discovering this idea of flexibility and knowing we can work on it with these different exercises. Thanks Mindy!

Rock stars!

Yesterday was supposed to be the last warmish day in Colorado for a while, so I decided to take the dogs out to Cathy's. I wanted to work on the top of Taz's outrun again and spend some time with Craig just doing close-ish drive aways with me strongly enforcing his stop. After Saturday's craziness, I figured I might have a difficult time with both dogs adjusting to me again really laying down the law.

Well, they surprised me :-)

Taz did phenomenal outruns! He was super wide at the bottom and did flatten a little at the top, but still came in fairly far behind the sheep. What the...? Okay, so I decided to work on that bit of flattening, and I lied him down. He didn't strongly kick himself out, so I growled the "Get out of that!" and then he kicked himself way out! Unbelievable! This is one of those very rare days where I feel like this is easy! I don't know if it's because we were in Cathy's pasture again (rather than the bigger, more open alfalfa field) or that Cathy was the one holding, or just that he had maybe been thinking about what happened on Saturday or what, but Taz's outruns looked terrific yesterday.

His lifts were sometimes a bit messy, though, especially if I had lied him down in the middle of his flank. He'd wing and wang a little before getting things going, and often I had to lie him down again and let the sheep get some distance before he could bring them forward. His fetches were also not stellar. He was too close and fast most of the time, but I was able to slow him down some of the time with a few "hey"s. I'll have to work on this next, I guess, though I saw this as slight progress as well, since I am usually only able to get him to stop altogether on the fetch, rather than slowing him down. This felt like the some progress in his pace development. His turns around the imaginary post looked pretty good, too—not so fast and choppy. All in all, he really looked good.

Craig also looked terrific! He was listening to me much, much better from the get go. Even so, I did enforce the lie downs pretty strongly at first, which resulted in him not blowing me off so much throughout the rest of the session. We did a few outruns to keep things fun and light, and his outruns were absolutely flawless. Craig is so pretty to watch when he's correct and running confidently. He brought the sheep right to my feet without so much as a "take time" from me. Driving was a little more difficult, of course, but not so much of a fight. When he did get too close to the heads, I tried to just check him first, and often he would self-correct (as he had done for Mark, but not at all for me on Saturday). If that wasn't enough, I'd flank him. Sometimes he went too far, but we didn't have too much back and forth and we were usually able to recover. We did a nice cross drive and then ended our session with a successful pen!

It was so much fun! I was proud of my dogs and myself, too, though today really was mostly the dogs shining. I am going to try to make it out twice a week this winter—see if I can pick up a time during the week and one on the weekends, too. I think what also probably helped the dogs today is simply that it was only a couple of days between work sessions and we all could actually retain some of the lessons we learned the last time out!

Same song, fifty-second verse...

Despite feeling like I just wanted to crawl under a rock and lay as low as possible for the past two weeks with the misery-making flu-cold deathbug, my dogs finally stood around staring at me intensely enough to get me out of bed. As tolerant as they are, border collies cannot be expected to do nothing for days on end just because I feel like crap. I took them for a short hike in the morning with Elaine and puppy Callie (yeah, short, and pretty flat; nonetheless, I was wheezing and gasping for breath at times as my sluggish system adjusted to, um, moving again). At any rate, after getting some yummy sustenance at the Mexican Express Grille, I decided not to stop there, and we went to work Craig, Taz, Ben, and even puppy Callie for a bit at Cathy's.

Despite the six-inch-deep crystallized snow in places, we worked about eight sheep in the big alfalfa field behind Cathy's pasture. The sheep were really nice to work—they were actually pretty heavy, and while they often tried to make their way back to the draw, they were not concerned with moving toward the handler at all. I worked Taz first. He was wiiiiiild. And fast. And tight and slicy. He was Zat, Taz's evil twin (you know, the dog who usually shows up for trials ;-).

I lied him down when he was slicing in, but he wasn't quite lying down when I asked him to and then when I reflanked him, he just kept going on the same trajectory. I got between him and the sheep, and it made a small difference, but not a dramatic one. I felt my own frustration grow and tried to get more insistent with the lie down by yelling (rather than taking a few steps toward him or even running up the field, if necessary, which I know works; my weak and feeble response was surely due to my debilitating illness) and felt the stress cycle begin. Fortunately, Elaine also could see what was going on and she came up to me and told me to relax and regroup. Breathe. Do not get mired in frustration when things aren't working; try something else. She suggested a simple "get out of that" warning growl to him when he starts to slice. And, voilà! It did work to snap him out of it—he widened out again. I mean, he wasn't doing perfect outruns all of a sudden, but he did seem to realize that he should be kicking himself out again. Amazing.

