Teaming Up and Making Corrections

We made it down to Jennifer's Saturday for what is likely to be our only lesson during the month of September due to Jennifer's judging schedule.

Anyway it was our first time back after our frustratingly bad performance at the Wed - Saturday Class Challenge Fun Trial. I was hoping we would get some of the same bad manoeuvres so we would get a chance to work on the mistakes. My fear was that it would turn out like when you take your car to the mechanic but it performs perfectly so you can't diagnose and repair. As it turned out I did get some of the same extra wide running on the outrun so we did get a chance to work on our call in.

We started out in the lower field with at hand flanking/driving drills. For the most part - after some early pace problems - Piper settled in and did a pretty nice job on keeping a straighter line and staying off. The sheep were the kind that sometimes give her trouble resulting in overflanking and a zig - zag drive. As long as I engaged in active dog control with a Flank/Time whistle almost combined into one she managed to stay in the right spot. If I was a bit slow on the time whistle Piper would go a bit too far to the head and we would have our familiar serpentine thread. I commented afterwards that I needed to give her the immediate there whistle and Jennifer and Jeff both told me "DUH!" - "How long have we been telling you that !!!???" Anyway it was good to know that if I stay active that Piper will pay attention. I also need to remember that Piper will always require active handling on her drives - at least until proven otherwise over a long time.

Outrun practice I was hoping she would go extra wide so I could work on Piper's call in whistle. She did not disappoint. Because of the trees the away outrun was blind and I was unable to see Piper her first Outrun but she did take my first call in and then went wide again. So we did a recall and sent again. This time she started to go wide - ""tweet-tweet-tweet" - She came in and off again, She took multiple call ins which were partially because she was actually wide and partially because I wanted her to pay attention to me on the outrun. I was very happy with her paying attention.

Then Jennifer asked for volunteers wanting to work on shedding. Tricia, Jeff and I were the only volunteers. We brought out some Rambouillets and they were actually fairly cooperative in creating gaps. Piper and I went second and it was probably our best shedding session as a team. We managed to keep things fairly settled and opened gaps reasonably well. Except for one or two times when I blocked the hole and once when things were too on the move Piper came in very well and took control of the sheep I asked her to. She even came back into the gap to stop a couple attempted regroupings. We must have been doing something better because Jennifer jokingly asked if I had been watching a shedding video as my body language was much improved.

Overall it was a very good working session because I managed to get in Piper's head without upsetting her and we worked pretty well together.

The test will come at the end of October when we head into 4 weeks straight of trialing starting October 23.