S3 Ep 5- Into the Mailbag

Introduction

0:00Hello and welcome to BarrettMountainBC.com, Stock Dog Philosophies Podcast. I'm your host, Ty Spanky Barrett. Joining me, as always, on this great show is my brother, Justin Barrett. And then we have, joining us most of the time, our dad. I'm here. Yeah, just right there. We're back, kind of for a more typical episode. As we're going to talk about our, kind of a new segment I'm going to introduce for us today.

0:32And then we're going to hopefully have some guests on the next few episodes as we approach episode number 50. This is episode number 47, Total Force. So making some progress. And for our 50th, we're going to have a big surprise guest. Big guest. Big time. Yeah. Big time guest. So, look forward to that as we kind of work through.

New Segment Introduction

0:53So, today. To get us started today, I, you know, I kind of want to do like a mailbag type segment. But, you know, I don't have that many comments. So I went through. I had AI help me do this. Huh?

1:14Do we have comments? Do we have any comments? Sorry. Sorry, Justin. We got new headsets. Okay. Hopefully we sound a lot clearer and better. I think we probably will. But, Justin. Learning how he's mic'd off to eat his Oreos and drink his Pepsi. And forgot to turn it back on. Yep. Yep. Yep. So he's here with us now doing that. But, so what I went through, instead of, you know, going through our comments and stuff, we don't have that many, I had AI help me, like, kind of search through different areas. So whether it's Facebook groups, it could be Reddit, it could be, like, different discussion boards.

1:48Find some questions for us. People asking about stock dogs, sheepdog herding. And, similar to that, so I'm going to read their questions, kind of, verbatim here, and then we'll kind of just work our way through it. Okay. So while I find our first one, talk us through just how it's been going for you lately. Oh, we kind of. Oh, lately. So I'll kind of. Let's see. The first few.

Upcoming Trial

2:09We'll get a trial coming up in January. Let's talk about that first, I guess. We have a 4-H FFA benefit trial coming up on January 17th and 18th at the Creek County Fairgrounds in Sepulpa, Oklahoma. Indoors. Is indoors arena. Has heated bleachers area. Has, there will be food for concession that the 4-H, I believe, will be doing. There's awards for each, for Saturday, there's one awards, and then there's day awards. So whoever wins the days.

2:40Yeah. Um, and then it's going to be a fun trial. We're going to bring the sheep in, have some fun, enjoy it. It's going to be a good time. There's going to be a lot of chances to give these kids some benefit for them to be able to make some money for the kids to be able to use for their projects and everything else. It's competing with two other trials, and we're still doing pretty good on the entry, so that's a good thing. Yeah. And there's always still more time to enter or come watch if you aren't. If somebody's ever seen one before, it's a great one to come to.

3:10We'll be able to have a lot more time where all of us will be able to have more availability than we normally do at trials that we host because... The kids will be working. The kids will be working it. Yeah. Some time, maybe we'll record there. Maybe grab a guest with our new fancy headsets. If you're interested in it, bring your family. Come out and watch. All the handlers are really, really good people and would love to talk dogs with you, so you can make it into a great time.

3:42Yeah. And we want to be able to help support the 4-H FFA of Olive to be able to... That they'll want to do this again because it's a great event for them to work with the high herding community, but also be able to be financially fun for the good as well. Yeah, definitely. Any time we can get kids involved in this sport is a good thing. Yeah, the sport, the median age... There's at least got to be at least 60 if I had to do that. It's a rough guess.

4:12Yeah, I was thinking probably 60s were helping us, but yeah, that's something that's definitely a part of it.

Mailbag Questions

4:19So, okay, here we go. I'm going to kind of roll through some of these questions, the ones I think that are better. We can kind of do this for a long time. There's a list of 100-plus years, so we'll just pick a few out. This is from the BC Boards.

4:33How often should I actually get my dog on stock to make training progress? See, that is, for me, that's a variable question. It depends on the dog. It depends on how far along the dog is because in the beginning, it's much, I think it's much better to be able to get consistent days in a row. Now, once you have a trained dog that, let's just say, if you have a starter dog that can do, that has driving, a little bit of driving and outrun work, you could probably get away once, twice a week if you aren't able to get into, if you don't have the stock at home and you've got to go somewhere.

