They are dogs

"For a dog it is all about quality, not quantity. All a dog wants is another great day. When there are no more great days it is time."

Almost 2 years ago now I said goodbye to Cato. He'd escaped the yard and been hit by a car right in front of my house on the way home. He was Houdini in winter when there was no work. He'd get bored. He'd pull up fences from the bottom and dig under, jump, climb, whatever was necessary. He'd go visiting then come home. I live on a very busy road so this was a source of constant worry for me.

Cato was alive, laying in the road. Two drivers, one in each direction, parked their cars across the road to block traffic. I took him to the emergency clinic. He was there overnight, and came home the next afternoon on lots of pain killers. Thoracic x-rays showed no troubles, but clearly he was not right. So we continued the meds and waited, not quite a week. Clearly he was not okay and not getting better. I drove him down to Tufts Foster Animal Hospital late one night when I knew there was more to his condition than bruising. I discussed the situation with the intake vet. There would be no neurologist till morning, and that was what was needed. The assumption was that there was damage to one or more of the vertebrae in his neck. We discussed options for examination, and treatments and prognosis if this were the case. There was a very good chance that Cato would not be able to return to a normal active life. I emphasized to the vet that whatever we found, my decisions would be based on the quality of the life he could expect after treatment. If he could not be returned to an active lifestyle then I would not pursue treatment. They would use x-ray and/or MRI to look at the vertebrae. I instructed them to use the x-ray first, and if that told the story we would not need to go to the MRI. I do my best to take good care of my dogs, but I’m not wealthy. I already had spent $2,000 for Cato at the emergency clinic. Having lived with him for the week since the accident I had a hollow feeling that there were no good options.

I left Cato there and went home for the rest of a miserable night. The next morning I waited frantically for news from Tufts once the neurologist was able to look at the case. They called me to let me know they were sedating him for the MRI. I asked about the x-ray, which was supposed to happen first. He would need to be sedated for a good neck x-ray as well. I was pretty much at the end of my emotional rope at this point, when the vet explained that they needed the MRI and were scheduled for it and he had to go in now, despite their not having taken an x-ray. I was not in a rational frame of mind to argue further.

The MRI showed that the atlas, the first vertebra connecting the skull to the spinal column, was knocked out of place, the worst location for trauma to the neck. Still no x-ray. We began to discuss treatment options, primarily putting the atlas back in place surgically. Putting the vertebra back in place was high risk, the trauma might kill him immediately and could well leave him on a respirator for a few days. There was a risk he would not start breathing again. More importantly, the repair would be forever fragile. They emphasized that he could live a “normal life” but their definition of normal was no work and no running and jumping. I said that was not sufficient quality of life to justify treatment. They stalled on any decisions as they were making some inquiries on other treatment options.

A while later that morning we spoke again. The x-ray confirmed the diagnosis, which meant we could have done the x-ray and never spent the $1,000+ on the MRI. They had researched an option of realigning the vertebra manually with no surgery required. They were eager to go forward with this option. The problem was the repair would be just as fragile as if they had done it surgically, meaning no quality of life for Cato. I would put him through this just to spend his final years locked up. His life would be hell. This was a dog that always wanted to be in the middle of life. He was both mentally and physically exuberant.

I told them I would not pursue the treatment. They seemed taken aback, and indeed worked hard to persuade me to have him treated. I was emotionally exhausted. I’d given in to their urgent last minute arguments on the MRI, frantic for Cato’s welfare at the time. I was not going to give in to putting Cato through the treatment to live his life as a prisoner, always locked up, watching the other dogs, never again to work or play or run freely, consumed with frustration. They countered me, and implied that I was unwilling to spend the resources on a dog just because he could not work for me again. My contact kept bringing up “just because he can’t work”. I’d already told them he was retired from trialing. I still used him for some farm work despite having other fully trained dogs, because for Cato the work was his life. And did they really think that when not working he’d be happy to just trot around the yard, never allowed to run full out with joyful abandon?

