Painting a New Picture

This weekend I attended a Larry Painter clinic. Mr. Painter is kind of known as the ‘cattle guy’. He runs Kelpies and Australian Cattle Dogs. I was planning on getting some help on working the heads of cattle. What I got was a whole lot more. A very big ah-ha moment as I realized that Rave’s tendency to do ‘fly byes’ was not respecting me as team leader. When she leaps at the head of the cow that way she is only stirring up excitement. She is not being a team member or looking to me as the leader. She definitely isn’t planning on bringing me the stock. She is having an adrenaline rush! So this fly bye stuff has got to STOP. Unfortunately the steers go back to their home next week. I will be unable to work on it much. Darn. Well maybe when the grass comes back in June I can get some more. Maybe not keep them so long as they do go through the feed.

So what else did we work on? We worked on the break away. Rave kicking out and giving enough distance to allow the stock to see her and turn. So I got her kicked out to much. Now she didn’t have enough time to get to the head of the stock before they got to the end of the arena. We worked on adjusting the distance. We also worked on trying to pull the cattle off the fence. Rave just seems to push them down the fence line faster instead of pulling them off. This is probably due to her not working the heads. It ‘looks’ right but the cattle know. They always do. We worked on her going to head, but the steers that where at the clinic gave easily to the dog so that was difficult to work on. One of the things we did was to do a complete circle on the fence line. From driving up the fence line sending her through on the fence side and pulling the steers off, circling them around and going back up the fence line in the same direction. I am going to try working heads with my woolies but they also give easily to a dog so it probably won’t happen. Wonder if I can lease some goats? And the need for a solid stop was again emphasized. A recurring theme. Maybe one day it will finally sink it. Consistency is the name of the game.

Larry’s Pearls of Wisdom

*Pressure on-Pressure off
*If they don’t get up right they don’t get the stock
*Only give a command when in a position to reinforce it
*Set it up so you are the winner
*Remain calm when correcting
*To push out point at shoulder
*If the dog says "I’m not going to do it" go someplace smaller where you can make them do it
*You are right even if you are wrong. Follow through with what you asked them to do
*It’s okay to change your choices if it isn’t going to happen
*Even though the dog thinks you are wrong he has got to listen to you
*Give them a chance to be right-let them make the decision. If they are wrong then get after them.
*Once responding get rid of any body cues. Get away from body cues as soon as possible
At first the stick is used as a direction. Then it is used as a correction.
*It is not our problem, it is theirs. Let them solve it.