"Made You Blink!"

I awoke at 5 am with my brain in full gear thinking about dog training. This past weekend at the trial and with Marc we identified a issue with Jake that has cost him alot when it comes to handling cattle. Yes, Jake can make cattle move, yes, Jake has bite, yes, Jake is ranked as a top 20 Cattledog (really he should be about 12th, he has not gotten credit for all of his points). But, as Marc describes it, "He blinks and the cattle read it as weakness". Well he probably doesn't actually blink, but he does release pressure when he shouldn't just by turning his head a touch or diverting his eyes away from the cow. This little lapse in power is just enough to open the door for that cow and may result in the cow trying take Jake, run past him, through him or flat out jump him which occurred this past weekend. Marc calls it a lack of nerve and that he does not have to power to stay in there.

So, this is the plan, I am going to treat it as a issue that we created and try some exercises to try to remove that moment of release out of the equation. My thought is that early in Jake's training when he was a hand full and wanting to cause fights we may have inadvertently created this habit. It also maybe the natural dog or it was something that came easier then you would like, but either way it is a weakness and ignoring it is not going to make strengthen.

We have 90 days until the National Cattle Dog Finals, if we can get this glitch worked through, it will increase the chances of success at the finals. It's kinda funny, I can hear the peanut gallery, you can't make a weak dog strong...well I've been told of a multiple National Champion Sheepdog that started out anything but strong and had to be taught to hold pressure. If a Big Hat can get it done, why can't I?

Call it wishful, call it conceited, but I gotta be positive or failure will be inevitable, truth be told I don't know if I can make things better, but we won't know unless we try, that's dog training.