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The other half wants to compete, I fear he's going to flame out...


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Has anyone else run into this problem, you get the other half's dog working pretty darn good, you've been running it for the past season in trials and now all of a sudden the other half want's to give it a whirl. Ok, that's great we can work with it, but...not in Open first time out!!!

 

I suggested that he runs exhibition in pro-novice at the end of the class that way I can still run Jake for club points, he's says, nahh, I'll just run open...ok, Exhibition, right. The answer..."Why donate when you can run for all the marbles" cocky bugger :D He's going to get his butt kicked...but how do I get him to back down without ticking him off?

 

Men are so much different, with a woman I could just ask "are you sure your ready? " Plant a little doubt, then she would question herself, ask advice, I would suggest exhibition instead or to enter one class lower then you think you can compete in and it would be a done deal. Ask that same question of a man and you get, "You don't think I'm ready, I'll show you!" Or fine, "I won't run at all." Humph. :D

 

So, do I just let him crash and burn, or does anyone have any suggestions to another route. I had a thought about trying to negotiate, try to figure out a money related reason to not go out and blow up at a trial with the dog. Maybe the "it would be better for the dog if you did not blow up in public with him" Oh, btw, it's a point time arena trial with a shed, usually they ask to have the shedded sheep penned and call the shed at that point. Yeah he can do it (Wayne that is), was getting it done last night here at home, but gosh, Jake can get hot to handle on strange sheep in tight quarters. He's not one to grip or chase (unless he panics when he gets tight but I've not seen that in quite a while), just more overflank and stick, and I could see him pushing when Wayne is trying to set up the shed, if Wayne gets that far.

 

I just wish he would run exhibition, he has such little expirence in the trial arena, and I don't think he has ever been successful on sheep, he prefers cattle. The cattle trials next week will be the next dilemma, he seems to have decided that he can get Bea, my other dog around the pro-novice course on cattle and is planning on running Jake in open. :rolleyes: . I ran into this last year, he took my dogs, flamed out and hung it up until now, fricken weekend warrior (I can say that, I live with him!!!) :D

 

And no, I can't stay home, I'm running the trial, but I can next week...just call me on the way home and give me and update... :D .

 

Deb

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It may take a crash-and-burn for him to realize that it's not as easy as a good handler and dog team make it look. After all, even I am an "expert" when I'm sitting outside the fence. :rolleyes:

 

We have a somewhat parallel situation - while Ed is totally disinterested in lessons, clinics, trials, and training, he still is ready to handle the dog(s) when there is work to be done. But, what happens, is that he is not familiar with the commands, not familiar with how Celt in particular works best, and so forth. So it can be counterproductive.

 

It's hard when one handler does "all the work" and the other just wants to "do the work". He may just have to learn on his own, as long as he doesn't blame the dog if things don't go well. Your telling him otherwise may just backfire. And that's my personal opinion based on experience.

 

Disclaimer - I love my DH but like any other couple, that doesn't mean we always see eye-to-eye.

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I think you have to just let him crash and burn. If he runs in open in one trial it shouldn't affect your points for year-end awards anyway, right? You just won't get points for that trial. The question is, were you planning to run Jake? If not, and Jake is hubby's dog, then I guess it's his choice to run him. If so, and the problem is who gets to run the dog, then I guess it's still up to hubby if it's his dog. You can always opt to stop training/trialing DH's dog(s) and work on your own. Maybe if you weren't training them up so well, he wouldn't be so interested in running them. :rolleyes:

 

 

J.

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Let him have a go at it. If the dog is truly his, he should be the one working it. Your time investment has given you a (rightful) sense of ownership and we women are great at seeing the big picture. My own hubby has an agility dog who I don't even work, and he doesn't take suggestions on course walkthroughs, so he's spent some time and $$ learning the hard way. It takes everything I have *not* to tell him about it, but to be supportive. He has fun, and we are all out there with the dogs, so that's what counts.

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His dog, he runs it where it wants. If he's like a lot of men, "learning on the fly", may just work out fine. If not, he'll either train the dog or get mad and give it to you fully and the whole thing will stop.

