Perfect practice makes perfect

The title to this subject is a quote. Here is the full quote:

Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Vince Lombardi

This is a quote that I have always liked and it makes so much sense. Especially when you are working mental management. Why would you want to focus on the negative?? It won't get you anywhere.

I am reading the book, "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham and here is a quote out of this book that relates to the above quote by Lombardi.

"You've heard the expression, "I'm on a roll?" It is really true. When you are performing well, that is the best time to train. If you are having a bad day, stop training. Do not practice losing."

This is so true. You certainly don't want to visualize a bad run or your dog doing things incorrectly. You want to visualize a good run and your dog working very nicely. Don't focus on the bad, see the good.

Attitude

Attitude can mean so much in training these dogs. Case in point, Steve was working on flanks with Stryker this afternoon and he was slicing his flanks and taking some cheap shots. Steve slowly took off his glove and was ready to correct Stryker for the next tight flank. He gave him a flank and Stryker squared it off very nicely and did the rest of his flanks with nice distance. I got to thinking about it and thought to myself that it was because Steve took the attitude that he wasn't going to put up with this nonsense any more. Stryker read that somehow, whether it was the body language or something and did his flanks properly.

I have experienced the same thing with Cash. I have had times when I have gone into a training session and said to myself, I am not going to put up with not taking downs on the first command, etc. My attitude must show as I won't have that problem that session without having to correct him too hard.

Now if only we could somehow capture that attitude and keep it with us in every training session and every time we walk to the post.

Cash is 6 today!

Here is Cash when he was just four weeks old. He was just a tiny little guy back then.

Then he became this working machine.

This big handsome boy.

Who just loves to work sheep. Happy 6th Birthday, Cash!!

Awesome Hoar Frost on Feb 13, 2010

We had a heavy fog roll in the night before that created some of the heaviest hoar frost that we have ever seen. Here is Steve looking at some of it.

Here is some of the frost on a small icicle. Steve thought that it made it look like a feather.

Here is the view towards our barn.

Hoar frost on some of the trees.

This is a wind mill that we have as decoration in our yard.

This is the shepherd shepherd's crook.

This is the sheep shepherd's crook.

A bigger icicle off of the porch.

Some of the trees down by our barn.
If you would like to see more pictures you can go to the following site:

http://s436.photobucket.com/albums/qq88/sognvalleybc/Feb%20longest%20snow%20storm/Hoar%20Frost%20Feb13%202010/

The snow storm that would never end, Feb 7-8, 2010

We had the snow storm that would never end this February. It started on Sunday afternoon and didn't end until Tuesday afternoon. 48 hours of snow.

As you can tell it is piled up everywhere. Our snow plow guy wasn't able to come in to plow us out until Tuesday evening. Walking down to do chores was not fun as I struggled through the deep snow.

You can see how piled up it is down by the barn.

This is a shot just to the north of the house.

This is the gate up by the house and on the way to the barn.

Snow bank in front of the house.

Snow on the roof of the garage which Steve knocked down shortly after I took this picture.

This is the snow drift on the roof above the garage service door.

Working dogs this week

I was able to get out and work dogs twice this week. We have a thick crust of snow that all of us are able to walk on without breaking thru too badly. There is about 3 - 4 inches of snow on top of it, but I can walk thru that easily enough.

They are both working very nicely. Corbie is taking her inside flanks and squaring them off nicely. I guess that is one nice thing about her not being too strong eyed, she will release the sheep. She also gives to my pressure fairly easily. I do need to work with her and having other people around so that she can get more comfortable with others being there and that it okay to take the sheep away from another person and their dog. Hopefully I can do that a little bit tomorrow at Polly's.

Cash will still come in flat on his come bye if I let him. So I have to remind him that it is not acceptable. He is also a stronger eyed dog and it tends to "suck" him in on his outruns and on his driving. I have to be much more proactive with him on getting his commands out while driving before it's too late. If I am the least bit late and I can end up with the sheep starting back towards me. In the snow today it gave me time to get him back around and pushing the sheep back where I wanted. But on an open field with no snow to slow the sheep down, I really have to be on my toes with him. Because of his being a strong eyed dog, he is harder to get to give and square his inside flanks. I just need to figure out how to correct that with him. I know that I need to always insist that he square his flanks. Maybe I need to go back and do some of the exercises that I did with Jag, such as the one I learned while at Sheep Camp.

Both of them had to push on the sheep in the snow because they didn't want to go in directions away from the barn/gate. It is a good thing for both of them to work on as they can use building their push on heavy sheep.

A good read and something to take to heart

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/calm-comes-on-four-legs/article1456660/


I just wanted to post the link for this article. It is a nice read and I think that it tells us to slow down, look around and just enjoy life!