We had a busy weekend,but i don’t want to rattle on too much.

Lets start with the good news:

Molly found a puppy that she liked.  Which sounds harmless enough but up until this point I’m fairly sure she thought all dogs smaller than her were rodents.  Since it was a warm day after working cows, i tied her up to the fence a good distance away from the puppies so they could play without accidentally interacting with epic destruction.    Being good playful puppies, they ended up rolling around over to Molly anyway and while she didn’t play bow (as she was constrained) she inspected them and allowed for a little teething.  Apparently puppies are ok if they submit themselves for a TSA style pat down first.

Molly also moved a group of 30 lambs and mommas.  It was only one paddock through a few small spaces to another paddock and i kept a line on her because they’re babies, but she didn’t need the line.  She got out to the fenceline, stopped nicely at the top and did a really nice job of rating and patiently waiting for little lambs to get up on wobbly legs and get with their buddies.  Then we had to hold them off while the tractor went through.  She didn’t need to be tight to get the messege across and they settled in nicely to her style – which was more eye than she normally uses.

The other news is more mixed.  Elise would tell you that she did very well for her third time really working cattle.  That she gained confidence as we went along and was quiet and thoughtful most of the time, but didn’t lack power. Elsie said she was very pleased with her work.  And all of that is true.  It is also true that she hasn’t been on stock in six (?) months, but that has never stopped me from having high expectations of her. LOL  She was flat for a good part of our lesson, didn’t take her flanks and was refusing to do unassisted take pens.  I know, i know, 6 months off stock and cattle are new – i’m being unreasonable.  She did take on a stinker cow and got him to play along a little. I had to remind her to play fair and back off after knocking him in the nose a few times and turning him, but that is nothing new.  She’s young and inexperienced – there are a lot of new habits she’s developing.

And being honest, i put her on sheep just before we went to work cattle and i got after her.  So part of her being flat was my fault.  She is a soft dog, which is great with little lammies but also means she doesn’t bounce back quickly after a correction. LOL

It looks like there is more cattle time coming up in the next few months, and apparently i need to start working my dog again.  So that will be the spring goal.  Who needs cable TV, anyhow?

Since it’s been a while since i really worked Nutty, i made a point to video as much as i could.  Also, i was really looking forward to working her.  I know it might sound odd, but i missed working her.  It’s a bit Zen-ish for me.  Anyway, we used some heavyish sheep and started putting together the pieces of a take pen.

Starting out

So in this first video, we can see that she’s a bit unsure about getting in the pen. It’s a confidence thing that will pass. Before anyone asks, no i’m not dragging her or choking her by her collar. I’m not even gripping it. Just slid a finger underneath it to help guide her. Now, what i *should* have been doing was having her stop on the 3rd pole (back left) instead of between the two poles. But whatever. For the first while i used her to put them out of the pen and then used her to put them away. The last few seconds are interesting as at first she can’t deal with the pressure, then after releasing the pressure comes back in towards the sheep and finds success in moving them. Which is a nice little win.

Here, i’m using my body to push her out on the outrun and bring the sheep back. More importantly, we’re not doing ring around the handler in the take pen as i’m backing up to the right place to get the idea of her sheep going into the pen correctly. And she’s not coming into the pen to do it.

We’re starting to put things together here. The sheep come out rather smoothly, and we start the process of moving along the fence.
And finally, sheep come out, move around and put them away.

you’ll notice there is a lot of me lieing her down and Liieee and all that. the last video where we had a discussion about not crowding the sheep didn’t record properly. But after that we were fine and repeated this a few different times changing direction and such.

Superfun!

Outtakes:

When Nutty just had to poop…

But they’re supposed to be in there! (the joys of a smart dog)

Really need to be smarter than the stock to do this….

Since i don’t compete much, i don’t get to brag very often. More importantly, Molly’s work has taken a backseat as gas prices have gotten higher and other obligations are taking more time.

If you’ve ever met Simon in all his spazzy glory, this will make a lot more sense.

Last Sunday, Simon and I worked with 8 reactive rover clients (10am to 3pm).  I was concerned that this would be too long and too much pressure, until i tried to put him away in the car while i had lunch.  He was so disappointed and confused; leaning back on the leash with his ears back the closer her got to that car.  He wasn’t feeling the pressure at all.  What’s better – his body language was perfect with every client.

