It's clinic time!

    Coming off a trial that gave me much to consider I knew that I needed to fix some of the things that I had neglected to solidly proof as we moved up the ranks. Everyone is excited when you finally teach your dog to drive. It's one of those milestones that marks your ability to start trialing with the *big dogs*. Suddenly, Fido gets the concept and off goes the stock and your dog! But what happens when you realize that you still need Fido to get around the stock in the corners to come to the center obstacle or that you need Fido to start taking true inside flanks that can't depend on you being there to help with your body? The trial in Indian proved two things to me without  doubt. Diva didn't truly understand inside flanks and what little she did get revolved around me standing perfectly still. As soon as I moved her brain says that se needs to get to balance and she will quit a flank mid go to do so. This made for one blown cattle run where instead of kicking out as I had asked her and coming in behind me to set up for the center obstacle she very neatly balanced and ran the cows right by me (and the mouth of the chute, lol)! I am laughing now but you can bet that at the time I was far from it ;-).

    With dreams of a WTCH still fresh in my mind I decided to enter SEMASA's 35th annual Great Lakes Stock Trial on Memorial Day weekend. So when the opportunity presented itself to participate in a Terry Wofford cattle clinic I jumped on it. I have worked with Terry a couple times before including back when Diva was more afraid that not of cattle. This time I knew we had a lot more going for us and I was hoping that Terry could give me some tips to fill in the gaps. I explained to Terry what I wanted to work on and so what he had me set up was first putting the cows in a corner and then pulling them back out. As they were coming out to our imaginary center obstacle I was supposed to flank Diva around and work on getting her to continue that flank until I said other wise. Diva did as I expected and then I did as I expected. What's that you ask? I get flustered, I yell commands louder, and I inevitably change position and try to correct Diva by chasing her on the flank. If you think sounds hilarious then you are right and believe me you should see how it looks! Terry blamed me for moving and said the dog was right, and I blamed the dog and silently accused Terry of not knowing anything ;-). Hahahaha...sorry Terry! So we continued to work on it and when we finally had success we called the first trip in the pen done and made a big deal over Diva. Session two went along better and Diva was getting around in the corner nicely. We were still missing the complete flank though unless I moved to help keep her motion going. On a good note there were so many things that I would normally stress over when working cattle that I didn't have any time to focus on and low and behold Diva did them wonderfully. She held her ground, stayed in the pocket under pressure, worked her cross drive at a good distance, and turned back a challenge from one of the steers. These are all things that a year ago I wasn't sure I would ever see from her on cattle.

   At the end of our time with Terry I left knowing what our homework was going to be and how I needed to go about starting. It really wasn't a surprise as it's what I had been thinking myself but getting confirmation from someone of Terry's experience made me feel good about my own growing knowledge in the world of stock dogs.