Irises of 2010

I know that I have been bad at blogging this spring. It has been a busy spring with lambing, work and trying to get a veggie garden in. I just wanted to share some pictures of the irises that are blooming right now. These are some of the first ones to bloom so far.

We had some rain over night and early this morning and I was able to catch some rain drops on the flowers.

And I know, this isn't an iris. It is one of the last of the tulips of this year. I was very lax in getting any pictures of the tulips and we had some nice ones this spring. Reminded me of the tulip garden that my Mom had when I was growing up.

We are helping with a trial this spring just over the border in Wisconsin. I have been very busy helping with setting up this trial. Hopefully once we are done with the trial I'll be more on the ball on blogging, or maybe not. We'll see. The trial is over the Memorial Weekend and hopefully I'll get some pictures from the trial to post here.

Lambs of 2010

We are finally finished with lambing for this year. This is one of the lambs who was born on 5/20/10. This is a little girl and we'll be keeping her.

This is the other girl born on 5/20/10 above.

This is mom with the girl and boy born on 5/20/10.


The pictures below were taken on 5/2/10 and are of the rest of the lambs born this year.

Training article by Clinton Anderson in Horse & Rider

These are some excerpts from an article by Clinton Anderson. What he writes about in this article made a lot of sense to me in regards to stockdog training.

"Don't Get Emotional!"
When training your horse, don't let your feelings confuse the issue at hand.

"People get so worried about their relationships with their horses and so wrapped up in the whole natural horsemanship thing they forget the bottom line" You've got to get the job done."

He learned this when he was about 15 or 16 while training horses in Australia with Gordon McKinlay. He was just getting started with natural horsemanship, and was working with a big black mare with a bad attitude. In keeping with his early training, as soon as that mare would do something right, he'd instantly reward her with a pat, a treat, and a little break.

He was basically trying to bribe her into loving him and loving what she was doing. Problem is, she was actually getting worse by the day.

Gordon took one look at this belligerent mare after Clinton had been working with her for awhile and said, "Clinton, you've done a pretty bad job on this horse."

Clinton said, "Gordon, I've been working with her seven days a week, and doing everything you taught me, trying my best to get her wehre she needs to be, but she's just got a bad attitude."

"Well, he replied, "you'd better step up to the plate and get the job done because this mare has to go home next week, and the owners aren't going to be happy when they how bad she is after being here for six weeks."

Ask, then tell.
So here's what he did: For the entire last week of her training, he treated that mare the way he would any other horse. He got in there every day and made the wrong thing difficult for her and the right thing easy. (How many times have we heard that one.) He made her feet move--now. I asked her, and when didn't respond, I told her. He didn't worry about her feelings or her emotions or her attitude.

When she did something right, he rewarded her by simply letting her rest and leaving her alone. When she did something wrong, I made her feel very uncomfortable.

Within three days, that mare's attitude--and her whole perception or work, and of him--completely changed. In fact, in that last week of working with her, he caught her up to where she should've been by that time, despite their initial setbacks. On the day she went home, she was as good as all the other horses that had been ridden for six weeks.

In other works, she made more progress in those last five or six days than she had in the entire five weeks before.

Why didn't she progress in those first five weeks? Because he'd been babysitting her. He had been trying to coax her into liking him and the situation.

What she'd needed instead, and what he finally gave her in that last week, was a taste of, "If you don't like this, try this. If you thought what I was asking you do was difficult and sweaty, how about this?"

Very quickly, she came to realize that what he had been originally asking her to do wasn't so bad after all.

Don't Beg
That mare taught him an important aspect of natural horsemanship that a lot of people don't understand. The reality is this: When you're training a horse, you have a job to do, and you've got to get that job done. Being businesslike about it will give you your best chance of succeeding at that job. Especially with tough customers!

What he has discovered, though, is that for the horses with the worst attitudes, the more you baby them, the worse they get. The less you ask them to do and the less pressure you put on them, the worse their attitudes become.

Conversely, the harder you work them and the more you ask them to do, the better their attitudes get. By always focusing first on the getting the job done, you're always going to get the best possible results with that particular horse.

Before you can have that emotional connection and relationship with your horse, you first have to earn his respect by getting the job done of moving his feet--forward, backward, left and right. It's as simple as that...and nothing to get emotional about."

I know that this is horse trainer's thoughts and such, but they do apply to dog training also. I believe it is Jack Knox who always says, "make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy."

I also believe that a lot of people are worried about getting their dogs to "like" them and then become pushovers. I find when I get tough with my guys that they seem to "worship" me more. They don't get mad and want to have nothing to do with me--the opposite happens, they try harder.

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.