I'm Hitting the Road in the a.m.

Dear Friends-
I am up late cleaning my office, going through paper work and paying bills. It is a personal paradox of mine- I don't pay much attention to bills and mail in my regular life (mine, not my client's). But if I am leaving town (which I do often, thankfully) I am obsessed with going through every piece of paper, paying every bill, cleaning my office and organizing my files. Weird huh? Some people shop for a trip...I am compelled to go through my mail.

Okay, for my herding followers, this is my email to the CO herding instructor for this weekend on what I want to work on:
What I want to work on is teaching/showing/having the dog learn the “pressure bubble.” In other words, that she can work stock further away. Now we put too much pressure, a break out happens, she runs to cover..then too much pressure the other way. Often we get thru the course but it is ugly and stressful. I have a feeling it might be a confidence/maturity thing. Also, with Shelties, instilling the glory of “work” versus the dog thinking, this is boring, let’s make a disaster so I can fix it; i.e. “let’s play!” Also, to work on knowing when, if ever, to trust or defer to the dog versus demanding absolute mechanical obedience. I think I trust my dog too much – or at least try to figure out why she is doing something and if there’s a good reason, I let it happen- and this leads to her blowing me off sometimes because she thinks she knows better (probably true, but this isn’t winning me titles.) My trainer now wants absolute obedience, but this makes me nervous because I don’t want to kill my dog’s ability to think/react to stock because it will always be quicker than mine. But maybe absolute obedience is the place to start when dogs are young or maybe it depends on the drive of the dog and how much strict training they will take without killing their self-motivation. Okay, as you can see, I have a lot of questions. I have a feeling that the answers are not simple. Which, of course, is why I’m addicted to herding…it is such a challenge!!!

We will see if I get answers on this trip. But as a great philosopher says, it is in posing the right questions that we reach enlightenment. Okay, back to paying my bills....