Back to Work - Managing the Outrun

It was back to work at Canines N Ewe yesterday.

We had a pretty good group of dogs working yesterday and Jennifer even worked two of her Open Dogs with us. Our Saturday class is very supportive of each other and very competitive at the same time. Just trying to catch up to the handlers and dogs in our regular Saturday class can be very challenging. Piper and I are not at the level of the top dogs in the class but we are trying hard to get there. If we can do that we can go to most any trial and expect to be competitive.

Yesterday's class included Jeff Blackstone and his Open dog Dusk, Tricia Guidry and Open Dogs Tara and Tipper, Jennifer and her Open Dogs Sly and Soot (known in Ione as "Scott" due to mispronunciation"), Gayle Cory and Milo (my buddy), and Hiroko Komori and Dusty along with Piper and me. All of these Open Dogs are either already qualified for this year's Nationals or have qualified in the past.

We started in the lower field with some driving drills. Piper was cutting her flanks a bit looking in on the sheep and dropping her shoulder. So we went back to drilling. If she cut the flank at all or started to drop the shoulder or look in, I stepped toward her with the training whip until she reacted appropriately. It did not take much pressure. We also worked on getting quarter flanks instead of always getting big flanks.

This was all part of our goal of hopefully moving her up to Open sometime in the next trialing season. Based on her results running Non-Compete at Dunnigan she could probably move up soon and occasionally be competitive but Jennifer has high standards (and we have adopted them as well) for dogs running Open and consistency. As Jennifer said we can not have days like last Saturday at Ione when Piper basically blew me off and expect to run in Open. Piper has the ability and she demonstrates it on occasion but we need to get the consistency out of her.

When we moved to the upper field we first ran from the lower end up the hill. Piper's outruns in this direction were there usual good outruns and she was bringing the sheep nicely on the fetch line and through the panels. Then we changed it up trying to get a dogleg fetch and we failed miserably. I simply could not get her to come in at what she considered to be off balance and fetch on a diagonal. (We were not the only one to struggle with this as at least one of the Open dogs also did not want to fetch off line although another did quite well. Identification omitted to protect the other dog that struggled.)

Then we switched directions and ran from the top of the hill down toward where the handler's post is normally set for the Snowbirds Trial. This always seems to be a trickier outrun and creates more difficulties for us as the line of trees tends to kick Piper in on the right side and the rocky hill kicks her in on the left side. The sheep were set way back and in some shade so they were difficult to see.

Jennifer wanted all of the Open dogs to run left and go up on the rocky hill - there is actually a golf cart wide path which the dogs can follow. Piper was included with the Open dogs for this exercise. And IT WAS DIFFICULT. None of the dogs (including Jennifer's) managed to get it the first time. There was a LOT of handler-to-dog communication and direction going on.

Our first outrun Piper stayed below the hill and we let her have her sheep. Her fetch was good and we did a right hand turn around the post and drove the panel before pushing the sheep back to Leon for set out. It was a nice long drive and we received kudos for that. But we were working on getting the outrun where we wanted and it was back to work.

So it was "Come Bye". Whistle redirect "Come Bye" - still not going around. "GET OUT." Lie down whistle. Recall part way and try again. Repeat. Then Repeat. Then Repeat Again. Several times it seemed Piper was out wide enough and was going to go around but she simply would not go up the rocky outcropping. Finally after about eight unsuccessful attempts it was rest time and watch the others.

All of the Open Dogs struggled with the task but they eventually got it. A few started to sulk and not want to start out their outrun enthusiastically.

Then we had another chance. Jennifer told me I needed a big "GET OUT" timed correctly and after a couple more failed attempts Piper got it and cut up the rocky terrain reaching the path. She came around and gave me a pretty nice fetch (something some of the others were struggling with yesterday.) We tried it one more time and Piper did the slowest outrun I think I remember her having but she went plenty wide and found the path along the ridge from the start this time. Good work !! Unfortunately she was favoring her right front paw on the fetch and although she was probably done anyway - examination showed a torn paw pad - the second dog of the day to suffer one - and we finished for the day.

A final note - while we were struggling to get the managed outrun, Piper NEVER QUIT ON ME. She kept recalling and trying to figure out what I wanted, She never sulked or copped an attitude. I actually overheard Jennifer saying to Tricia that Jennifer preferred working with a dog with Piper's attitude because she never sulked and kept trying.

Well, it looks like we still have a lot of work to do if we are going to successfully navigate our way to Open Class. But if the journey was easy it would not be nearly as much fun. I am confident we will make it and happy that we have such quality handler/dog teams to gauge our progress at our weekly training session. Truly, if we can get to where we would be competitive with our training class we can compete anywhere.

Oh and if it sounds like I am being overly hard on Piper it is simply that she has come so far (6 months ago her work yesterday would have amazed me) that I have full confidence in her abilities. I have seen her on occasion do everything we are asking of her and know she has the ability to do these things. We just need to refine the skills (hers and mine) and get consistency from her.