5:11With a fully trained dog, you could do it once a week would be fine for most of them that you're using because they tend not to get a lot of information. Now, the young dogs start now and you come out once a week and we're in a round pen. We can gain progress, but, you know, what we're doing in a week's worth of round pen work, we're now doing over a month's time frame if you're coming out once a week to do that. So, I think the distance of what you're seeing of progress will look more delayed over time than if you watch somebody who had dog training at the same time.

5:46They start the same dog as you were starting them. They're showing you both the progress. It would take, you would take. Probably at a minimum, you're one, two, three times a week, at least three times a week, probably. The people that come on weekends, gosh, you make headway, you're going to. Next week, you're probably going to make that same headway again. You're not advancing. You're going to make a little, it's going to take a little bit. Shorter. It's going to be bigger. Not as big as strides forwards, but you're still going to make strides forwards. They're just not going to be big strides. Yeah, and I think that that's, out of the situation of a lot of people where they live, you know, in an urban area, they don't have access to stock or whatever.

6:21I think, especially early on, it's going to be really beneficial to you to find, you know, a trader that can get your dog started for you. Kind of get that initial part done. And then if you go once a week and you're still working on, you know, your basic commands, your basic stuff like that, then it becomes a lot easier to do. And you've got to learn through, a little further on, you can adapt and grow. As opposed to early on, there's just so much you want to accomplish. And just, there's so much foundational stuff you're trying to do. And it just takes a lot longer to build that if it's the inconsistency of time that affects you.

6:56Now, I'll say this to say, all that to say this, when I had the carmy dog, I didn't have sheep. We were in the act of moving and I didn't have any stock. So I was only getting to work sheep once every couple of weeks. Like we'd drive up to Tom and Ruth's. I went one weekend and we worked in a round pen. And a couple weeks later went up, we worked out in their bigger pen. And the next time we went up there, we were out in the field. And we want to, she started running in ranch at that time with, you know, that's about where we were.

7:26So. Yes, it is doable. It's doable, but it does make it a lot tougher. And it's a lot tougher whenever you're the person learning. For me to do that, yeah, I could do it with the dog. Because I know more where I need to be. And I'm not trying to learn where I'm at and where the dog's at at the same time. So I can make it a little bit, bridge that gap a little bit faster than you're trying to learn. And the dog's trying to learn. It just kind of slows the process down. Especially if it's once a week. It's like we're trying to, you know, you know, when I go to talk to you, we're trying to discuss, hey, what's going on.

8:00It's a lot of what you're doing and a little bit about the dog, making the dog right. But it's a lot of trying to help you understand. You got to learn to stock and the dog's got to learn. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

8:11Yeah, that's good. I agree with you guys following me. That's the next question. But I did have one thing I want to talk about first. I forgot to do it at the very beginning. So we have our Spotify for Creators year wrapped. Okay. So I'm going to just give you some stats. So we have our audience this year has gone up 152%. We've more than doubled our audience year over year. We've probably put out less this year than last year. So that's it. I know we didn't put out a ton of stuff. It's kind of a great sign. High quality. Just a total student audience.

8:41Okay. Increase in new audience from last year. 804% increase. Wow. A lot of new people following us. We have a, again, 148% increase in followers from last year. It's just on Spotify and the Apple Podcast. So you're saying his dad's talking to everybody. It's paying off. Yeah. It's paying off for us. But what this really is, is there's more people now know that just blow the same whistle twice. Except that we don't know where that is. Yeah. We don't. Eventually, in this episode, we're going to have someone track down the origin of why he

9:14does it the wrong way. Why he can't make it happen twice again. I'm going to go with dyslexia. That's going to be a long time. The episode this year was Season 2, Episode 14, Starting to Trial Your Dog. It was played 55% more than the average episode. Oh, really? We're still quoting it. There we go.

9:37Listening. Here we go. 19 countries reached overall. That's kind of surprising. Oh, wow. Yeah. How many countries are there? Top countries. I mean, several hundred. Okay, please.

