"You are not going to ruin your dog."

The DD action figure that I'm getting for Christmas will say this.  It will have a chord. (Coming out of her BACK, incase you wondered.)  But the chord is just a fashion statement.  The doll will be motion/whining sensitive.

Jai and I participated in the Gem State Herding AHBA trial this weekend.  We signed up for HRD Level II because it's the oddest prime number and I don't like reading things like Entries or Rules. Two seemed like a good choice for a lazy person.  I always pick the middle shell. Even at the beach.  The middle beach.

Anyway.  This event was a Ranch Trial and consisted of 4 trials held on two different courses. 

Trial A was a system of obstacles starting with a gate sort for 5 sheep, into a small area and through a little barn, opening and closing many gates, around cones in small pens, changing sheep, driving sheep down alleyways, ending in a small outrun, lift, fetch, drive, and settle, repen. Twenty minutes.

  Trial B was in an 8 acre field with a take-pen, drive, poles to weave your sheep through. penning, new sheep from another take pen…through a gate into a 2nd pasture….remembering to close one's gate GOOD ENOUGH (we learned this late. Sadly) so that one's sheep didn't burst back through into the first pasture and fraternize with USED SHEEP in the freestanding hold pen.  Where one would be testing the DQ FOR LANGUAGE rule and finding the judge disinterested, frankly, in one's finest slurry of F bombs. Completely. Yawningly unimpressed; more curious as to what one would do next about one's sheep swirling endlessly around the pen clogged with OLD SHEEP and one with still about 10 minutes left on the timer. 

"YOU DID NOT JUST WALK OFF THAT COURSE!"

I got in trouble with DD for quitting our pro-novice run at Wessels last summer.  Things got a little ugly on the drive…which looked more like a hijacking.  SO, I 'retired'….preferring to spend our time sobbing gently (me) and peeing on things (Pat) in the culvert over the hill.

"Everyone had trouble! PAT HAD A PERFECT OUTRUN, LIFT AND FETCH! Your score would have probably placed!"

I'm careful about quitting a course now.  Death will have to be imminent for one of us.  The rapture will have to tear the sheep from my novice heathen grip. 

So, If one cannot be DQd for a few dozen F Bombs, one needs to  move on to plan B.

I tend to swirl endlessly around Plan A. This is a problem.

"You need to learn to not panic WHEN ONE THING DOESN'T WORK, TRY SOMETHING NEW. MOVE ON to SOME OTHER SOLUTION."   (I think the action figure will say, "TRY SOMETHING ELSE! IT'S NOT WORKING! TRY SOMETHING ELSE" followed by a brief siren, until you hurl it across the room.  When it hits the wall, it will say, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?")

I worry about this lack of new ideas on the trial field.  Jai is sensitive and I'm sensitive and she lacks confidence …and I lack confidence and when things go to hell, we both tend to not know what to do.  Except maybe distance ourselves.  I tend to stare and reach that perfect, useless, zen state.  I might add a whistle.  Jai tends to go way out and lay down a lot.

We did finally get the sheep off the pen, we muddled through the rest of the course.  Jai wagged and cringed and I apologized and cringed our way back to the car.  I texted DD:

"I'm ruining a good dog."

"I can't trial for awhile. We are not ready."

"No." is what the action figure will say to defeatest proclamations.

"No?" you will ask the action figure.

"No" it will answer. Like a correction. Louder each time.

"HAAY! KNOCK IT OFF!" it will growl.

This action figure is going to save DD a LOT of time and phone minutes.  Texting. 

It will come in three sizes: Open, Pro-novice and Novice.  Novice comes with a stock stick that hurls with accuracy at your cringing whining form.  Open laughs at you when you fall.

This next weekend will be Jai and my first trial together.  We are entered in the Gem State Herding ABHA.

We haven't actually practiced on any sort of course, yet. Since I got Jai in October, we've spent, on the average, a few days a week working in Dd's small pasture on short outruns and driving.  Enforcing her flanks.  Building her confidence.  Getting her used to eating organic chicken.  Accepting me as her (benign) leadership.  Nothing refined.  No obstacles, unless you count me and my complete lack of common sense.   

My timing is still like a third world train station.  My attention span….

Sometimes I find myself standing in the middle of DDs field wondering what it looked like 150 years ago when there wasn't a small blonde woman on the edge of it full of non-native laughter and chiding,   

Invasive Species Blonde (ISB): "Back her off!"

ISB: "DON'T LET HER LIE DOWN!"

Me: "YOU SAID TO BACK HER OFF!"

ISB: "YES…Make her SLOW DOWN! DO NOT LET HER LIE DOWN unless you TELL HER TO!"

ISB: "DON'T TELL HER TO LIE DOWN! ADJUST HER PACE!"

The first americans would have scalped her. 

No, sigh, they would have TRIED. Then she would have, somehow, ended up getting them to help her build a teepee, or smokelodge, for her sheep and next they'd offer to let her use their land in exchange for her onion dip and spiced wine, plus a shiny buckle.  Finally, they'd all be standing on the edge of the field laughing at me. Fuck history.

Jai comes with me everywhere I go.  We run in the foothills or desert almost every day, usually in excess of 6 miles. 