This to me is what I have the biggest trouble with when working on my own—with both Taz and Craig. It seems like I have a tendency to get frustrated when things start to fall apart, and I don't immediately understand what I need to do to fix things. It's very helpful to have someone come in and sort of "reset" everything and put us back on track. But I have to figure out how to do this myself, or we'll never get anywhere!

I also tried to do what Mark suggested—get him back up right after I lied him down on the fetch, but it seemed to backfire today. He would just get even more amped and get way too close to the sheep. It wasn't working the way it did last week, so I lengthened his downs again. He just seemed to need a moment to settle before coming back up. Hmm, maybe he needs to be in the correct frame of mind first, and then I can ease up on the length of time he lies down. He did settle a bit after a while, but it wasn't ever pretty.

He then had kind of a hard time driving the sheep, which I haven't seen much of before. He would get close to them and they'd run, so I lied him down. Then he didn't want to move forward as eagerly as usual. Taz is not a dog I generally have to cajole, but I had to keep telling him to walk up. And he did, but he was definitely more hesitant than he has been in the past. I guess we usually work light, dogged sheep, so though he always looks very powerful, he hasn't been challenged too much. I'll have to try to find heavier sheep for him to work, I guess.

I was excited to work Craig next, and to command him less and pay attention to where he placed himself more. That lasted about three minutes, as he quickly showed me that commanding him less led to him turning the sheep right back to me when he was supposed to be driving them away. Rats! Similarly, saying his name, rather than giving him specific flank commands, did not work quite as well for me as it had for Mark last week. He was either ignoring me or "unwinding," a favorite practice where he moves a bit too far to the ewes' heads, tucks back in behind them when checked, but then immediately returns to the incorrect position he was in earlier. He would lie down about the third time I asked, when I was at the "demand" level (ask, insist, demand), which yesterday meant the yelling level :(

Elaine rescued us once again. She told me the same thing she tells me every time I work Craig. I cannot let him get away with not listening to me. It's true with Taz, too. Make an impression right off the bat by enforcing what I ask, and neither dog will blow me off later. I think Mark was able to get the results he got with Craig because Craig listened to him straight away. I have the ability to make Craig listen to me; I just can't be lazy and not enforce my commands or allow incorrect work. Once Elaine "reset" us, Craig began listening to me again.

I feel like what I need with Craig is the opportunity to work him by myself, with this in mind, for two or three sessions in a row, without a whole lot of time between sessions. We were on a bit of a roll before, but somehow our momentum got interrupted, and we are not quite on the same page these days. I don't think it will be difficult to get back to where we were, but this piecemeal working once every week or so is for the birds. We need to get back to a regular routine, and I need to rebuild a habit of enforcing my commands. Then we can start to progress.

I feel like I am always learning the same lesson. Why is it taking so long to sink in?

Lessons learned at the novice trial

Today was another novice trial, this time at Deb Terry's. I was a bit nervous for this trial—even though these trials are really low key and informal, meant more to be educational for novices just beginning to trial than truly competitive—I haven't worked my dogs in nearly a month. Taz in particular is not one of those dogs who seems to benefit from a bunch of time off, thinking about everything he has learned and then taking a leap forward in progress. And I wasn't sure about how Craig would react—I haven't had him long enough to know how he reacts when he's taken some time off. So I had no idea what to expect.

Both dogs did pretty well, though my craptastic handling hampered both of them. Mark Henderson was the judge, and he spent a lot of time with everyone during our practice runs. He seemed to really like Taz, and told me that Taz has a lot of natural ability, so I could help him by commanding him a bit less. He told me to give him full commands of "come bye" or "away to me" as I send him (rather than the shorthand "come" or "way" that I've adopted in an effort to slow him down), as the full phrase alone can help widen him out. Then he told me not to say much more than lie down and walk up to Taz. If I need to interrupt him, just saying his name should do it for now, as he's better off figuring out what to do and where he needs to be for himself right now. Also, when I lie him down, I shouldn't wait so long to get him to his feet; instead, I should walk him up right away. This will help him establish pace. It sounded counterintuitive to me at first (wasn't the point of lying him down to give him a few seconds to collect his head and give the sheep some space?) but Mark pointed out that Taz was just getting nervous about the sheep getting away while he was lying down, so when I finally let him up, he ran frantically back up to them to regain control. Plus, it likely felt like a correction to Taz. Letting him up right away would probably not allow the sheep to move too far off him, so he could relax a bit and establish a flow.

