I was nervous about this clinic, my fourth at Sherry's. I rarely approach any coming event with anything but a sense of impending doom, and one would think I'd be used to being pleasantly surprised by now, but no. I imagined my dog would be awful, my accomodations miserable, my friends wouldn't show up, my acquaintances would be hostile, and it would rain.

Well, it did rain, mistily, the first day. That was acceptable, but the bitterly cold wind was somewhat wearing. Sherry had a new bit of equipment, a set of little resin sheep and an Aussie of similar size, fitted with magnetic shoes, to move about a magnetic whiteboard to illustrate the points of her preliminary lecture. A Herding Barbie completed the ensemble, equipped with a real bamboo pole, although she would have been more in scale had she had been sawn off at the knees.

We all huddled in the magnificent new car port of Sherry's unfinished log house, and slowly froze to the marrow of our bones as she explained exactly what she meant by getting to head, inside flanks, and how to correctly set up a parallel drive. It was all pretty familar to me—the words, anyway—but I knew that once I was out there, it would be very different.

My first work was on cattle, Sherry's big, sweet, dogbroke training cattle. The first thing Bonnie did was break her stay and race across the pasture like a bullet. I ran out and made her down before she got to the cows. An unpropitious start. It was my fault, because I had been working Bonnie on George's principles, wherein the gather was not set up on a fixed down and send, but on a gradual release. Now Bonnie had gotten the idea she had permission to gather as soon as she got into the same pasture with the stock, and being overwound from waiting for her turn, she defaulted to her warp-nine gathering speed. One of the things I had worried about was the difficulty of trying to combine two very different training techniques and not confusing my dog, and here I had done it already.

We worked on widening her gather at the top. It would be fair to call the technique mechanical: drop the dog, walk out near enough to the stock that you can beat the dog to them, and just before the dog turns too close to round them, push them out. It took three tries to get the hang of this. The third time, I threw my pole towards that spot, and actually hit her, which was a first. She winced, kicked out, and kept going. The fourth time (all on the same side), I waited to see whether she would respond to my verbal "out!" at the top, and she did. Then we fetched around a bit as a reward.

Now it was time to watch the other participants, who were mostly about like me, with dogs which either could barely drive or were about ready to start driving, or who needed remedial work before they could go back to driving. There were a couple of round-pen dogs, but no really polished handlers. It was all Aussies today, either working-bred or partly working-bred. I didn't see any dogs without drive and talent, although just how much talent was usually obscured by the handler. But that was why we were all there.

It's always so much easier to see where other people are late with their cues, get in their dog's way, forget to praise, and don't read their stock. From watching trial videos I had started an almost unconscious habit of muttering commands under my breath when I thought it was time to give them, which is no doubt obnoxious to the other spectators, but really good practice for me.

My second work of the day was on sheep, light sheep to polish her rate and control. Bonnie broke her stay again in just the same way at the beginning. This wasn't the best way to begin a relationship with these sheep, and they remained flighty and unsettled. Bonnie was never in any danger of losing them, but was always too close. We worked on her short way t'me, the very thing we failed at the last lesson I'd had there in the summer. With intense effort, I managed to convince Bonnie to get to head on that side, finally. The next flank was only a big effort, and the next, less effort. She was doing it! Once she was flanking freely to head, we quit for the day. Whew.

I shared a motel room with Gwen and her dog, at the only motel within any reasonable distance that allowed dogs. Our stay was enlivened by not being able to open the door without the help of the desk clerk, and by Gwen's dog being fixated on stealing Bonnie's rawhide although she had no intention of actually chewing it.

The next day was colder. We worked again on squaring up Bonnie's flanks on the light sheep, and for my second work, on setting up the drive (on heavy sheep). Sherry pointed out that my problems on the drive were caused by my turning my dog into the sheep's heads too late. Once I followed her instructions to the letter, Bonnie turned in, took the sheep off me, and walked off with them like a pro. We drove half the length of Sherry's (huge) arena, and when we reached the end, I even flanked her around behind me and to head in a competent way. I was so elated I yelled Yahoo! which spooked the sheep. But Bonnie didn't miss a beat and gathered them up again in a moment.

And that was my clinic. I got the useful tips I came for, and improved a bit, and came home happy. What more can you want?