Last night Lavon applied a stern unwaxed basque eyebrow to my reluctance to work dogs.

I was in a bad mood and wanted to shop instead. I hate shopping, but thought it might be a great way to blow off some aggression – load up a cart full of crap and speed down the aisles of Costco while people stumbled and flew to get out of my way.  Search out samples, manhandle soft things, sneer my way around the cheesy mass-marketed book section until I'd had enough and then grab a beer somewhere dank and bitch about how much shopping I have left to do.  It was My Plan.

Though I have promised myself that I'll train even just a little, each day, I did not feel strong or focused enough to work a dog.

Christmas is not my season.

"You should work Jack right quick!"  Lavon said.  He says things like 'Right Quick' and 'Plum Full'…I like it. It amuses me into submission.

"FINE." 

Lavon set the sheep at one end of his big field, and I sent Jack from the other. Jack raced down, lifted nicely, and then meandered out at a 45 degree angle as the sheep ran all the way back to the barn, out of sight.  I stood in the middle of the field yelling a single obscenity and glaring downfield at Lavon, who was watching what I could not see happening with Jack and the sheep. I assumed the worst.  
Meanwhile, I could have been shoving fistfuls of sample ravioli and cheese spread in my mouth while ramming into slow shoppers, but NO.
Right quick, indeed.

I uttered a second oath, and, as Lavon continued to ignore me, I started off on my sullen stomp toward the barn.  I didn't get far before Jack reappeared with his 5 sheep, trotting at a very nice pace. This was really quite a feat, especially since I later learned that this had entailed him getting the sheep out of the barn, twice, and keeping them from running into the corral, and then going back for a single. All by himself while I was busy glowering.  Lavon had a good view of Jack's fine work while I mostly saw only The Future Katy having to go fix things.

I could acknowledge here that I was wrong, but I think it's better and more accurate to say that Jack was right.  Lavon is just optimistic. 

After Jack brought me back the sheep,  I concentrated on him driving them around the field; me walking along parallel and flanking, picking a spot in the field and Jack staying behind or flanking enough to hit our target.  He was good.  He worked more quickly as he did not want to risk losing them again.  I was not as bad.  My mood improved dramatically, especially when Lavon worked Scout and vice versa.

…Not really vice versa. Actually, though Lavon did work Scout, she was….really really sane.  Thoughtful, she took every stop, she flanked nicely, no slicing, no barking.  He put her in difficult places full of pressure and she was good.  I think if someone had introduced Ted Kaczynski to the Right Sport, maybe bowling or darts…he may have been a different man.

Tonight I have to shop. I'm buying a brow waxing kit for Lavon.

Season's Greetings from Scout

One thing I still keep hearing is 'Timing'…

The other thing is 'Focus'…

The third thing is….

…Focus and Timing: I know they go hand in hand, and I've never had either.  Before the internet and cellphones, texting and remote control devices reduced everything to one click and multi-tasking, I moved through the physical world in half-sentences and halfass-tasking.   Oddly, I can spend hours on a good book.  I can spend SECONDS on a (casual) conversation.  And usually I'm also thinking of something else, like ..Is My Shirt On Inside Out? Should I look or Will That Draw Attention to My Sloth? I'm Glad That Pants Only Go On One Way…Mostly…Although There Was That Time P*trick Had His Running Shorts On Inside Out….They Should Make Running Shorts Sandy On the Outside So That Good People DO NOT Make that Mistake….

Yes.  So when you end your side of the conversation with a quizzical look at me and why I'm nodding when I should be shaking my head, or why I'm smiling instead of looking suitably appalled by that Horrible Thing you've just described…remember… I HAVE NO FOCUS. I should be forced to wear some sort of blurry identifying patch on my shirts.

And I have no Timing.  Which is why sometimes I walk away to soon. Or don't stay long enough.

"You need to stay with your dog," both Helsleys told me this weekend, "He is trying really hard for you, but your timing is off and he is so uncertain about what you want, that it's making him slow and unsure.  Stay with him and speed him up. Practice whistling and making him take his flanks. It will help your timing and him to know what you want from him….ALSO: Your FEET ARE NOT GLUED TO THAT SPOT."

I do forget to move around.  In practice I tend to stand as if at a trial, at the post.  Otherwise what is to stop me from DEVELOPING THAT HABIT? This 'moving around' the field 'with your dog' could be a gateway activity. It could be one accordian away from dancing at the post.

Anyway.

Jack is a really good dog.  He is all about Me.  If Jack had a wallet, it would have only my picture in it. Covered in sheep poo. He likes me THAT MUCH.  When I go to work him, I can see him, in his head, going over his list of things he knows that I like and don't like and trying to do, or not do, all of them –

Walk Behind Her, chicks dig that.

Wait to roll in the steamy green shit AFTER I run, it shows her that I am not impulsive.

She likes me to BRING her the sheep FIRST and then TAKE them AWAY. I think this is called Foreplay.  I have to keep the sheep from her, moving them almost parallel to where she is for awhile, then she'll ask for them back and we can do some things together. 

She won't want me to end with biting one, though sometimes I SWEAR she is asking for it.  It's always someone else who thanks me…

Jack is a sweet dog and he's the only dog I have for the next few months while Jai decides if she's pregnant or not, is pregnant and uses her maternity leave or is not pregnant and I finally confirm who is eating all my guest's snacks. (Sorry, again, Ann.  Tip for the future: My Dogs DO NOT like carrots.  None of them. Or Bell Pepper. Or things wrapped in razor wire.)