9:50Number five, Slovenia. The UK, number four. Canada, three. Australia, number two. And the US, obviously, number one. Still going strong in Australia. I'm impressed we're hitting Australia and the Kingdom and everything. This is just Spotify numbers. This isn't. We're hitting the Summer Olympics in Australia. We may have to go just to do podcasts. Yeah, just to join on there. I mean, I was always down for seeing Australia. So we're a top ten show on Spotify for 108 people in their top ten shows.

10:24We're a top five show for 64 different people. We're the number one show for 15 people. So not bad there. We got some listeners. Our top fans stream 3.8 times more than everyone else. 25% of the binge. Two plus episodes in a day. Okay. That's dedication right there.

10:47So what he's saying now is I can't say thank you to our two listeners because there's more than that. There's more than that. Thank you to all of our international listeners. He was on the list of our other, the average top shows of our listeners that they also have. One called Farm Dog, Dog Tork, Alpha Blokes Podcast, Stock Dogs Unleashed, and then the Joe Rogan Experience. So those are the Joe Rogan province because it's the most popular one. Yeah, Farm Dog, I've listened to that one a handful of times, and it talks about a vast array of stuff, not just stock dog training, specifically of herding.

11:29And it's a great podcast, too, but it just has a lot. Then we got an award here as a 2025 marathon show. So fans listen to us for longer than 88% of other shows. And when they listen, they're actually listening to most of our stuff. We hope. Talked about shows, so that's good. They're just waiting for Ty and I to rib each other eventually. Yeah, eventually we'll hit it. That's Spotify for Creators Year. And we'll be wrapped.

12:00Yeah, kind of a cool thing. I thought we might get a good pick. We're over 3,000 plays and listens on Spotify alone all the time. So it's a growing thing. We're doing pretty good. We're consistently getting more and more people per episode. I think one of our most popular episodes was obviously the Larry one people went back to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, we'll get back to the task here at hand. I'll get to another question. Larry was one of a kind. Yeah.

12:31Yeah, that was a great one.

12:34Okay.

12:37You got another question? Yeah, I got another question. I'm trying to find where it was. It was just so crazy to me. Like, you found this and used AI. But I'm like, anytime I watch on the Facebook pages, like, the different ones of being all these stock dog groups. And you eventually see, like, the AI tries to help ask a question. And you're like, okay, that's a question that's asking doesn't quite. Well, I just had it. So it's funny to me. It's like, yours was actually pretty good. But most of the time, I'm just like, it cracks me up. What this did is, I didn't ask it to, like, make up questions.

13:08I asked it to go search through, like, Facebook questions, Facebook groups, discussion boards, whatever else, and find questions people have asked about it. Yeah. Somewhere. That's kind of maybe the difference. Yeah, that might be the difference. I mean, some of the questions I asked were good. And, like, it was just fun seeing some people's reaction to it. And it's like, sometimes the questions are kind of like, this isn't really a great question, but.

13:30Here's one. This is going to be kind of a short one, hopefully, for us. It's better to use a whistle, voice, or hand signals for hurting. First off, hand signals are not going to get you very far. Hand signals are very early in the training. And they kind of just slowly fade out a little bit. You can use them for certain things later on, but they're very rarely used, I feel like. So, hand signals are a big part of it. And the voice is early on, and you switch over to whistles, and then you're only using voice when you get close to you.

14:02Yeah. Because the dog likes the whistle. You switch the voice with close work. But the dog prefers the whistles. It's so much clearer to them. And normally it's much more precise, but. Well, that's true. We know it's a mind reader. We know we got to say. Hey. You know, they're nice spies always just stop listening. Because they are the smartest breed in the world. Hold on, hold on. The smartest breed in the world. So, obviously, they can understand.

14:32I just noticed that you have your whistle on you right now. Let's hear two come-bys in a row. Pause. So, one. Pause. Then the next. Okay. Okay. The first one was longer than the second one, I think. The first one was pretty close. But mine isn't about the lengths. It's that rolling over quickly. That's the sound. Woodrow's a pretty good guesser. Yeah. When he guesses right, the runs will go pretty good. I mean, doesn't? Yeah.

15:02He doesn't guess what happened. Woodrow didn't guess right.