So what’s his job? His job is to serve as emotional bait of sorts. The dogs in Reactive Rover show stress in a variety of ways. If they are super stressed then we stand across the small parking lot from them and the other dog does Look at That. Alot. With one client i sat down with Simon (the other dogs stress level actually went down when i sat) and Simon and i reinforced High5 – really we played PattyCake. For some clients they needed a dog to approach that wouldn’t go batshitcrazy, but show an appropriate amount of friendly interest. Happy ears, friendly tail etc. Some dogs tried to approach, but it was too stressful to approach face on and Simon would sit facing me, back to the dog. In some cases having him move around on the other side of the parking lot is helpful… so we do trick training and heel patterns. Or we walk back and forth like ducks in a shooting gallery.

The dogs have a variety of histories. Most have had unhappy dog/dog interactions – either beater or beatee. The point is to give them a dog that sends them all the right signals and allows the other dog to gain some confidence. As well as setting the handler up to better read their dog and learn some techniques to help them help their dog.

For the Stimulus dog – the emotional bait – it seems to be pretty exhausting. Once i finally got him in the car at the end of the day, he sacked out. Got home, ate, pottied and i didn’t see him again until 8am the next morning. Very unusual.  He was exactly what those dogs needed to get started and they were exactly what he needed to continue to learn better habits.

So while he’s probably retired for cattle work, this work is super rewarding and he seems to really dig it. YAY Simon!

Here’s an article on Stimulus dogs. This particular person uses a stimulus dog for individual cases, but the idea is still the same.

http://companionanimalsolutions.com/blogs/canine-assistants-for-dogdog-fear-aggression-cases

What do below freezing temperatures, snow and a USBCHA trial somewhere else equal?  An empty Farm where i can do whatever i want.

I honestly believe that because we can only do lessons one time a month… the video is the second most impotant teacher.  In all of these… my mouth is open entirely too much.  I watch them over and over and Molly hides her head under my leg every time i say Lie and i think “OMG seriously, Amy shut up’.  It’s just sad.

My goal was for the sheep to always come out calmly.  Which they didn’t do, but after about the 4th repetition it became obvious that this was a light sheep thing, not a crazy Molly problem.  Best case scenario she’d be going out and hitting all the corners in her pen before exiting, but until the last video i wasn’t really pushing it – and it didn’t change the way the sheep came out.  They were still all ears back and hussed off.

We did add a new pen to out pen to pen exercises.  So now it’s from the sorting pen up top, down the alley to the lower sorting pen and then into the small puppy pen.  Realize that i’d have to stop motion all the time to be in the pen everytime she changes pens.  And truth be told, i tried it and it just messes everything up.  I can direct her pretty well from out of the pen in small spaces.  My hope is to just continually add large spaces. So for instance as space allows next well add the barnyard or the Large Puppy pen.

In these exercises i’m also working to have her drive the sheep from me and up the alley.   This particular sheep was set to be sold the week i had them. So they were in a wierd place and when they tried to group to me i made myself inhospitable.  So they were generally irritated with everything.  Anyhow it doesn’t always work so well when i give her the wrong command.  If you watch (and yes here we post what goes horribly horribly wrong), you’ll see that sometimes we do the fetch circle because the master controller can seem to make the helpful word – down – come out at the correct time.  So as you’re watching this imaging i said “down” and she stopped and dropped her arse and then walked up and everything was fine.  It’s not what happened, but that’s what i’d like you to see.

If you watch this you’ll see that she’s taking her Bye flanks as habit.  While taking a flank as a habit is probably a bad habit.. if she’s doing it as a habit because she understands the premise i’m ok with it.  She’s not as ok with the Away flank in the opposing pen when i’m not in the right place, but she’s getting there.  At least she’s stopping and taking them, which is a big step.  Molly has always had a problem with proximity, so these ‘little steps’ are big steps.

i’m also working on keeping this fun and reinforcing. She’s super uncomfortable with the pens – remember that everything, the stock, the fences and me – exude pressure.  She doesn’t do pressure well. It doesn’t help that the more i watch these, the more i realize that i’m not letting her control her sheep.  Lots of Lie’s and Lie Downs in all the wrong places.  Which leads to alot of the blown off downs. meh.  Something for next week.