Mark knows Craig already, of course. He likes Craig, too, and told me I was overcommanding him as well. Craig, he said, usually knows where he needs to be, and I can make sure he doesn't get away with doing things incorrectly by simply keeping in contact with him—saying his name will usually put him right back on line if he drifts or moves too quickly. Craig reads pressure very well, and if he puts himself in a certain position, he's likely correct. This is one of the big things he can teach me, and I should start listening to him more and trying to place him less. Mark pointed out some of the ways Craig was "saving my butt" out there, that I hadn't even realized. I am going to try to think less in terms of training with Craig and more in terms of trying to be more aware of where he is putting himself and what effect it's having on the sheep. Before I try to reposition him where I think he should be, I will try to see what's going on with the sheep. He almost always covers them, so I probably won't need to tell him where to be for that. Still, giving Craig this freedom will be tough, as I run the risk of waiting too long to reposition him if he is wrong, allowing the sheep to be moved where I wasn't asking him to move them. As always for me, driving will be the biggest challenge. Still, I am excited to see what Craig shows me, now that I am prepared to trust him a bit more.

Mark had a few other useful pointers, such as watching the sheep move around the post and trusting the dog to balance them to me as a means to transition into driving and also asking the dog to walk up and allowing the dog the freedom to think for himself how to cover, rather than flanking him and thus making all the decisions for him, as a penning strategy. Also, on a practical note, walk the dog up to apply pressure, and then lie the dog down when the sheep turn their heads away to release that pressure. I know this last bit, of course—I've heard it a hundred times—but it's really important at the pen.

Craig wound up coming in third place, I think, and Taz fifth, but I am not too bothered about their placings. I learned a bunch today, and I can't wait to play around with these new ideas :-)

Taz at the top; Craig at the reins

In my quest to fix Taz's work at the top of his outruns, I had a lesson with Cathy this morning. We set it up so that she held four sheep with one of her dogs one on end of her pasture, and I brought Taz maybe 100 or 150 yards away (I am terrible at judging distance, and I actually have no idea how far away he was from the sheep) and lied him down. Then I went up about halfway between where he was lying down and where Cathy was holding the sheep and sent him on the bye side. The first time he went, the bottom of the outrun was great, and he did move to slice in at about 10:00. I immediately downed him and reflanked him. He took the command and recast himself further out. Woo hoo! He came in behind Cathy and the sheep and lifted and brought the sheep to me. (Actually he sort of ran the sheep to me, and Cathy had to remind me not to let him get away with such pushy work on the fetch just because we're concentrating on outruns today).

We set it up again a few more times, each time with me moving closer and closer to him and further from the sheep. It's nice to work in the snow in that I could be a little more methodical than I usually am—I was able to see and go back to exactly where I was setting Taz up and mark where I was standing and move incrementally from there. Anyway, Taz did really well. He was casting out wider when I reflanked him on the fly, which he hadn't been able to do consistently before, and he was coming in deep (if sometimes off balance—though it's entirely possible that he was reading the pressure correctly, he just wasn't coming in at 12:00) behind Cathy each time. Fantastic!

[I did once reflank him on the fly and then I didn't think he was recasting, so I lied him down. Cathy reported that he had in fact been recasting. Rats! I hadn't seen it correctly. I am trying to get better about observing everything faster and more accurately in my quest to develop better timing, but it's slow going. I think my timing has definitely improved lately, but the next step will be to spot and correct the dog when the dog is thinking about doing something wrong, like slicing in, rather than when he starts doing the wrong thing. This is when the corrections will be most effective and meet with the least resistance from the dog. We're not there yet, not even close, but I know that's the next step.]

On the away side, he started a bit more narrow the first time, but was much wider at the top. I could tell he wanted to come up on the bye side, so maybe that was why he started tighter on that side. I moved closer to him when I sent him and he then widened out on the bottom on the away side as well. His outrun is developing into a pear-shape now—he is not usually really squaring at the bottom, but he checks in and kicks himself out as he approaches the vicinity of the sheep. I can live with this, and actually was told that this is preferable in a younger dog, as many dogs widen naturally as they age and so if they are square at three years old, they will soon become too wide. Anyway, Taz was a little more hesitant on the away side as he approached the point where he would usually slice—a couple of times he stopped altogether. I just reflanked him, and he cast himself out nicely here as well.

