Finding “There”
For the last month, we’ve been doing drills in the field. Often stockdog trainers talk about helping the dog ‘make a picture’ in their minds about what is expected. Often the drills consist of moving Molly back behind her stock in hopes that she’s start to make the picture that being there was right. The entire time, I understood the point of the exercise, but something seemed to be missing. Like when you’ve told someone to complete a task and forgot to tell them how. It dawned on me Friday that we’d spent a lot of time telling Molly where not to be, and never bothered to tell her *where* to be. While doing one of those lovely fetching exercises, i called out Molly’s name when she hit balance behind the sheep and got her to take a few steps toward the sheep. Followed quickly by “There!” and a very quiet lowtoned “good girl” because I couldn’t help myself. She was doing good. I repeated the same little game a few times and called it a day. She was getting it, but i didn’t want to push it. 2 times to make a habit. 
On Sunday, we headed down to The Dalles, Oregon to visit with ARPH rescue friends. I also wanted another point of view and Erylon has always been wonderful about pointing out the little things, and the glaring errors that I’d not seen. While it takes 2 times to make a habit, I wanted to get an opinion about my “there” experiment before i started to work it into my list of expectations. We ended up playing with a lot of different skills, and her There.
I watched Erylon work another dog in a series of round pens connected by a through-way or alley. The sheep were fetched in the larger round pen. Then the dog was asked to wait at the open gate, let the sheep pass along the alley and into the smaller round pen. The dog was then asked to wait again and then sent around to fetch the sheep out and back along the alley, into the large roundpen. While this sounds simple enough, to a young dog being in a small space with sheep is very stressfull and intimidating.
So much so that 1 little black dog would not enter the smaller round pen. She couldn’t flank enough to use eye. I think she even thought about making a bark, but then dismissed it. Stress on a young dog can do a lot of long term damage. It’s important to encourage and support the dog without forcing. So for the first 5-6 times Molly and i walked together around the little round pen and moved the sheep. After the 6th time we changed out from heavier sheep to a lighter batch. We also decided that since she was being so deliberate and stopping herself at the gate, we’d dispense with the wait. It was unnecessary. Then she’d take a few steps in alone and then stop, so I’d take a few steps to support her forcing the sheep out. By the 9th time she was moving the sheep smoothly from pen to pen. She was deliberate without being creepy. She showed eye, but not inappropriately.
After a long break and some playing, we worked in a smaller arena. I noticed a few different things right out. She was much more thoughtful and deliberate. She was more comfortable around the fences. So much so that when i sent her Away to Me to fetch up the sheep instead of getting fast and running at them to avoid the fence, she went out along the fenceline. It was as far out as she could get. She was also more aware of me; which was important and new. We worked the same half moon exercises as we’d been doing at Fido’s, but assigned a There and made a bigger scene about not letting her bomb around. Every well placed There got a “yes”. Over flanking or attempts to come to full circle got a noisy flag on the ground and a “hey!”. We also mixed in a few short fetches in the middle of the pen. Repetition can breed gripping. Gripping is bad. 
It didn’t take too long before she was walking her sheep along the fenceline by staying behind them. “There”.
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