Rave and I went to Dianne's today to work the beef cattle. It was raining, turning to snow when we arrived so we worked in the indoor arena. We had five steers to work with. Nice boys willing to let Rave work them. Since Rave has decided that the right way to work in an enclosed area is to do an outrun to the top and then pick them up for a fenceline or wall line drive we spent the lesson having her pick the cattle up off the wall and come all the way around to the shoulder of the lead steer. And we worked on her only getting to take a heel when she is asked to. Later we will allow her to decide but for now she can only do it on command.
It was a very good training exercise with me correcting and insisting that Rave go all the way and watching for the correction on the heel bite. I would be unable to see through the cattle when Rave was on the back so I was slow on my corrections. Intellectually I know that if the cattle aren't coming off the wall then Rave isn't coming through like she should, but in reality I keep trying to see where she was instead of going by what the cattle are doing. Watch your stock, they will tell you if the dog is right. We got some nice drives going down the wall with Rave holding the outside pressure well. Much better on the counter clockwise side but improving on the clockwise side. Not a lot of excitement in this lesson but really good solid work to improve our performance.
One steer did challenge her at one time and Rave met it head on. Good girl.
We left feeling good about where we are going.
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