While the rest of the world seems to goal set at NewYear’s…  i like to goal set just before the holiday season.  Somehow it seems that if i can keep moving towards my goals during the hurricane that is the holidays with my family (Thanksgiving is the big family holiday here), then i can really accomplish anything!  Stock goals have always been challenging for me.  I really don’t find myself being especially competitive with Molly.  Maybe it’s because i’m really just grateful she walks in a straight line at all. Generally comparing how she does to someone elses dog doesn’t really click to me.  I suppose i think more like a golfer – i just want to beat a course.  I want her to go over that hurdle that seems the hold back many weekend herders in the eyes of some ‘real’ stock people – is she useful?

However, as a weekend herder setting up the spaces we work to test her usefulness isn’t as easy as it sounds.   Even though i have essentially free reigns, the very nature of Fido’s being a training facility can create barriers. I have to be thoughtful of the other people that may work the same sheep after me as well as not stealing sheep that others would wish to use.  Therefore, there is a distinct need for flexibility and creativity.  I can’t fake more sheep, but i can set large flock work aside and work similar skills with less sheep, or different skills necessary for smaller groups.  For instance, gate sorting one sheep off is doable.  However sorting off all but one sheep – especially sheep that are used to being in large groups, can be challenging.

Eitherway, after speaking with Chris (and will confirm with Elsie at the Wednesday lesson) the goals are tentitavly as follows:

• Continue Drive and Outrun work.  Clean work vs distance as one will lead to the other.
• Train to use Molly as the pendog at the June Trial.  Chris has very high standards for quiet sheep in this position and we will need to demo ability before the trial.
• RTD/FTD Title &/or AHBA HRD as finances and time allows

In being out of town for the last few weeks, we’ve not done a lot of work.  However, our long term homework was 100 perfect outruns.  When i left we were at 3.  I’m happy to report we are now at 13.    YAY!  We also switched sheep up for other people over the weekend and Molly did a great job of fetching them out of the arena quietly and moving sheep in and out of pens.  She’s still a chicken about her takepens, but not as much as last time.  Confidence is building, one atop another.

It seems like the successes i enjoy the most are the ones that I don’t do on purpose. The thought process is like this: oh, well this location is sorta different… what can i try here? Oh, there she goes. Lets see what she does.

No joke. Now don’t think that she just takes off and causes messes. She downs and recalls nicely about 90% of the time, even at a dead run in large spaces and has good manners in small spaces. When I say ‘oh there she goes’, she’s taken about 4 steps and I’m noticing something new in her body language. Usually in relation to the sheep, but sometimes in relation to me. I like to capture those little moments of instinct and mess around with them.

We spent some time in our new favorite big field with Lisa and my other favorite red dog, Brynn. Brynn did beautiful drives… and we were struggling with inside flanks today and did some great small flank & circle work. Molly got to multitask, drinking in the stocktrough and holding the sheep at the same time – one of her favorite things. In finding not so much success with other skills, I watched her do this little multitasking stunt and decided to try asking her to walk up from this position. She was already paying attention to them without me anywhere in the sight-line. Also in standing next to Lisa and Brynn, the sheep would be less likely to fetch to me. Like holding a side… sortof. I only asked for 4 or 5 steps before i called her off, but she was beautiful. Nice well mannered and thoughtful steps with a little eye.

Our other fabulous little surprise was on the way out of our new favorite field. Since Fido’s was doing their Ranch Trial Training there were sheep in new places, including the alleyway to the field. I noticed that with both Brynn and Molly walking in the alleyway, the sheep were driving nicely. Not freaked out, or really even showing signs of stress at all. I asked Lisa to close the gate behind her and started the process of having Molly fetch the sheep to me and then swinging around and pushing them off me. First just walking with her as we pushed the sheep and she steered (i’ll have to take a video, it’s pretty funny). Then having her walk in front of me, taking her walk up and then lying her down when she was about to flank around and calling her back to me.

At this point, she seemed to really get it. Lying her down and calling her back is a new thing, but she was totally in tune with what was going on. I remembered how Elsie had told me that my homework was to start the walk up as she got in front of me in her inside flank. So she’s be walking perpendicular away from me. However, in a 8′x20′ alley, there really wasn’t enough room to guarantee that she’d take the flank. Instead of risking a bad experience i decided to improvise. While she’d not be learning to take them away from in front me, it seems that something that can be installed as we go.

At one point in all of this i noticed that once she got about 10′ away she kept trying to fetch on the Away side. She’d get just far enough to turn the noses before i caught her and told her to down and the recalled her. After the third time, i’m not sure what happened but instead of saying That’ll Do, Come just came out of my mouth and she pivoted and came around. Heads turned and i wasn’t about to call her back… so Walk up. And Up and off they went.

