Day 11: Second Day Herding Clinic With Tammy

Today is our second day of the clinic. We are all pretty tired apparently, because we all show up 2-5 minutes late. I think the clinics are tiring because we are learning so much. Herding requires you to learn with your mind, learn how to change and manipulate your body and also to control your attitude and demeanor. Plus, it requires you to be "humble" - this gets harder as you get older, but they say the ability and willingness to learn new things also keeps you young.

We have a great supportive group- we cheer each other and the dogs when there are break throughs. There are women who learn to be assertive and dogs who learn it's okay to have fun and chase sheep. We have a few shelties that are not sure it is okay to be interested in sheep. We are all their "cheerleaders" and we have some happy shelties and owners at the end of the clinic. There is one lady who works in the local sheltie rescue. She has a rescue dog that has never had a herding lesson and that dog shines!! It is keen and you can see it thinking and learning faster than any dog there! Tammy says she has never seen a rescue sheltie that did not work sheep.

A few of us move to the bigger arena today. It is a bit frustrating because Winnie and I fall back into some of our old problems. But we get some good outruns. It's just the fetch we have trouble with. These are picture of the sequence. She does a pretty good outrun, I turn away to relieve pressure. She comes around Tammy nice at the top of the outrun. But then you can see she charges the sheep and they run past me.



It is apparant she hasn't leaned to "rate" the stock because I have always been micro-managing her with down, up, down, up. I put her in a down and then she charges the stock because she knows I will just put her in a down again. It will take time to go back to basics and give her time to learn to read and rate the stock. It's a good thing she's only 2 1/2 years old. I tell myself we still have time.
When the clinic is almost over, Tammy lets me "work" her sheltie, Flutter. Flutter is her 9-year old female bi-black herding champion and mother of Cloud. She is little like Winnie and, according to Tammy, started out willful and pushy (like Winnie). It is a joy to work with her!! I can be so relaxed and trusting as she does her job with just a simple command. I try to remember this "feeling" as the picture I am striving for with Winnie.

Some of the ladies brought some beer and, after the clinic, we sit around on the grass, drinking beer and talking all things dog. Two puppies run around and play- Winnie barks at them when they get too far away from the group.

There's a neat lady who came all the way from Canada with her talented Sheltie. We go out to dinner with Tammy before calling it a day. We all agree it was one of the best clinics ever- both in the great people that attended and in all we learned.