She's fast when she needs to be. REALLY fast.  She's slow, very slow at the top.  She tends to be wide. None of which will probably show up in the smaller confines and obstacle-laden ranch course. She listens really well unless I wait until she's made a decision on her own, such as, "This isn't comfortable and I don't know what this 'Shit' command means….I should bite one.."

She will grip under pressure.  It's not fast. It's a 3-5 second ride.  Not Rose worthy, but too long for a judge to miss.  Too long for a judge who will see it coming before I do to miss. 

Unless I fall. 

So, that is what I will practice.

The routine here housesitting for the DD is:

Up at 5, let DDs Boston Terriers out, along with Scout and Jai and Riley.  Scout and Jai do their business, back in crates for breakfast.  Riley does his business, plus a saunter around the fenceline, pees without aim on everything, seldom actually stopping.   Just a long dribble line of old gentle-dog piddle from the backdoor outward…he never runs out. He's like the Fountain of Urethraness.

The Bostons.  Ah…the Bostons.  One, usually Lacy (whom I keep calling 'Lucy', which is P*trick's female Boston's name….and doesn't work on this one…but, then, really, neither does 'Lacy' half the time) usually elects to go look for the Homeland or something to eat in Yonder Pastures.  This morning the coyotes were many and near.  So, I'm screech-whispering (can be done) 'LUU…LACY!" "LACY!!!" LUUC-ACY!"  up and down this dark farm road and in the pasture bordering the Crazy Neighbor. 

"LLLAAAACY!"

"BOSTON!"

"GODDAMN IT YOU LITTLE MOUTHBREATHING WHORE!" 

I am always relieved to not have someone's guilty adnoidal wife or girlfriend come skulking out of some dark house at this point, pulling on fake snakeskin pants and a cowhide vest…. adjusting her 'bump-it' 

Then I start releasing the Border Collie tenants in small healthy groups.

A few have issues. 

Petal is obsessed with Peg and only wants to stare at her, will herself into being her….in a shorter curlier frame. OR fence-chase the horse.  Zorro…is Zorro. He likes shadows, light, movement. Sound.  The world to Zorro is like a noisy flashy hair suit that makes one's ass look GREAT.  Trace…is a sociopath and has to be turned out alone.  Like the maximum security prison she'd be in for killing her entire family by running them down with a riding lawn mower were she human.  Usually she stays on the property, but I suspect she snuck off to vote for Lyndon LaRouche in the last election. 

Iris can escape out of anything and will. 'Iris' is another name I don't like yelling around this 'hood, only I'm more afraid of being the pied piper of Alzheimer grandmas then bagging a trollop.  Although neither would be happy for long in a crate. 

Rue will not come to you no matter WHAT you do. (trust me…I've had time to experiment and I have a lot of nerve calling the NEIGHBOR crazy…)

This letting dogs out in hand selected groups happens all day long.  In between I work Jai and pick up whatever poop May hasn't eaten.  I do other little chores.  I stare at Peg and wonder what Petal sees in her.  I fence chase the horse a little….(it's not bad!) Then it's time to let out a new group.

Almost all of the dogs are great on their own.  They all listen, really, (except Rue when asked to come, and Trace when asked to denounce her Dark Lord) and I've seen DD work most of these dogs and some of the craziest off of sheep are some of the nicest on.  Spending time with them like this….just watching them and not working them, really highlights how NOT SUITABLE for your average pet home is the working bred border collie. 

If you want a pet, get a Boston Terrier. When they aren't terrorizing Boston (or the rural equivent) in short half an hour spurts, they sleep.  And mouthbreathe. They ignore Peg and horses. 

Act now and I'll throw in a crate. And a bump-it. (Ask DD)

(JUST KIDDING DD!!) (I wouldn't give away a single hair hump of DDs BUMP-IT Cache)

Two things that I believe about Jai:

1) She is the smartest dog on the planet.  Sometimes when she looks at me I can see her unconditional love of my thumbs and access to sheep …I can tell that if she could speak, most of her sentences would start out with, "Good job, Door Opener!" or "That's okay, Driver…."… the worst case MIGHT include a touch of frustration, "Better luck next time, Beloved Dipshit!"

She is happy and positive and really really sweet.  Her ears are so big they keep the sun out of both of our eyes, if she stands JUST RIGHT.

2) If I cannot progressively do better and better at trials with this dog, I really need to take up a hobby where the animal is in charge.  Something where monkeys experiment on humans.  Or cats knead your lap while you feed them catchovies ™ from a can in some Sanctuary built by a Fabulously Well-To-Do kitten heiress.   

Yes, Jai still lacks a bit of confidence, but she makes up for it in enthusiasm, responsiveness, and smarts.  I never have to raise my voice unless its due to distance.  She takes a correction and adjusts immediately.  She applys the correction to future instances of a similar nature,

"Well, the Whistling Field Obstacle suggested that I speed up driving away from that clump of anarchy on the other side of the fence, where this clump of organization seems to want to go…that turned out okay, so I think I'll speed up here, too, after our turn, when the clumps like to stand. Laying down can wait."

I am housesitting for the DDs while she is away in Washington giving lessons. So for the next 3 days Jai and I will have time to improve my handling. 

Our first trial is in December.   Second is January.  I don't know what our third one will be….but after that I could be fixing flat tires on circus bikes for bears …or changing kitty litter in an olympic sized catbox…

It all depends on me.  Jai will be great.