So AWESOME. I repeated, but was too chicken to try to Away side flank. It’s still soft and i need to keep working on it. Next weekend.

I tested this new game on different sheep in a similar space, and repeated the exercise. At first she was a little unsure as we had inadvertently gone from superbroke puppysheep to the light trial training sheep. Despite that it didn’t take her very long to get her head around the larger flightzone. Whhheeee!!!

Fido’s can be a busy place, which i normally find totally fascinating. However today was a busy day but not so great for people watching.

Today, was all about blowing up patterns. I tend to get into habits; what pen i work in, what sheep i use, what exercises i do… and my dog is quick to learn patterns. I started my day with my normal pattern – one nice big outrun to fetch up my sheep and then start inside flank work in the small pen. I tend to use take pen, walk about and then repen to break up any stress.

blah blah Blah.

Thankfully, today Fido’s was busy and Karen needed my normal field for a lesson. On to greener pastures.  After hunting about and pondering where to go next, Chris suggested moving some of the sheep in the Cattle Pasture to one of the pens. Which was a great idea, but once i got out to the pasture i discovered a much more interesting setting: a field not too big and not too small with 15 or so two year old wethers who didn’t seem to get worked very often. Ohhhh!  Fresh Meat.

Often when one works at a training facility, large groups can be hard to come by.  Usually, there are very functional, utilitarian type reasons for that.  I have been spoiled in that we’ve had to opportunity to work on private property where having fresh sheep for other people or having sheep that are too broke for trial or similar isn’t really an issue.  With that experience, i *love* working larger groups than your average trial arena  and take advantage of the opportunity every time i can.

Large groups provide a different kind of challenge.  Think of sheep like grains of sand; each on it’s own is it’s own entity with it’s own albeit small, mass.  Singularly, sand is annoying.  As stated correctly by Aniken Skywalker: ” It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.”  However physics teaches us that the more sand we pack together, with it’s singularly iddybitty mass… the more gravity that packed group exudes.   A lone sheep has very little presence and a lot of flightzone, but a large group of sheep… those little presences packed together create a force that can intimidate a dog without even challenging it and often the flightzone contracts.

Taking this as on opportunity we worked on flightzones, directions, covering and rating. Which i didn’t really realize i needed to put so much effort into until i sent Molly on her outrun and realized that the sheep were coming to me at a speed less than a dead run and more than a walk – and it didn’t really look like they cared i was standing there.  I could see the newspaper headline: Woman Trampled by Flock of Sheep Under the Direction of Dog.  Because as the sheep passed by me,  Molly was already truckin around to the other side to block them from taking off through the (closed) gate.

The flank work – tradition circle flank work as seen in Hitting for the Cycle.  I’m finding that Molly is very clear what direction Come Bye is, but Away she’s not so sure on.  The large group is helpful as they will hang out in the group and be harder to move when I move or when she moves.  So when i step away from the group to redirect her, my sheep don’t freak out.  They move, but they don’t send stress signals and try to take off somewhere.  I also started moving my flanks closer to the fence.  Molly likes to speed up at the top, which usually leads to her over flanking because she’s moving so fast she can’t feel the pressure of the sheep changing.  Girls got wicked tunnel vision.  She also speeds up along the fence on occasion.  While speed is how she puts out power, i want to start putting her in situations where she’s going to have to problem solve some new ways to exude power.  I want her to have lots of tools, and i want to learn how best set her (and future dogs) up to learn different instinctive tools.  As she approached the top, or the fence i gave her a conversational Lie which seemed to hitch her up just long enough to realize that she was walking inbetween the sheep and the fence and neither the fence nor the sheep tried to eat her.

Miracle, right?

I also tried some of my superfancy inside flanks on the Bye side; so i stand against the fence, the sheep mob attempts to press me like paper and Molly comes clockwise around the sheep toward me, then inbetween me and the sheep and finally looping all the way around to cover.  The first time, not so much in the covering.  But by the third time she not only had it down, but was heading out wide along the fence so she’d not have to run allll the way around to stop them.  Next weekend will be stopping her and walking her into the group.  That should be interesting…

Fall has come to the valley… and it really is a beautiful thing. In any given day there are showers, rain and sunshine. The leaves from the maples and poplars are changing color, giving the hillsides a patchwork look in reds and greens. Thankfully, the walnut trees won’t loose their leaves for another month or two. Which gives me some cover when pups have to go out. To add to the joy, my dairyman neighbor across the river has decided to move to start moving to hay feeding in the winter instead of corn. As this is harvest season, he would normally be harvesting corn directly across the river from the house and I would be searching frantically on line for the side effects of doubling or tripling the recommended dose of OTC Claratin. However, in only having corn in the south fields and making hayrolls in the east fields closest to the house… i’m not trapped in my house. I’m actually enjoying the warmish evening on the deck with the smell of fresh cut grass, watching the headlights of the machinery do their harvest dance. With all this good weather, i’m way ahead on flood preparations and am still getting in my sheep time without the need of hip waiters.