So, Jack and I are spending quality time together walking in lines and flanking and working on my timing.   I'm also trying to improve my focus by limiting my one-click endeavors. More running, more meditating – less cellphone…less internet…

I've never meditated in my life, so 'more' should be easy. I know there's an ap…

"That little dog is all heart; she just needs to figure a few things out…" –L. Calzacorta, Figuring Things Out, or the First Rule of Scout

Lavon has theories about Scout.  He is intrigued, I think, by the combination of her Intense Desire and Immense Misswire.  He thinks deciphering how to communicate with Scout is like learning a foreign language…
(I wonder how you say, "LIKE THE SERIOUS FUCK DOWN, YOU LITTLE BLACK PSYCHOPATH!!!?" in Scoutish? I think I will never know.)

But it seems more involved than merely finding the Common Language. It's also finding and tapping MOTIVATION.  Rewriting History.

Maybe it's like teaching a bear to ride a bike. To wear clothing and pedal around in circles based on some end game incentive. THERE ARE DONUTS INVOLVED!!
The difference between Want and Need; balance between  Fear and Respect.

Sure, it SEEMS like the easy thing for the omnivore who REALLY WANTS THE FOOD would be to maul the man holding the bike, the bike itself, and anyone else between him and the Sugary Treats…but somehow, sometimes a bear is taught to demean itself and ride something it's ancestors never wired it for, dressed like my mother's sisters for reasons probably more complicated than JUST food and/or fear of the handler.

Anyway, bike and a ring and an audience are not a bear's native stomping grounds.  Fear is an ingrediant; Respect is a recipe.  Want is now, Need is chronic.

Or maybe not. Yawn. Who knows? I do know that my Aunt Yoris could NOT be
taught to ride a bike, though she did enjoy salmon and dancing badly to
accordian music.

I also believe that Scout lives in a world of chronic Fear and an Impulsive response to Want.  She has little Respect, and Need is biological. Her drives are Chronic and Impulsive.  Need sits in the back; respect is bound and gagged, riding in the trunk.  She was born with some of this, and I put some of this into her by not knowing what the Fuck I was Doing.

Lavon has worked Scout on sheep a few times in the past, accidentally and on purpose, and, as I've written about here, mostly these sessions result in Lavon and one ewe getting an intense cardio-vascular work out.
He has not, before now, ever implied by word or gesture that he thought it would be in anyone's benefit to make this a regular thing.  HOWEVER> NOR has he ever said that Scout wouldn't make a dog, as they say. He's always maintained that she has "more try in her" than any other dog he knows. 
 
DISCLAIMER: Lavon seems to like dogs with a bit more…independance in their thinking. 

Scout is enthusiastic and Scout is different.  I have no idea how to make this 35 pound furry fury stop biting at my feet when I run – bark, bite my feet, bark, repeat. Every time.  I + have tried = Everything.  I have tried reward and correction and everything in between. I have been as harsh to her as I am capable of being to any living creature to NO AVAIL.  So, I live with it. Or I don't bring her, if I'm not in the mood to be barked at and bitten by my own dog for 5 – 8 miles.  I do not THINK of working Scout. It's not good for us.  Those days are over for me and Scout.

Last week Lavon started working Scout daily.  At first, it was just hard to watch.  Circling, barking, running through the sheep.  To me there was nothing that she was doing out there that should be encouraged or allowed.  She was like a One Dog/5 Ewe Civil War Reenactment.  Lavon stood in the midst of all this chaos, calmly and then not-as-calmly, asking her to "Lie Down." "Scout, LIE DOWN!" …"SCOUT! YOU LIE DOWN!!"
Scout was doing no such thing.  I can only imagine how Ulysses S. Grant felt.

"If what you are doing doesn't work, try something completely different." –Lavon's Second Rule of Scout – HURRY HURRY HURRY!!

Lavon attached a long line to Scout.   This got Scout's attention.  Though it has occasionally crossed my mind otherwise, Scout is not insane. She sees situations maybe TOO CLEARLY. 
She knows when she no longer has the upper paw.  The long line made her aware that Lavon did have a say in what was happening out there with her and the sheep.  She needed him to get what she wanted. 

But it was what Lavon did next, that made me wonder, at first,  if I had questioned the sanity of the wrong creature out there on the field. 
Once Lavon could get Scout to down, as soon as she barely hit the ground for him,  he'd send her into the sheep, no regard for bending out or flanking correctly, just in with hard encouragement – shusshing and, 'HURRY HURRY HURRY' shusssh shussh shushh.

This method has never been employed with Scout. Because it seems LUDICROUS.

Sheep were initially going everywhere. Ending up loaded haphazardly on his flatbed trailer. Scout staring up at them, then at Lavon.

Lavon would lie her down again. She'd take it. Then again, HURRY HURRY HURRY.

I took turns covering my ears, my eyes, my mouth.

But it wasn't long into this new method that Scout changed profoundly. Physically. Tail down, bark gone.  And she was listening to Lavon.  She was lying down. He called her off the sheep easily. He worked her in the big field.

"She gives me what I want, and she gets what she wants." Lavon explained it.  -Lavon's Third Rule of Scout.

Anyway, it's been one week today. It's been an interesting week.  Each time he works her, Lavon claims she does better than the last.  He's excited about working her. She is, of course, excited to be working.  She respects him.  They have balance.

Tomorrow when I take her running, she will bite at my feet, rush at me and bark. This isn't about me, though.