15:07Yeah. Whistle's definitely the best way to go. They are a little hard to guess. If you can hear the whistle, it's even better. If you can use your friends to do whistles, it's the best. It's lighter, but the mechanical whistle is the second best. If you don't know how to do that, then the whistles and recommendations. We'll actually have a podcast here soon going over all the whistles and different options and things like that with somebody that has the detailed knowledge for us. Yeah. The goal is we're going to have lots of more guests on the show. We're going to get them in the setup now that we can accomplish that.

15:38So I hope we have that a lot. Whenever we do sit down and do some of these kind of questions, I think it's going to be a good discussion for us today. Maybe I'll give the questions to you guys next time so you have an idea of what to talk about instead of just throw them on. I like the – I know it's just like to just wing it. That's how he approaches his runs too and it shows. I have a free thought of a lot of things I do in my life. I'm like answering questions that are off the cuff. You've got the rest of it. Yeah.

16:07Hey, Allie's going to join us here. What's up, Allie? We got the princess with us. Okay. So our next question, and I guess I'll take the run with this.

Training Puppy

16:25What age is the best to start training with a puppy? That's a question we get all the time really. And so I'm just going to start training it. So in terms of like lie down of, you know, that'll do, that kind of stuff. You can start at three, four months old, walking it and all that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't really try doing a ton of training until you're 10, nine months old. You can take a stock a time or two after six months.

16:55But I'm kind of waiting. I mean, there's some people that are doing it sooner. And I'd like to have one of them on to be able to discuss that more. But what they're doing there, because they're doing something really well to be able to do that. Because I don't get as much, I don't know if it's the exposure aspect of what they're doing sooner. But I know you guys have, I know we got the Kiara and Tater or Scooter and Poe. And they're all eight months, eight, nine months old now. They're May. I'm sorry. They're May.

17:25They're seven, I guess. About seven. Seven months. And we've had them in the round pen one time? Twice. Twice now? They kind of did pretty good last time. So, yeah. I would say, I mean, wait a little bit until they're mature. If their tail's down and you're working on them and they're ready to go, then I guess it's probably okay. But I wouldn't do that unless you're like a legit trainer and you know what you're doing early. I probably wouldn't start one that early. Just because there is the issue, you could damage them a little bit, get them hurt. It depends on what kind of stock you got, too.

17:57Because a lot of times people do and they have a lot of stock, but they have the right type of stock, I think, that they're wanting to be able to do it with. And the right pen sizes and locations of what they're doing. And then, if you get them hurt early, it's tough. It's tough. I mean, you know, it's tough.

18:16Yeah, definitely.

Basic Obedience

18:20What basic obedience should a future stock dog have before livestock? Kind of in the same sort of vein here a little bit. I do a recall and a dam. And that's because, you know, like, oh, we've been doing this for. Two months, three months, just getting a down and a recall going. So, it's something you want. You don't necessarily have to have a down to start in the round pen, but it's nice to have.

18:51For sure. You're going to lose it right off the bat, but it's nice to have it there. Okay. A lot of people do the stuff, putting them on a barrel, doing their patience and stuff. But that's all. I think those things are great. And I'd love to learn more about those things. I think they can be really helpful, too, with kind of doing things. And then, I think, to your point of the down, the recall, leash manners and appropriately walking on a leash is also a great thing to have.

19:22Because you want them to have respect for you. And those things you can work on, which you want to work on with a leash. Yeah. No, I agree. And to help. Those are the big things I kind of do. Just have some respect for you. That's kind of a huge part of it. Yeah. You have a correctional point in because you've taught them the down. You've taught them how to walk on a leash correctly. And the recall, you've built in a little bit of your correction, which is usually, dad uses a growl. I usually like a hey, you is my kind of thing. It's growly.

19:52And something that's good, as soon as you get your puppy, the mother has been, had, when they're on the mother, she corrects somebody doing stuff wrong. So, starting right then with some simple stuff, to keep building on that is a great idea. The mother already started that. You just keep building on it. Yeah. And if you lock them away for six months, you've lost all that. So, I think going ahead and starting them when you get them is, you know, just build on that.

20:26So, you can build up to when they're ready to go. Yeah, no, I agree. That's kind of a huge part of it all, for sure. All right, next question.

