And behind the back
Flanks; inside, far away and behind the back!
I started today putting Molly in with the same medium (read here, totally fetchy, but not quite sofa quality) sheep as we used in the lesson. To review we’re trying to do inside flanks. Typically a flank is half a circle with the handler at one end of the arc and the sheep at the other. The dog goes out along the arc from the handler to the sheep and the sheep run like mad to the handler in a straight line. Each arc direction has a name; counter clockwise is Away to Me or Away, clockwise is Come Bye or Come (also known as Go Bye, but i use Go around the house for other things). An inside flank is an indication to the dog to complete the circle, as opposed to just creating the initial arc. When we’re teaching the inside flank, we use the term Away to Me Here or Come Bye Here. The inside flank can be used for alot of purposes, but the best use to describe is when you are standing at the gate surrounded by sheep and need the sheep to go somewhere else or they will trample you at the gate.
I started first by asking her to do some things that were familiar… flanking in the 4×4 pen. But i not only encouraged her to circle, which i almost never do, but also to stop behind me and flank on command. She got the hang of it pretty quick. After a bit of that, I started occasionally putting myself back to the fence and encouraging her to come to me. Come as a command is not what i use to call her to me. However, everyone else she interacts with does so she knows that Come is like Here. So while her command to complete the flank – Come Bye Here was new, it wasn’t totally foreign. i just put emphasis on the word she new and less emphasis on Bye. In time i’ll add the emphasis. After encouraging her to come to me i wanted to add some R+ to her coming in front of me. My hope (above all hopes) is that in encouraging her to go in front of me and then letting her do something fun, she’ll start to drive to get in front of me by completing the arc. Work backwards through the behavior chain, if i’m remembering correctly. 
She’s happy to come in front of me on the Bye side for now. So we’ll see how this works.
After doing the Bone/Dumbbell Exercises below, I also tried this theory with the yearling weathers as they are lighter than the girls… WAY BETTER. Still not a complete flank, but they weren’t bent on being with me. I could see the difference in her confidence.
When it came time to put the medium sheep away i had Molly push them off the gate then bring them around and out the gate. The medium sheep live in the pen that is just off the sorting pen at the other end of the alley. So the draw is to that end of the alley. The sheep take off that way at a nice slow trot and Molly went right down at about the same pace and stopped at the end of the alley/entrance to the pen. On a whim, i called out her flank and to my surprise… around she went nice and slow and back up the sheep came back into the 4×4. Which lead me to send her into the 4×4 with a walk up, then flank… and out they came and down she went. Why is this important? Well… for one, because the last time we tried this at Fido’s the speed of choice was fast. For two, because she took the flanks i called out. And for three because i stayed up at the 4×4 pen the entire time. So YaY!
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