There was no question in my mind about the right decision for Cato’s welfare. I do not believe in “life at all cost”. Breathing is not living. I was direct and eventually my contact accepted this. I drove down to be with Cato for the end, and returned with his body to my vet to be cremated. Cato was a huge part of my life. He took me from novice to the National Finals to the World Trial. When I was clueless he persisted on the right course. He forgave constant errors and upsets on my part. He slept in my bed every night.

We had many, many great days together.

The Finals

Well I did it. I traveled out west to run on the famous range ewes at the national finals. I only had one dog qualified, Fina, who is prone to mental lockups under pressure on big courses. Nothing ventured, nothing learned.

It turns out Fina manages the range girls tremendously, but as suspected she had trouble keeping her head together on the bigger course with some pressure. She had a "Fina Melt" twice. She basically tunes me out and just moves the sheep, which is an improvement as she used to just lay down and watch the sheep leave. In between her melts she was fabulous, but her second melt involved bringing the sheep backwards on the drive some distance, losing most of our drive points. No semi finals.

I spent hours watching runs, observing how different handlers and dogs approached these sheep. The western sheep are not the fire breathing dragons I was expecting, but they are tough and fun. They are not conditioned to move off the dog, so the dog needs to be definite. It seemed to me that the dogs who came forward with no hesitation were not questioned in the end. These yearling ewes were huge, stared at the dogs and stomped their feet. They could make a formidable impression and not all dogs were willing to ignore their threats and continue forward with intent. If the dog kept coming the sheep would turn at the last moment. If the dog was hesitant and slow then the sheep stepped forward to see if they could press the dog back or just put their heads down to graze. Once the sheep were moving the dog needed to keep pressure on or they would stall, and the sheep tended to mill and squirm as they were moved so there was work involved in keeping them on a line.

All and all I had a great time. I have a sense now of the skills my dogs need to work range ewes. Mind you I'm not sure how I will be able to strengthen these skills with the tame eastern flocks I have access to. I want to go back and try again. Next time with more than one dog, and hopefully more than one trial so we have a few chances to work out managing these willful sheep on a big open course.

Wild Trial Weekend

This past weekend was the VT Championship trial held at the Quechee Scottish Festival, followed the next day by the Spring Valley trial at Steve Wetmore's farm in Strafford, VT. Of course this past weekend was also Hurricane Irene, which led to the Sunday trial at Steve's being canceled.

My two girls, Song and Fina, did well on Saturday, managing to bring in 2nd and 3rd place despite some errors in my handling. Levi ran too, but not so successfully. They tried a new layout on the field this year, with the first drive panel a ways up the field to the left, where usually it is almost directly out to the side of the post, with a long diagonal cross drive. The field is small and oddly shaped. With the new layout, you stood or fell on how well you could negotiate the first drive panel. Your dog needed to be on the inside to hold strong pressure to the setout/exhaust area on the right side of the field. Then the dog needed to flank fast to the left to get around the sheep to turn them and stop them before they made it to the setout. Many cross drive lines included scraping sheep off the setout. Levi worked this fairly well, flanking hard and fast and catching his girls before they had gotten far off our intended cross drive line. I blew a check whistle to slow him as he passed along his sheep on their run for freedom. The sheep were slowing and it was easy to turn them too hard and bring them right back down the field. As he slowed one ewe felt her chance and made a break for it. She took off for the setout, Levi running as fast as he could to get in front of her. There were people and a dog at the setout, who for a brief moment worked to discourage the incoming ewe. She accelerated. She was going over. The setout team wisely took cover and she sailed over 4 feet into the exhaust pen adjoining the setout. I went to call Levi off, when suddenly I see the ewe come sailing back out over the fence. It took some work at this point to call Levi off. I could not figure out what had happened, or why the setout folks would have tossed this girl back onto the field as if my run would be allowed to continue.

Lunch break was immediately after my run and I got the rest of the story from the pen crew. Levi had no intention of losing one of his ewes. When she flew over the fence into the pen, Levi slammed through the setout team and squeezed into the pen after her. He hammered her a couple times, then drove her back out onto the field over the same fence she came in over. Then he cleared the pen fence on his way back out to pick up his rude charge and continue. Apparently he was not going to listen to the crew up top who were trying to stop him. Fortunately he did listen to me and with repeated "that'll do" commands I was able to get him off the field.