Preparing for Novice Trial

20:37Should I train on cattle first or sheep first? I would say sheep first. Honestly, I'd say goats or sheep. And honestly, sometimes the goats aren't bad. Like, as a group of three and a round pen aren't bad because they're a little bit tougher. However, yeah, maybe don't group as well, but it makes the dog have to work a little bit better using their natural abilities of having to keep them together. They seem to be a little tougher hiding. So, whenever a dog, you know, you've got a puppy that runs in and grabs something and grabs the goats. They're a little bit tougher hide, a little bit tougher skin.

21:08So, if it happens, it's less likely to cause a rip or tear or cut in the skin. And they scream. They scream, so you get your puppy more excited. Yeah, it makes it a little bit better. They're less likely to decide to run into the T-post somewhere near a round pen or a pole and really hurt themselves. Yeah. They don't do that. They do have a little bit of self-preservation, so they're a great choice. You can do it with calves if you've got, you know, little bottle calves or something. It's doable that way. But it's just, for me, it feels harder.

21:40And even the calves have more power to hurt a young dog than even what the goats or the sheep do in some situations. When things get out of control, calves can run you over. Yeah, sheep can run into you. Hurt you a little bit. But it feels less likely if you get, you know, a 60-pound goat. It's the, you know, you're buying kid goats or whatever, even though they're not that big. So, you know, less likely to get hurt. Yeah. That's kind of the big reason why, for sure. They don't run as hard into you sometimes either. So, one of those two options. I know we do it on sheep, but that's because keeping goats here is extremely difficult for us.

22:15They like to escape and run away. And they're still running the countryside, probably. Could be. It could be. I doubt it by now, but you never know. We have some bear mountain goats, you know. They're on the mountain. Running away somewhere. Yeah. So, our next one is a really good question. Again, from BC Boards here. How do I prepare for my first novice trial?

22:40The best thing to do is take your dog as many places as you can beforehand. Because you go to a new place and the dog's excited, you're excited, and that's two bad things right there. And I was always told, if you know beforehand the trial's outrun is going to be 50 yards, have your dog doing 100 yards at home. And do twice as much at home as it can at what they're asking at the trial. That way, you're confident when you go out there, you don't have bad nerves.

23:12Yeah. Because, you know, usually the dog, you're nervous, the dog feels it, and next thing you know, you're a wreck. Yeah. That's kind of the thing is, this is a question probably pretty relevant to a lot of our listeners. And like I think of a few people, myself, it's just like, be willing to understand that it may not go very well. Right? Yes. It's probably not going to go very well. That doesn't mean that you're awful and you're way off.

23:42You're not doing anything right. It just means that's where you're starting out at. Right? That's what the, where we've all started at. You've got to mess up a few times to learn what you're supposed to do and get comfortable out there. So just going through that's a huge part of it. Just realize that it's going to be okay. And just find any kind of moral victory you can, you know, and build off of that. The one thing I say is that novice handlers, be prepared to leave the post and go get your dog.

24:16And don't be afraid to run to do it. I think it was Kelly's last year. I don't know which dog I was running, but they were laughing because I took off running. And it is fun watching dad run. Hey, I don't care how it may be funny, but the dog knows that I will run out there and get it. And get it. Yeah. And it stops a problem.

24:38Yeah. Especially like early on in our trials, you can let them just kind of go a little deeper and stuff. That's a problem.

24:45So sometimes you got to know the dog. Sometimes you got a dog that's like, eh, that's young. And it's like, okay, we got a little bit of a problem, but you know, you can shut it down. That's me. I know I can do that. Not everybody's got that ability. I know certain dogs like, okay, I can, if I can get them to shut it down, stop and lie down, we can go back on path. We can reset. We can reset. Some dogs, you can do that with young dogs. Some dogs, it's better just to go and try to fix it and keep it all right. Yeah. But it just depends on the dog that you got in front of you. And early on, yeah, just don't be afraid to go out there and teach a lesson early on. Because a novice, ultimately, it's not that big of a deal whether you win or lose.