 

Since it's his dog you shouldn't have been training it anyway. Take my word for it, family training family's dogs is a wreck in the making LOL

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Let him have at it! Grab the video camera ... and instead of taping the dog and sheep ... videotape him ... and then post it here so we can all see the moment he realizes that this just isn't as easy as his ego thinks it is! LOL

 

Oh...I better start packing my bags now if I did that...

 

Ok, I'll just step back and let him have at it, maybe we will see the light for himself between now and then and make the decision himself to just run exhibition....Pleazzz... I guess I just really want him to do well enough to want more, not just blow up, yeah I would like to run the dog I've been busting my tail to train, probably would feel better about if I felt that they two would tear'em up..hmm maybe they will :rolleyes: . My thought was if he ran pro-novice exhibition he could come home and say "I should have entered formally" giving us a good foundation for next week and the weeks after, after the cattle trials is Tingley (judged sheep trial).

 

As far as our club points, we have a pretty tough system and a couple of handlers that will be at all the trials that will be right in there. I can just see it come end of season, "way to go Wayne, we ended up 1/2 point short"...nothing lost, just know how my luck goes.

 

Yeah, Jake is Wayne's, gave him up to me for training way back, the dog was to sensitive and driven for Wayne to train him, had him either wadded up in a ball or running full out doing his own thing. Wayne's never been one to put a polish on a dog or a horse, put just enough on to get around the pen. It was hard to get him to put more time in back when he was roping, he was winning even with a half broke horse, don't work so well with dogs, atleast I don't think it does.... :D

 

I brought Vicki home in an effort to get Wayne going, but she's a bunch tougher to handle then Jake, he handled her once and that was the end of that. The old rip tests my patience, I really have to be thinking ahead of her to keep her from going to the point of no return, once she slides past 9 and 3 or get's in close, Johnny bar the door, either the sheep are going to be brought to you or there's going to be wool flying, she just has to pull wool :D

 

Thanks guys. BTW, I spoke to Bob Johnson about it hoping he could help me out talking Wayne down, he said "Bring it on!" as I could hear him chuckling. Dang team ropers, boys just gotta prod each other along. Gotta remember, this all about fun...and getting the jackpot bigger, thank god you can only run once, I could just see the boys entering each dog 3 times or more.

 

Deb

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My husband has started trialling as well. Thing is he really is a good trainer, just doesn't know all the tips yet for trialling...when to leave to go where etc.

 

He is going to a Scott Glen shedding clinic next week and i expect he will be entering open by August this year..; at least by the last trial in the fall. And he'll probably kick my butt!

 

But tell him what to do and how...no way....it's like teaching him to golf; better to go to a pro (see the above sentence)

 

i've come to the conclusion that you support them and they do what they like.

 

Good luck with yours!

 

cynthia

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It it were me and my husband (and his dog), I'd gently suggest trying something other than Open, as you did. If that didn't work, I'd just let him do what he wants and be supportive of his efforts, but that's just me.

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Here are my thoughts as someone whose partner also trials and is much newer to the game than I am....

 

It's just a dog trial. Say your piece, low key and not direct. Make it about Jake- that you, as the person who has worked him quite a bit, is not sure he can handle Open AND a new person at the post. Then sit back, let your husband make the decision and support him in it (gee, that was too bad about the grip but wasn't that lift nice? kind of thing). I've found that most of the time, if I insist that I'm right we just argue about it and I end up banging my head on the wall. If I just make a one line suggestion and don't push it, I find that even if he denies it being the right thing to do, he'll try it that way the next time he runs/works.

 

Case in point, he ran his dog at a small trial in Pro-Novice, he did ok but the dog was just way too fast and got his flanks mixed up (plus ran his sheep back out of the pen before the gate was closed LOL). I told him it looked good but I woud have downed him more. That's it. I got countered back "well I did down him" so I just said "oh, I must not have heard you.". Sure enough, the next run, I heard DOWN quite clearly several times and the dog added about 15 points to his score on that run. It works... for mine at least :rolleyes:.