I can just hear Darlene's chuckle on this show. She would have loved it.

Learning Theory

My friend Sharon Perkins has been reading about learning theory, and educating me with this knowledge. Some of the information seems obvious, such as regular focused practice. This builds myelin in the brain which is what allows us to perform a well learned task smoothly and well.

One topic we have discussed is failure, and how the best learning comes from working through failure and struggling to get it right. Failure should be embraced as a valuable tool for learning.

This morning I was playing with Marcus. I had a fistful of treats, my clicker, and a puppy eager to figure out how to get the food. I had taught him sit first, so it remains the first behavior he offers me. I've started working on down, first luring him down with a cookie which I release when he finally lays down while trying to pry it from my fingers. Now I'm fading the lure, and Marcus is wanting to go back to a sit. He was dancing around me, sitting, circling me, talking, barking. The low cookie lure that he used as his cue to down was not there. Finally, frustrated with my lack of response, he tried laying down. Click, cookie. Very happy pup. I realized that little Marcus had just struggled through failure. He learned far more by working this through than if I had simply placed him in a down postion.

I use the 80/20 rule of thumb for training. I want my dogs about 80 percent successful, 20 percent failure. If they are more than 80 percent successful it is time to make the job more challenging. If they are failing more than 20 percent I need to back up and make the job easier. Generally if the dog has failed completely on three tries I change the picture entirely. Sometimes I choose to work through a much higher level of failure. I do this with thought to whether there is another way I could approach the job to make the dog more successful, and whether I believe the dog and I are ready as a team to struggle through the problem.

This got me thinking about how I train on sheep. Well dogged training sheep cooperate despite sloppy work by dog and handler. They have learned the objectives and go along. With difficult sheep and challenging situations my dogs and I are faced with failure. We struggle to get the job done. Success is measured not by the pretty shape of the flank or fast response to the stop command, but by whether we got the cantankerous beasts in the trailer or not. We are utterly focused on the job, and the stock has no forgiveness for bad work. The dog learns when to be quick, when to be slow, when to flank off, when to hold close. My moves on the stock and my commands to the dog face the same ruthless filter of the stock, rewarding good timing and good work with progress in right direction, and poor work with lack of progress or retreat from our objectives. We struggle together through failure, and learn what works.

Fina Triumphs

The July 4th Cascade Farm trial was the last trial my friend Darlene Hutchins was able to attend while she was fighting cancer. That was in 2009. Darlene left me her young dog Fina. Fina and I had plenty of struggles together, but finally began making progress. The July 4th Cascade Farm trial in 2010 was our first placement together.

This year I only ran Fina one day at Cascade as I had 3 dogs to run and was judging one day. She worked like a well oiled machine, confident and responsive. I'd been in first place for some time with Song, but I was pretty sure Fina had bested that score. I was due to set sheep for the next class so I went to the top of the field before seeing the results. They radioed up that I was needed for a runoff. Indeed Fina had beaten Song by one point, and another handler had tied Fina.

The trial had a fun trio of handlers from NC, and it was one of these ladies that had tied me for first. I could not resist a North South challenge for the runoff. The judge and scribe whistled Battle Hymn of the Republic when I came to the post, and Dixie when Sherry came to the post. Much laughter was had, and Fina worked even better than the first run. However I made some mistakes, and as I did so I considered that the south had better generals than the north. Apparently I was reenacting that disparity. The quality of Fina's work carried me and we prevailed for the north.

We made Darlene proud, and even more importantly (if you knew Darlene), we made her laugh.

Balance is Hard Work

I put in some plants this morning that I got from friends. I noticed that between rain and watering the plants in my new beds are looking very good. So are the weeds. I considered planting cactus, and never watering so that the weeds would die, but of course weeds don't die, particularly in New England where there is generally plenty of precipitation. Mother Nature really makes us work to achieve balance. In this case I'll just pull the weeds and toss them on the driveway to dry up, then toss them back in the garden. I guess balance in a garden is mostly just work, pulling the weeds that grow when you water the flowers.