25:17It'd be nice to win, but if you're not the end of the world, keep watching it. Top open handlers, Lyle's one, happened in Oklahoma City, different ones. Watch them when they're running their young dogs, and you'll notice they're not embarrassed to running. I'm not. They're not. To run and get my dog and correct it, and then we'll stop, you know. That way, the next time, hopefully, we don't have the same problem. But we're not creating a problem either. So, never be afraid to go get your dog. I've ran at the nasty finals, cattle and sheep.

25:50You know, so I'll find a nursery, ran an open.

25:54And the last child I went to, I had to go run out and get my dog because he stopped. He'd eat all over the food. Started to eat it, and then took a dump. And then I went and got sheep. So, you really can't go a whole lot worse than that. Young dog, which we call a young dog, is a four-year-old. He finally got out there to travel. Finally did what he's done. But he's not traveled. He's not traveled. It's a whole new world. They're not. So, you don't know what they're going to do. Yeah, it's just kind of like, I mean, any sports, really, you'll throw a true freshman out there on the road, quarterback at, you know, in the swamp or Baton Rouge or whatever.

26:31It's going to be a little tough first time to see the bright lights there. Freshman's a freshman. Whether he's 23 or 18, he's still a freshman. He doesn't have that many reps. Or 59. Whatever. He's still a freshman. Whatever. Yeah, still. He's going to make freshmen mistakes. So, yeah, go out there and just have to do the best you can. So, another question, kind of staying along those same lines, is how do I score better at trials?

Scoring Better at Trials

27:00This is a really broad thing, and obviously, whoever asked this, there might be some specific reasons, but generally, what I would say, the best practice is to give yourself the best setup going out there. I know Justin doesn't do this. He likes to wing it, but watch a few. He watches some runs. I watch your runs. I watch your runs. I watch some stuff. Some relevance of what I want to do. But have a plan when you're going out. Watch some runs before you.

27:30Think about, okay, this is how the sheep might react if I get here. Think about what your dog is probably going to do. They're a bit unpredictable at times, right? They make some stupid decisions. But ultimately, typically, if you run your dog a lot and you've worked with a bunch, you kind of know how they handle some stuff. Think about, okay, this happens. This is probably what she's going to do. And just be ready to face some of those challenges so you kind of have your mind made up of what you're going to do whenever it does actually happen. One of the main things is most novice go out there and run their dog, and they do not know how they're getting scored.

28:04Every opportunity you get, ask somebody about scoring. If you get a chance to scribe, scribe, because you start understanding how things get scored. If you don't know how you're getting scored, then how are you going to score better? You've got to know what you're going to do. You've got to know the lines. You've got to know, and that'll help a bunch. If we're talking about prep things, there's multiple things you can do. If we just start off with going to a trial, if you've taught your dog to look for their stock, I know what you'll see a lot of trials is people will bring their dogs up behind whoever sends their dog on an outrun in front of them.

28:42And we'll stand with their dog there to help them look and see the sheep down the field as they pick up the dog, picks them up, and starts moving them. That way they can see them to try to help those dogs learn. Especially you see a lot of younger dogs, even older dogs, people do that consistently.

28:57Sometimes you've got a dog that doesn't, they're never going to pay attention to whatever is out in front of them that's going to run. But you've got those kind of dogs that just, they don't care. They're not going to pay attention. They're not even going to care. But most of the time you can teach them to do that. And then the other thing is, is walking not sideways to the post or this way, walking directly, making a 90 degree angle if you're having to walk this way or that way. Or making a straight line up the field to the post from where you are, from behind the post straight into it. So you're walking straight to where the sheep are supposed to be.

29:27Your dog knows we're going this way. And those are things you practice. You can practice that at home. I'm walking this way. This dog knows we're pointing this way. The sheep should be this way. Those are things that you can work on at home that better prepare yourself for that opportunity once you get there. When you're doing outruns that are a little bit longer where the sheep aren't so close, where the dog should be able to see them. But those are important little key things I do every time. Because I don't take this leisurely walk to the post. It's always boom, or it's always just dead straight at it.