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Great advice from Jaime! Some years ago, my ex, who had been my original mentor with stockdogs, decided to enter a big cattle trial. He had never run on cattle, and had only worked his dog on them a time or two. He also pretty much wasn't working his dog with any regularity at that point in time (the dog thing was rapidly becomming something that he *used* to do). I tried to point out a few things in preparation, but he was a real know-it-all kind of guy, and since I had at one time been the student--well, who was I to suggest something? He even was so cocky as to bet me that his dog would outscore my dog in both open runs. 25 bucks bet on each run. So, we went to the trial, he fell flat on his face, and I collected the money. I never had to say "I told you so," as it was evident,

 

A

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Jamie - You are just too nice and putting all the rest of us women-folk to shame.

 

 

Oh believe me, I've had quite the learning curve on this one and SEVERAL training sessions where one us stormed back to the barn and didn't talk to the other for a long, long time LOL.

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This is so funny and interesting how I've had the same experience with my other half. I don't do sheep herding but have shown in obedience and agility for 15 years. Husband somehow thinks he's the expert dog trainer and threatens to take the dogs into the agility and obedience ring to *kick everybody's butt*. :rolleyes: Mind you he doesn't even know what a rear cross is! In the beginning, this had me very distraught however what I tell him now is GO FOR IT! CRASH AND BURN BABY, that's my vote. :D

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Oh believe me, I've had quite the learning curve on this one and SEVERAL training sessions where one us stormed back to the barn and didn't talk to the other for a long, long time LOL.

Well, I've got to admit that there have been just a few times when I was mentally prepared to head for home, and I think it did it once, and I understand the lack of conversation (at least about dog work) for a while as that's happened to us, too. :rolleyes:

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I know this sounds strange after reading about the "issues" of training together but..

I'd love it if my DH ever decided he wanted to work dogs. I can only be greatful that he supports me, all my dogs and the sheep. I'm sure we'd fight but I would feel better about all the work he does for me to have my passion. I don't think he'd ever have anything more than 1 pet dog if it weren't for me.

 

I don't think he's ever going to enjoy or get into training them. At least he loves all of them!

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Tess and Rainey are Getty's (husband) dogs. I just train and run them. ;-)

 

He uses Tess for chores and she makes him look good. But if he wanted to run his dogs in a trial, I would let him. I would make him do a practice run at my trial field so he could get a feel for the trial. He would do quite well as he is very competive and likes to win so he would be the type to go out and work at it.

 

But he likes to gloat in the fact that his "Tess" does so well and he has the bragging rights. Soon he will have the bragging right on Rainey.

 

I hear him on the phone to his friends last week "MY dog TESS (implying that she is his and his dog alone) placed second in a Open trial last weekend and NOW has enough points to go to the Finals. You know she ran in the Finals twice and qualiifed several more times but didn't go"

 

I walk on, happy in the fact that he supports us as the best cheerleader we can ever have. He went to the last trial and was sitting down and commented on each run (and did well on it considering he never ran in a trial) with Tess in his lap. He sure loves his dogs.

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To help prepare the dog for the trial you could set-up a course at home and then score him & the dog while he's running. Your goal is to show him what things the dog needs work on before trialing. You're not judging him; you're evaluating the dog to determine how the dog needs to be tuned up for the trial.

 

Mark

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Just a question, but if he moves the dog up to Open, and runs him for real, not exhib.. then doesn't that knock you out of running him in the lower classes again? That's how it works here in Texas. If I moved/ran one of my dogs in Open, I couldn't go back and run him/her in Open Ranch the next trial. And it makes no difference whether we were in over our heads or not...you choose to move up, you have to live with it ;-) The only way you can run a dog in a lower class (at least here in TX) is if say I were to "buy" a dog that had been run in Open (I'm not an Open handler yet) I could then drop the dog down one level, to Open Ranch. They then allow you only 16 points (vice 56 I believe) before you are required to move up (back to Open) I'm sure your club has different rules and/or point system, but I would imagine there would have to be some kind of rule in place on allowing two people running one dog in different classes. I know you say your husband will probably have a poor outing ;-) but what if that were not the case? What if it turns out he's a good Open handler and your dog is an Open dog, how fair would it be for you to turn around and run that same dog in the lower classes? Maybe your club allows that....don't know...Doesn't seem right to me though.

 

Betty

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Now, now, girls not all men are arrogant and there are some of us who actually listen. However you might try looking at it from a guys point of view.

 

Girls spoil our having fun. :rolleyes::D

 

Let him try. Let him crash and burn.

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