08/21/2019

It's been a long time since I left a trial feeling anything other than disheartened, slightly beaten down, and wondering why I keep throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall. That's not whining or a plea for sympathy, just the facts. My attitude was based solely on my mindset which, admittedly, was far from good. I was so focused on all the wrong things, I could no longer see all the good things that were happening. If you're a regular reader, you might remember my mentioning a good arse kicking I received from several of my friends and mentors a couple months back. Obviously I carry my brain in my arse, because that tough love served to reset my attitude and that caused a chain reaction. This past weekend was Outback ASC's fall trial. Along with two days of arena trials, they held a cattle farm trial. No secret Jig and I love

06/10/2019

No, I'm not personally in a dark place right now. Not in general. A good friend of mine sent this to me after the trial this past weekend because of some conversations we'd been having around a decision I thought I had made. I say thought because that same friend gave me her much valued opinion on said decision. Which, in turn, caused me to give it some more consideration in a different light. The decision concerned my continued forays into the trial arena with Jig this year in the quest for finals points. I was using the trial as my litmus test. If we did well and got some points, we would continue on. If not, I'd still run her in Farm Trials and maybe give Post Advanced another go, but no more arena trials. To be fair, Jig and I didn't do horrendous. We had some really good moments, particularly

09/04/2018 The Year of Training Pays Off

At the end of last year I was so frustrated and upset with how the trialing season went, I decided to take a year off. Not so I could sit in a corner and lick my wounds, but because I was determined to fix as many of mine and Jig's issues as I could. I'd had enough of our melt-downs and non-qualifying runs. She's a better dog than that. I like to think we're a better team than that, though I'm definitely the weaker partner. I gave myself one trialing goal: finish Jig's WTCH. We needed only one cattle leg to do so. Jig and I both love working cattle though our methods are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I want nice, quiet control, power when required, and no rodeos. Jig seems to like rodeos, and has been known to actively go looking for a fight. After our failed attempt at

08/24/2018

I have a tendency to mention the problems I'm facing during training, but the video clips accompanying those posts are usually ones in which things are going fairly well. Today I'm going to step out of my comfort zone and really put me and my dog out there with a few clips that illustrate our problem areas. Apologies in advance for the quality of the video. I had my cell phone strapped to the fence post. Also, if you're thinking this group of sheep was a bit light, you'd be right. They're light on purpose. And one more side note, I feel the need to point out that I'm not picking on Dillon. He just happens to be the 'problem child' at the moment. That's not to say we're not making progress. A session or so after this video was shot, he took a Go Bye from about 60' off the

08/04/2018

So much for weekly updates, right? What's the excuse this time? Let's see

07/09/2018 The Year of Training – Another Piece of the Puzzle

Between the 4th of July falling in the middle of the week, and another blast of heat and humidity, I didn't get a whole lot of training in since my last post. I got in one very short session with Jig and Dillon on Tuesday evening, but the weather got the better of us. The weather and the damn bugs. They're the only ones who seem to enjoy these hot, muggy days. I have a tendency to get a bit cranky after too long a stretch, and that's not very conducive to training, or much of anything else. One of the things I was watching for when I worked Dill, was whether or not his chiro adjustment affected his Away. It didn't. Not yet, anyhow. I'm thinking that if he has been physically uncomfortable going in that direction, it has become a habit of necessity to move a certain way. That's

06/30/2018 The Year of Training ~ Update Numero Uno

I bet you all are sitting there, tapping your fingers on the table, looking at the calendar (because you have nothing better to do with your valuable time), and thinking I've gone and missed my first week's update right out of the gate. Wrongo. I wanted to wait until after Dillon and Jig had their chiro adjustments to see if there was any news to share. I was also busy putting together some short video clips. Let's jump right in with Dillon. Dr. Robin came out on Friday morning for Dillon's first ever chiro adjustment. He was not amused. It took quite a few treats and lots of patience on Dr. Robin's part to allow her to work on anything other than his front end. The findings were that, yes, he had some restriction in his neck, a few spots on his spine, and in his pelvis, all on the left side.

06/21/2018 A Slight Reboot

Life has been busy of late. That's my explanation for the lapse in posting

05/14/2018 Dillon’s Day ~ Slow, But Steady

One of the pitfalls of training alone is that it's sometimes hard to see improvement which, in turn, can lead to frustration and discouragement when we get to feeling like we're spinning our wheels. Thankfully, I have friends who turn up from time-to-time and aren't afraid to tell me what they're seeing. Such was the case over the past weekend. My original plan was to have one of them work Dillon because it's so much easier to see what's going on when you aren't in the thick of it. Yes, I could just video our session, which I have done in the past, but I really wanted to know if I'm the source of our problems. The only way to do that was have someone else handle him. Dillon, however, is apparently a bit of a momma's boy. No way was he working for anyone else. So much for that

04/23/2018 Spring Has Sprung! I Hope

Sunday was a gorgeous day - finally - and I had every intention of taking advantage of the beautiful afternoon by getting in some training. First, however, I had to feed the bottle lamb. Done with that, I decided a quick walk-about was in order to check the footing in the pens and arena. The day before they had been slick and soupy. On my walk-about I noticed the duck-proofing was off on part of the arena fence. I don't have ducks this year, so could have just removed it. That would have taken more time than I wanted to spend, so I opted for a quick repair with baling twine instead. Before taking care of that, however, I needed to bring over several wheel barrow's worth of wood chips to fill in a soft spot in the roundpen, which reminded me that Cian's outside run needed a bit of