29:57And that's what I do. One thing I'll score a lot better, no matter what stock you're running, is flow. So if you can make them flow, and stop doing this irky-jerky stopping all the time. But in the same, but kind of going against that a little bit, one thing that will help you score better, especially if you're a novice, is to have it down. Yeah, having it down. Because, you know, you don't want to stop over and over. You've got steadfast down. But you want to be able to stop when you need to be able to stop, and that helps you a whole lot.

30:30That's a huge, huge thing. Yeah, yeah. Being able to stop when you need to stop is big. And create a really calm environment as much as you possibly can. Yes. Like, when you go out there and you're running, obviously a lot of it's uncontrolled, right? The sheep, you don't have any control over how they act, or how the set out is, or where the post. Like, there's a lot of things you don't have control over, but take control, make them listen to you as you're getting ready two or three runs before. Get your dog out, walk it, pull it on the leash, make sure it's not pulling on you, it's respecting you.

31:02Have it see the sheep and show some engagement, like you're ready to go. Okay, it's time. That kind of stuff is really valuable. Yeah. That way you can get your dog, your excitement level down and your dog's excitement level down. Because if you just jump him out of the trailer, first time he's ever been away from home, and you're excited, and he's really excited, expect a wreck. Yeah, definitely. And there's going to be a lot of wrecks early on in novice. What would you say the thing that maybe most helped you score better yourself?

31:37Like, once you kind of learned it, it helps you do better in your runs. Anything you can think of? Oh. So, the thing that helped me was knowing how I was scored, that way I can stay within those parameters. Yeah, there's lots of judging videos we'll talk about. There's some on the USBCHA website. There's stuff like that as well. We have owners where we go into some stuff, too. There's guys' podcasts, talking about some of it here. We can do a whole podcast just on the judging guideline. There's a lot, like the USBC and the ISDS guidelines.

32:11Everything's simply based off of it. One of the big things is, going from novice all the way to open, is learning. I keep going back to this, but it's about flow. And if you can get your sheep at a slow trot, you can go anywhere in a straight line, and it just works. But that takes time. And it's something you have to work at. It's not just going to happen. But once you get to that point, you're going to score up there really consistently. I don't mean run, because running is chaos.

32:43And I always say I like a fast run, but really, it's just a slow trot. If I can get a slow trot, I can go anywhere on the field in a straight line. You've got total control. If you start walking, if you walk them, you're okay, but they tend to walk. You're working back and forth, and it's just that slow trot. It's hard to get into it, but once you get there, you're golden.

33:08Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I agree. Just finding that good pace and really being able to focus in on your stock. Like, if you have your dog, you can trust it enough to down, to do what you ask it to do. You can kind of focus more on the stock. Your runs will just get better and better and better. You know what I mean? And learning how to work stock, get into the pen, read your stock. When you get at the pen, we'll have tons at the pen, read your stock.

33:36All right. And we'll have time for one more question. We're a little over 30 minutes right here.

33:43So.

33:47Sorry, I had to kind of figure it out. Now I'm trying to remember what he's doing. I wanted to go back there and look at the other ones. He's jumping ahead, looking back. Yeah. He's not prepared. I want to find the best ones here. I know. I like to be like you every once in a while, Justin. Yeah.

34:04Now, the one thing is this year, I don't know if Justin will be able to. And nobody knows. He has a new baby daughter. So we don't know how much he's going to get a trial this year. But hopefully I get to go a little bit west this year. So we'll do some western trials, too. You know, my hope is somehow to qualify Woodrow for the finals early, be able to get him enough points to qualify, and let's go to the nationals in California. That'd be cool. Yeah. Be able to do that with him. You know, it's been a dream of with him.

34:35This is the closest shot I've ever had early with him. With gaining those eight and a half points in October was the most I've had that early. It's almost basically the most I've ever had ever with him. So that's. Yeah. I've gotten like 12 points with him. Well, you got a shot. You got a shot if I can just get stuff put together. And that'd be cool for me.

34:56Okay, again, I will go to two more. I got kind of two tied down right here.

35:01Is the dog's instinct enough to win trials? The answer to that? No. Takes a lot. I love work. So if he's going to this, stay slow.

