Battle of Wills

We worked on driving distance and straightness today and I got into a battle with Soda but I won. :) I was trying to get to push the sheep through posts (as a goal for me) and she would. not. go. straight on the walk-up. It went something like this:

1.) Walk up!
*goes away*
2.) LIE DOWN! GO BY! (back to where she was so she can push the sheep through the posts)
*tries not to take the inside flank and tries to come ALL the way back around me
3.) NO! LIE DOWN! GO BY
*Takes the inside flank.
4.) Walk up!
*goes away
5.) NO! LIE DOWN! GO BY! (Back to where she was)
*may or may not take the flank... wherein I may have to repeat step 3, depending
6.) Walk up!
*goes away
7.) NO! LIE DOWN! GO BY! (back to where she was)
*may or may not take the flank....

anyway, no joke, I must have done this whole thing like 15 times and each time she wanted to bend to the pressure and then finally... magically, she figured out I wasn't going to give up and walked up straight into the sheep and pushed them through the G.D. posts! Then I called her off and got her some water as it was hot as balls today.

Then we started (seriously) adding whistles and she was very sulky about it! I don't really understand why, but she was all bent out of shape about it. In an attempt to get her moving a little bit I rustled a sheep up a bit and then she flew in to bite (I can't do this like I used to be able to. She's not afraid to nail a sheep anymore!) and bit the holy hell out of her own tongue! It bled kind of a lot and I was a bit worried, but there were no chunks missing and I was reassured that it will be okay. Yay!

It was a good lesson, if for no other reason that Soda learned a hard lesson that I'm no longer letting her get away with stupid shit just because she finds it a little uncomfortable or because it's not what she wants to do. This was a battle of wills and I'm proud to say that I won! w00t!