The Long Drive Home

     I have been sitting on this blog post for more than two weeks now while I gave myself time to digest what happened, what didn't happen, and more importantly why. To say that the weekend was less than spectacular would be an understatement and yet to say it was a wash would be lying.

    One of my dearest college friends passed away unexpectedly the Monday before the trial and at only 34 years old. Meghan was a bright and shining star who touched not only my life and my husband's, but our lives as they were first joining together. She had a smile that could light up a room and a laugh that made you want to join in. I think the most shaking thing for me was that I am never going to get to experience those things again and in the last few years I didn't reach out as much as I could have. In a single word, regret.

    As if the emotional heartache wasn't enough Indiana decided Spring was over rated and that a dose of winter mixed with 40mph wind gusts would be fun for all. The mornings were bitter cold and the wind cut straight to the bone. I suppose this should be expected since I am convinced trials don't ever happen during nice weather ;-). The good news was the dogs and stock were feeling great. The bad news was that none of us were prepared clothing wise. I ended up wearing a hodgepodge of various items that had been left in my truck which included one of Taylor's winter hats and two different colored stretchy gloves (I think one was Jayden's and the other was mine, lol!). Anyway, as they say, the show must go on and in this case so must the trial.

    Saturday's trials were using course F and so with that thought in mind I decided to only enter cattle and ducks. Diva and I were coming off a long winter of very little practice having only worked cows once in January and once at Easter time. Our duck practice was even sketchier with just 15 minutes of work back in January before our time on cattle! So one might question why I chose to not enter on sheep which we had at least 6 practice sessions on in the last 4 months ;-)? The answer is that I simply wasn't sure how the course would run, how the sheep would be, and I didn't want to frustrate my dog. When it comes to stock Diva and I make an interesting pair. I have the most experience with cows and am comfortable working them in all situations while Diva found them scary at first. Ducks I have the least experience with, and am not fond of at all, but Diva loves them and is a very natural duck dog. Sheep seems to be where we log the most hours but I also find them to be the highly variable when going from one farm to the next. From light to heavy, fetchy to flighty, and everything in between. So right or wrong my logic when entering a trial on a course I had never practiced before was to pick the two types of stock we felt the most comfortable with and hope that our combined skills carried us through. I dare say that I also might have had a touch of overconfidence going that I could secure the 2 needed advanced Q's on sheep the next day on course A ;-).

    Without picking apart the details of each run I will say this. If you haven't run course F before and your dog is not familiar with driving off of the fence then you will likely find it frustrating and have little success. It is a very tight course, particularly at the free standing pen. Time was also an issue when working cows. Those 10 minutes seemed to go by very fast ;-). Diva and I didn't have a very successful first attempt because we struggled to get everyone going up the middle. I was reminded that I needed to work on teaching Diva to come out of the take pen and cover her cows more effectively so that we aren't starting out with the cows already going down the fence line. On our second go I think we both had a better idea of what was happening and we had a pretty decent run. We managed to get something through every obstacle and put 2 in the free standing pen. At that point time was ticking away and I can remember hearing people on the sidelines yelling, "run!" as I was headed to the re-pen, lol. As it turns out we made it with 14 seconds to spare...phew! When I left the arena the general consensus was that we had likely earned our first advanced Q but truth be told I was on top of the world for just having successfully navigated the course. Diva had worked her butt off for me! At the end of the day course F came out the clear victor with no advanced Q's in 2 trials on cattle.

     Day two presented pretty much the same as day 1, bitter wind and cold. At least everyone was in better spirits since we were trialing on course A! The cattle were very happy to go around the fence line but they were no longer waiting for the dog to get around them in the take pen. Instead it was a flying leap to get out even if that ment going over the dog. Diva's new found confidence in doing take pens with cattle suffered a hit but nothing that I don't think we can fix. She was put off her game when the cattle came charging over her and I can't say I blame her. My desire to have her hit and be tough doesn't include having her suddenly become suicidal ;-). I was very proud of how she worked away from me and we had some nice pieces that finally came together and earned our first advanced cattle Q. Our duck runs went much better also and she earned her ATDd title with a very nice 105. I wish I could be as positive about the sheep but unfortunately we had little to no success. Diva was very steady and working at a good distance for her so the drive through obstacles 1 and 2 went pretty well. Where it all fell apart was trying to work the sheep at the center obstacle. They were very reluctant to go in the chute and I watched many a good dog and handler teams struggle at the same spot. For the few who found success the dog had to be way off and lightning fast on switching flanks when told. If you couldn't do this then the sheep would squirt right or left of the opening and haul for the re-pen area. I had not encountered sheep like this before so there were many lessons to be learned but no Q's to be had. I left feeling very frustrated and being a little hard on Diva but once I had time to reflect I was able to see how nice she worked and how hard she tried on those sheep. She is normally a much closer working dog and always stays on her feet so the fact that I was having to push her out behind panels 1 and 2 to work the center obstacle was very hard on her. Despite that she stayed engaged and tried to make it happen for me so what more could I ask for?

   So after a long, hard, and emotional weekend I settled in to make the long drive home. 9 hours gives a person a long time to think about what went wrong and why. As is human nature I started out trying to find reasons to justify our failures. Its easy to place blame and deflect responsibility and I am certain we have all done it, even if some people won't admit to it. I wanted to explain it all away by talking about Diva's short comings on each type of stock but eventually I came to this conclusion. Herding is hard. The dog is a reflection of its training, experiences, and genetics. Two of those things are variables that depend directly on the human(s) in their life and what you do with them. The third is the raw talent they are born with but again it's the humans job to utilize these strengths and channel them. What does this mean? That when thinking of success and failure, through a haze of disappointment I might add, the only person I really needed to hold accountable was myself. Stock will be stock and they can change from day to day or run to run. It's all part of the puzzle when you walk into an arena and go about making animals with an independent mind move where you want them to by using yet another animal with an independent mind. Diva can only give me back what I have put into her and yet time and time again I have watched her try to give me more. What does this say about me? I can't take credit for her ability to forgive and exceed but its her love for me that makes her dig deeper when I ask. What I learned as I drove home was that I need to aspire to be the handler my dog deserves and not the other way around.