35:14And the instinct helps. The dog's natural abilities help you. And there's dogs that are just phenomenal. And you're trained that makes them better. They can still be top end dogs. The top end. Then they have all the talent to be there. Some dogs that have less talent. Yeah. Less stuff. And you've been able to train them to get there. But having a dog that's got it. Sure makes it a heck of a lot easier. It depends on the class. And I got to throw this out there. Casey had the little red puppy.

35:45At the last trial. She ran. Not compete. If she hadn't. She didn't look like a beat in the class anyways. She would have won the trial with the puppy that she hadn't really. It had a down. And semi. I mean because she hadn't worked a couple times. Yeah. But it was really off the stock and stopped well. Yeah. Yeah. She would have won the trial. So yes and no. I mean. I mean obviously there is talent levels. But you get a lot more than just instinct. There's a lot of training that goes on. You get to do the stuff we're asking.

36:16Yeah. Especially at the highest level. Novice you can get away with a little bit. But outside of that you've really got to have. You just got to have a talented dog to be able to get there. You can't. It's hard to do it with the. Once you get to. The ranch. You got to have some training on the dog. And anymore the classes are getting so competitive. That yeah. You got to. You got to put some time in the dog. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Last one. How do experienced handlers fine tune. Stop. Stand. In trials.

36:46So. Kind of lead them to a trial. I like to at least spend a week. Maybe two. Kind of want to plan to really get the dog. You know. Listening really well. Especially to that kind of their whistle that I blow. The kind of slow down whistle. But really we don't want to. We don't want to stop and stand a whole lot really. We want them to pause and just be under control. So I think it just is a matter of repetition. If you're at the point where you're trialing. Like making sure like. Especially as soon as they give that whistle.

37:16There's a growl or there's something right behind it. If they're not listening. You know. Just they know that hey. We got to be on our top behavior right here. And dialed in. Yeah. Yeah. And I have a steady up whistle. And then I got. You know. Down. And I don't like to stop my dog a lot. So we're using a steady whistle a lot. Just to slow him up. So I don't have to. Yeah.

37:39We don't have a true stand. We kind of just let the dogs feel it out there. As they're kind of working through. Like do they. They just slow down. They check up. Then we'll just move them to the next whistle. And that's fine. It's honestly better to stand. Because you don't have to get back up and down. And you kind of push into a little bit more. We got a great little guest down there. Yeah. Yeah.

38:08She's hollering some stuff at us. Give us some directions. Yeah. But yeah.

38:14I don't. I don't want to overstop the dog. So. But I do want the down. When I say. I want the down. When I ask for it. I expect it to happen. Yeah. We don't. Of course too much. Nova. I forget a lot when I'm shedding. I can ask her to stand. And she'll stand. And it makes it so much easier on her. But I forget that a lot.

38:37Yeah. It's kind of funny too. How sometimes I realize. That I kind of develop. Some of my commands. Without even really knowing it. Like I'll blow. Kind of an extra whistle. Or a softer whistle. Before I really blow my day. Or like to slow them down. And so. Just as you're speaking to them. You kind of develop. Just some. Stuff unintentionally. Because you kind of have this habit of doing it. Does it make sense? Yeah. It makes sense to me. I don't know if it makes sense to everybody. But. As soon as you start doing those things. Especially with a whistle. You start to see those things over time. Not in the beginning. But once you really start.

39:08Getting a lot of time in there. You start to see those things. This is so key about. Needing to be able to do the whistle. Is that you can just. Operate a lot quicker. Right. The whistle. I can just. I don't know. I just think it. And boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Like one. Two. Three. Four. And I can. You know. One. Two. Three. Four. Wrong one. I don't give the wrong ones. I don't know what we talk about.

39:33I'm pretty on top of it. But your brain just like wired. You can go really quick. At the time I can say. Come by. I could blow a couple different whistles. You know what I mean? Yeah. Come by. Then back away. Then stop. Come by. Stop. There. Come by. You know. Move. Move the way you want. Just operate a lot quicker. And more efficient. Right. That's why it's so important. To be able to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Whistles are much quicker. Yeah. All right. Well. This is a good. Kind of mailbag episode. We got. There's a hundred questions here. That I have. And I can get some more too.

40:04So we can go through a lot more over the next few episodes. Maybe ask a guest a couple as well. And thank you guys for joining us on episode 47. This fine podcast. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.