This was a great session for Taz. He did really, really well. He did not have any trouble picking the sheep up off Cathy and her dog. I know he is a bit more comfortable with Cathy than Bill, but I am hopeful that he is learning that it is no big deal to pick up sheep off any person at all. We'll see what happens the next time we work with Bill (which may be months from now, with the stupid snow not melting at his ranch—grr!). I think it was very helpful for Taz to experience sheep staying put until he reached them at the top. In the past, he has had to compensate on his outrun for sour sheep making a break for it as soon as they had an inkling he was approaching—this wasn't teaching Taz anything good. The sheep were actually training him to hurry more and push harder to reach them, when he needed to learn to back off them to better control them. So, he wasn't able to learn and practice what it feels like to control them from the proper distance, rather than always using his body. I don't think his success today will mean he automatically does his outruns correctly now, but at least he is able to understand what it feels like to do it right for a change. Then, hopefully, we'll just need some practice until he develops a bit of muscle memory and the confidence to rely on the judgment he's developing.

I worked Craig a bit, too. We did not have as successful a day, though I do think I am learning something important with him. Unfortunately, in my effort to ease up on the pressure I was putting on him, I seem to be letting him off the hook too much now. He's starting to blow me off again, doing what he wants to do and not stopping when I ask him to. I know this is not what Elaine recommended, and I need to get out of this all-or-nothing mindset. I began enforcing my commands again a bit toward the end of our session, and he began listening to me again. Phew, all is not lost! But I want to work him again soon to reestablish our roles with each other. I think we actually have the potential to communicate really well, if we can reach that sweet spot in the middle, where I have enough control over him that he listens to me but I do not overcommand his every move.

I may go out on Friday again, and I'd like for Cathy to hold the sheep again for Taz, and maybe hang out and watch Craig and I to give us some feedback on how close I am to finding that middle ground with him. I'll be away for a week over the week between Christmas and New Year's, so obviously we won't work then, but there's another novice trial the first weekend I get back. So there's not much time to prepare, but I'd love to have both dogs back on track by then!

Goats!

I agreed to go let out Cathy's dogs and feed her chickens this bright snowy morning while she's away, so that I could grab another opportunity to work Craig and Taz. The snow, plus a freelance project I've been working hard to finish, has meant that I haven't been able to get the dogs out very much lately, and Taz and Craig have been a little out of sorts. They've never been the best of buddies, but lately I have been witnessing an escalation in the tension between them, and I am wondering if Taz is beginning to get "in touch his inner stud dog" (in the words of wise Andrea in a discussion about this here). In any case, clearly a work session would do all three of us some good.

They get along so well when there's
any possibility of sheep to be worked...

After I got Cathy's dogs and chickens squared away, I set out to work the dogs. The first thing I noticed is that all the gates were open in the pastures. I closed them behind us and grabbed Craig, since I know how much he likes doing practical work. Well, here I saw that Cathy's husband Bill had left all the gates open in the pens as well. Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal, but since the last bunch of lambs were born Rufus the guard llama has been getting meaner and more suspicious of other dogs (and who knows how he feels about people these days). According to Elaine, Craig has a history of llama hate, after an unfortunate incident with Steve and Lynn's llama. Eesh, this isn't good...

Rufus looks ready to show us we're not welcome!



Well, this was just great! How was I going to get the sheep out with a big hairy llama in the way? After pondering the situation for a few minutes, I came up with an ingenious plan. I grabbed a handful of hay and fed some to Rufus, who instantly began feeling better about me being there. Then I held out some more hay in front of the sheep. Okay, sheep are sheep, and they're not going to come running to you just because you're holding out a bunch of hay.

But goats will! Oooh, we haven't worked goats in forever. I let three independent little guys out and we made our way out to the arena. I let Taz and Craig bring them toward the larger pasture together, but the goats were not being very cooperative. None had the slightest interest in staying anywhere near his goaty buddies. They also had no interest whatsoever in going through the gate to the pasture. I tied Taz up and let Craig bring them, and it was no small task. He'd get them moving toward the gate and then one would squirt to the side. He'd take half a step to cover, and another would squirt off to the other side. He'd back up and bring the first one back, only to have the last one run over to the place he just left. It looked impossible, but I let Craig get on with it with a minimal amount of commands, and then he pushed them on through. What a good boy! He knew it, too :-)

Craig understood what he needed to do to move those goats!

