Now that Bonnie is out of the Started level on sheep and ducks — I am not working cattle with her — it's time for us to master the skills for the Open ASCA class, which include a bit of driving and an obstacle in the middle of the arena, either a chute or a pen.
We've been floundering along with driving for a year at least. Or rather, I have been floundering. Whenever I can figure out how to position myself, also known as getting out of the way, Bonnie parallel-drives like a pro. Since I can't afford nearly as many lessons as I could before I spent all my savings on my dogs (only a slight exaggeration), progress on this has slowed. Trying to teach my dog something I don't know how to do myself has always proved to be a sure recipe for chaos, so I am concentrating instead on honing skills and erasing problems that I know how to address, such as sharpening her reaction to commands, squaring her flanks, and getting all the way to head when wearing. Improving these, I hope, will be of aid to us when we approach driving again.
Then there is the free-standing obstacle. I have no flat land at home (have I said this enough times?), so I have to rely upon the kindness of friends for these constructions. I have a chute at one place and a pen at another, neither one exactly regulation size. The chute proved considerably easier, at least with those particular sheep. Once I got the flock walking calmly with the leader's head pointed squarely toward the entrance, it only required not altering the direction or rate of that flow with my own or my dog's motions.
The center pen appears far more complex. I had a whole lesson with Sherry devoted to nothing but the pen. Her teaching strategy is designed to help your dog to understand what you want. Once this is achieved, with a good stockdog, your battle is nearly won. She related that her son used to enter the ASCA junior class when he was seven, or three, or something, with one of their gray-muzzled champion stockdogs, and it didn't particular matter what he did; as long as he got the gate open, the dog would put the stock in the pen.
Sherry broke her lesson into four parts. In the beginning, you go into pen yourself, and your dog simply fetches the sheep to you. In Sherry's maximum-sized pen and her calm, compliant sheep, this was simple. Once your dog does this easily, practice flanking your dog around the pen while staying in balance; you and your dog move, while the sheep stay stationary in the pen. This is where you begin to teach your dog to stay wide while circling the pen, which is essential. Anyone who has watched a stockdog trial has probably witnessed a frustrated dog chasing sheep around and around the outside of a free-standing pen. The solution to this is a dog who will fade out wide enough to get the sheep to settle again at the mouth of the gate.
Bonnie had a harder time with this, partly because she tends to veer in anyway, and partly because Sherry's presence intimidates her and her reaction is to get slow and diffident.
The third step is having your dog flank around the outside of the pen while you stay just inside the gate, that is, an off-balance flank. At each step, you show the dog that she needs to stop at that place which turns the sheeps' heads to the back of the pen. Bonnie had no problem finding this point herself. But I got confused at Sherry's directions sometimes and ended up in odd places, which didn't help Bonnie figure out the program. Once you and your dog have mastered this set of exercises, you stay at the gate, where you would be at the trial itself. I drew some diagrams to help me, but when I went out later and tried to duplicate what I had been taught, well, it was a shambles.
The pen I had to practice on was far too small, and the sheep were a mix of squirrelly lambs and sour ewes. Bonnie and I struggled and failed until we were both fed up and exhausted, that is, until I finally had the sense to quit. Another bad stupid practice session. After all these years of dog training, I can't believe how often I still put my dog in a no-win situation and then belabor it.
The next time, the pen had been rebuilt larger, although it was still under regulation size (ASCA rules stipulate between twelve and sixteen feet square). Our first tries were failures again. We sorted off the worst-behaving sheep and tried again. This time, after some struggling, we managed to pen them. Ta da! We did it once more and quit with relief. To end on a truly confident note, I had Bonnie put a sizeable flock of sour old ewes and wethers slated for auction into the stock trailer a few times. I love watching Bonnie do these kinds of jobs, she has just the right combination of patience and vigilance needed. And, it proves Sherry's point: since Bonnie knows exactly what the job is, I need do practically nothing except stay out of the way.
Our practice the next week showed improvement. We penned much quicker, even though we were using ten head. I can see that Bonnie's rather sloppy responses to commands — taking three or four steps before stopping or changing directions, and veering in just a bit when flanking, move from mere annoyances to disasters in work like this, where one step too many will lose the whole flock for you.
Sherry advised me to enter Novice classes for awhile, which are the Open course without the Open handler's line, so as to get the ring experience I so badly need. And I'll follow her advice, just as soon as I can figure out how to pen even dogbroke sheep consistently.