Late last summer I got access to a large tract of new grazing area. I grazed it all fall, and again for several weeks early summer this year. I am now realizing that I don't have enough sheep to keep all my grazing under control, particularly during the fast early season growth. So my grazing areas are overgrowing, not allowing the clover to flourish, and actually providing less nutrition for my sheep. That pesky balance challenge again. Balance on my pastures is as much a thinking challenge as manual labor, monitoring the fields, maybe mowing, and maybe just not using some of them if I can't keep them under control. Sometimes more is not better.

Balance is important on sheepdogs both in training and genetics. I know someone who both breeds and trains for very direct dogs, lovely work behind the stock, walking in strong, meeting a challenge if necessary, excellent pace and small adjustments. But when the sheep bolt off to the side or down the field they don't have much for flanks. Training for flanks is likely to take something away from the superb direct work. It is always harder to achieve balance, the dog that can walk in straight and strong, make minor corrections, and then run clean and fast to the heads if needed to cover.

Years back I did Schutzhund training with Dare. Observing the dogs, I realized they could focus much more towards the extremes than in breeding and training stock dogs. The quiet and controlled work in Schutzhund is always close at hand and under command. A good stock dog needs powerful drive to work all day, an overwhelming desire to control the stock tempered with a willingness to partner with man. This partnership needs to be so strong that the dog willingly obeys a faint whistle from a distant handler, even when that whistle may override the dog's instinct. Talk about balance.

Balance is hard work. Often in training we need to back off in working on one skill because we are encroaching on another skill in a negative way. So we work back and forth as needed to build our dogs so that they come to the post well accomplished in a variety of skills, performed in a variety of situations, sometimes done independently, and sometimes performed at our command in conflict with what their instinct tells them.

Balance is hard work. But it is a very rewarding journey.

The Last Hosta

I finally finished planting the assortment of plants that had been sitting around in flats and small pots. These included impatiens in paper cups from the Sunday school kids, marigolds and petunias I had purchased because they are so wonderfully durable and colorful, some other flats that were pretty but I could not tell you what they are, and one small hosta in a pot. I don't recall where the hosta came from, but there it was among the flowers. I bought all the flats last week and have been hard pressed to keep them watered and happy. The flowers from the church and the hosta have been waiting for weeks, though I did manage to get some of them planted in May.

First I filled my big water trough planter with petunias. As I began pulling out the weeds to prepare, my activity caught Ruth's eye. She is enamored of her newfound ability to jump and climb and promptly launched herself into the planter to grab at the weeds I was pulling. After tossing her out several times I gave up and put her in a crate in the house, where she proceeded to bark and wail for the next hour. However, I was able to quickly fill my planter with petunias, then surround it with an X-pen so they can get established before she has access again.

Once done with my planter I decided to put some petunias among the day lillies beside the front dog kennels. This is when I first saw the devastation. Three big clumps of colorful lillies live in this bed, the first of which was utterly destroyed. Leaves trampled and chewed, stem with bud bitten clean through. The next clump of lillies also sustained significant damage, but beside the total devastation of the first it seemed minimal. I had noticed that Ruth was climbing through the hog panels that surround this area. It is good to be so small you can slip through where even larger pups cannot. Damn. Well I'm sure the lilly will survive, but I doubt I'll get flowers this year.

I've been continuing to plant a flat or two each day. This morning I decided to finish off the last few flats and get the last few impatiens and the lone hosta taken care of. The plants have been waiting either outside of the back yard fence on the side of the house, or behind some garden fencing in the courtyard. As I finished off the planting I removed the piece of garden fencing to get some of the plants from behind it. I rescued the impatiens and planted them. Lost in my chore I did not notice the plastic clunking sounds emanating from behind the gate. I stood up after planting the last flowers I looked over the fence. Ruth and the last hosta. Pulled from its pot, pretty green and white striped leaves yanked from the root ball. The root ball and remaining leaves were being tossed gleefully about the courtyard, dirt falling away from the roots with each bounce. The hosta's life was saved when Ruth spied the escaped plastic pot, which made such a delightful sound when slammed on the rocks. I rescued the hosta and planted it with one hand while holding my pup with the other, trying to avoid the intended botanicide. Planted in an obscure nook and watered, let's hope this little hosta makes it. Meanwhile, with 2 more puppies coming, I need to rethink my garden fencing.