We did a few small outruns (there was NO driving to be done with these goats today!), and I put Craig up so I could give Taz a chance. Taz did really well, too! His flanks were super wide and he didn't seem to cut in at the top. Unfortunately the goats kept running back to the fence after the gather and fetch, so it was hard to judge how "correct" Taz was in his positioning, but he seemed to get the job done efficiently and orderly. His fetches were straight and he had to keep off them or they would squirt apart. A great lesson for him, and a good refresher for Craig, I think.

Taz paid attention...


...and learned some lessons about
the differences between goats and sheep!

Those goats proved challenging, but the dogs really seemed to thrive when working them. All in all, it was a great morning!

A natural paradox

Well, we didn't make it to the trial last weekend. I got up bright and early, put some hot cocoa in a thermos to ward off the cold, spent an hour and 15 minutes (no lie!) chipping the encrusted ice off my truck outside, and then went to put Craig into his crate in the back, and...the canopy's lock was frozen shut. I worked to unfreeze it for a while, and I did, but by the time I was ready to go, I'd gotten reports from friends about the treacherous road conditions and I decided it was too late to bother at that point. Really, I'm just a big scaredy cat about driving in the snow. I heard that a good time was had by all at the trial, but truthfully I would have just been white-knuckled the whole way down and back and I'd have spent the day stressing about getting home...

Ah well. Pam reported that she had a good day with Wink and Kirk, so I was very glad to hear that at least they had a good day! Elaine and Nancy helped organize everything, and I heard Elaine's account of the trial, too, tonight. That discussion led to a talk about what I need to do with Taz right now. Taz is a lot like his uncle Ben and his grandsire, Gel: powerful, fast, with just the right amount of eye, and a natural feel or his sheep. I continue to worry that he won't live up to anywhere near his potential with my clumsy handling. His biggest flaw is that he is a bit too pressure-sensitive. I said something about hoping my next dog had a natural outrun, and Elaine said that she thinks Taz, like Ben, actually has a natural outrun. Um, what? Did she forget we were talking about my straight-up-the-middle boy? She laughed and said Ben used to be the same way. Unlike Craig, who feels his sheep so incredibly well everywhere except during his outrun, Taz has shown that when he is working well, he instinctively understands just where he needs to be to calmly and efficiently approach the sheep. The problem is that Taz has practiced working incorrectly for so long, he doesn't realize what it feels like to do it right. I agree, he hasn't had a lot of practice doing correct work at the top. In fact, Elaine said, once the top of his outrun is fixed, she thinks he'll progress quite quickly.

But how to fix this? How to coax out that relaxed natural work when he has gotten away with slicing in for so long that this is what feels natural to him?

Location, location!

Yesterday, I took Taz and Craig out to Cathy's to work. She gave us a packet of about 12 lambs to work. I thought we'd work on things close in, so we stayed in her field, rather than going to her neighbor's much larger alfalfa field behind her field. Cathy later pointed out that this was not really a good idea—the pressure of the fences and the significant draw back to the barn for the lambs are still there, no matter how close in the dogs worked. It would be better for me to work in the alfalfa field all the time, unless we are prepping for an arena trial or something.

I kept things easy again. Taz and I started with small outruns. I tried to visualize the trajectory I thought he should take and mark it with little landmarks like a patch of scrub, but he usually didn't go as far out as the path I had picked for him. However, I didn't know if I could really fault him, because the lambs were already on the go back to the draw before he could even get much distance off them. Even Craig had the same problem. Cathy thinks the problem was working in the field, and that I will be able to set this up much better in the alfalfa field.

Driving went much better for both dogs. For Taz, I didn't much care where he drove to, as long as he could take an inside flank every now and then. He did wonderfully! He will be such a nice driving dog one day. He kept them more or less on line all by himself :-) and I was very pleased. For Craig, we drove to specific spots, but not particularly long distances. Craig, too, did very well! He listened to me, and only once did I have to go through the voice levels to the demand correction. (He hadn't agreed with my request to resist covering the draw while driving, but after the correction, he did everything I asked right quick!) So I was proud of both of us for communicating and not letting anything degenerate into frustration on both our parts :-)

This Saturday is another trial in the novice series. Craig and I are working a bit more like a team now, I hope. I am going to put Taz in the pro-novice category, since he has won the last two novice trials. I am excited to see how we'll do!