Stella Continued

As I said before, Stella has always known she and I were meant to be together. She hasn't always known that she and I were supposed to be partners though.

Through the initial stages of her training, which got an almost too late a start, she was nothing short of intense. I had no idea how to train her. This sheep-herding thing made smoke come out of her ears. Almost literally! I struggled. She would dive in and bit. I would yell and stamp my feet and she dove in faster and harder. I tried to get between her and the sheep, she went faster with more and more smoke coming from her ears and her feet.

When she was about 15 months old I took her to Dal and Kate's for a lesson with Scott Glen. I had entered her in their trial but was still not sure if I would pull her or not. I was struggling with the aforementioned smoking problem but also was struggling with getting her to get up once I got her stopped. Scott helped me get her up on her feet and she started to show a bit of sense. I was still waffling with whether or not I would put her in the trial.

The day of the novice novice competition came around. I watched a few of the runs and knew that after our lesson with Scott, Stella would be capable of doing the work except the outrun which was too far for her. I decided to enter her. I went to the post with Cynthia. Cynthia held Stella's leash while I walked closer to the sheep. Then I yelled "Let her go!".

Just prior to us walking to the post, Cynthia and I discussed whether or not she should drop Stella's leash or take it off entirely. I said to just take it off.

Cynthia unclipped Stella's leash and off she went. I waved my stick a little at Stella when she started to come in too short, and Stella bent out ever so nicely. Around to the top, and I asked her to stop. She did. "walk up", she did. I repeated the "Lie down" followed by "walk up" all the way down the fetch. It was beautiful. My babydoll looked gorgeous. Stylish and controlled. In my enthusiasm I decided to push her farther than I knew she was capable, just because. We started to turn around the post and then that calm cool collected little sweetheart turned into the whirling dervish right before my and everyone else’s eyes. The chase was on!

Stella doesn’t like it when I laugh at her, but I continue to tell this story. That day my little Derv smashed head first into a tree. The bark went flying, and it didn’t slow her down one iota. Dal jumped on his 4-wheeler while I ran, screaming of course. Oh, just before I started my run to catch my little sweetheart I heard the judge say ‘thank you’. With Dal’s assistance we caught Stella and tied a farm leash on her, a piece of baling twine. I got her to the tub and left the field. Later that afternoon I was sitting in the handlers’ tent watching the other novices run their dogs and heard someone talking about the dog that ran in the morning who took the bark off the tree with her head. I turned, smiled and said, “that was MY dog!”