I was really pleased with our lesson time. It seems that often when it comes to lesson time we don’t always put forward the best example of what is going on during our practice time. This time was different. Molly showed off the inside flank work she’d been doing; including her little OCD habit of doing her inside flank work by herself. Elsie didn’t seem to mind it, and since she’ll still stop and change direction on command… there are worse habits she could have. I didn’t name her The Perpetual Motion Machine as an act of irony.

Our homework for inside flanks is to solid up the Away side. That will come with time and considering she was not interested in walking into the sheep from that direction at all during the last lesson, it’s ok that she’s taking a little while. On the Bye side, our next step is to stop her in front of me and then have her walk up and push the stock away from me. 3 steps is the goal, but i think the first trick will be getting her to turn and walk into the sheep since she’s been moving them sideways off me. I’ll have to play around using a few different sets of sheep and locations. The alleyway seemed to be working well for us.

We also talked alot about outruns.  What i’ve found seems to be happening with Molly is that in working to set her up for a correct outrun, i’ve inadvertently taught her to start her outrun by walking directly into her stock.  Whoops.  To at least stopping the perpetuation of a bad habit, i quit ‘setting her up’ for outruns by just having her walk in and around the stock with me and then just letting her naturally cover.  Where her outrun on command is tight and fast and generally not awesome. the outrun she’s doing naturally is wide, more square and thoughtful until she gets close to the top.  When she makes the turn into the top, she speeds up and can’t find balance (because she’s doing mock 9) .  The suggested solution was to use a steady, which we’ve actually taught as an Easy or Lie.   I can already see the difference.  I also had to make a slight change to how i was pushing her out.  Previously we were walking together and i start her out on the Away side outrun, push her out by bisecting her angle and then start to move back to where I was to receive the sheep.  The new version is very similar, but instead of returning to my previous line to receive the sheep, i’m supposed to go back to her original place.  The trick is going to be remembering where she started from!

Apparently, this is called The Push.  There is also a Pull. While it was described to me, i think we’ll address that after i’ve tried it a few times.  Its’ hard for me to make a picture here without a picture in my mind to call on!  But we’re gathering up all these exercises, putting them together and will probably be toying with versions of them all winter long.

We’re off to the Vashon Island Sheepdog trial on Sunday.  Good luck everyone who’s running!!

More inside flanks. When Elsie told me this would take a while to get down, i thought she was trying to make me feel better.  Yeesh.  On the upside, i’ve worked Molly on the Bye side in a few different places and she seems to be getting more solid.  Her Away side still needs work, but she consistently improving.  In this last session, i used less of my voice on the Away side.  She’s always learned best by physical cues, so i wanted to start getting the motion down first instead of having my words confuse her.

We did that a few times and broke it up the session by doing some take pens.  She’s a little hesitant to walk into the pen by herself, but i’d almost rather her to be a little hesitant and turn her up, than have her bolt in there and constantly be trying to tone her down.   At least right now and assuming that she’ll gain confidence with experience.  Honestly, my biggest fear wasn’t her going on, it was the coming out.  I really didn’t want the part where the sheep come out to be pandemonium.   Sheep doing 90miles an hour trying to get anywhere but where they were.  I understand that will happen with some sheep regardless, but I wanted her to get an idea of what i was looking for the first time. She’s a first time learner after all.  Teach her a bad habit and she’ll do it forever. 

After doing the back and forth – inside flanks then take pens and repens – i think i got a little over confidant.  I’m not sure how the picture in my mind looked.  Maybe that was the problem, i’m not sure i had one.  I wanted to see if she’d do the work in a larger space.  Which she will, eventually.  What i really didn’t plan on is the part where the sheep leave. Whoops… and to add insult to injury where she’s really fast, she’s doing exact what i’m telling her to do repeating ComeByeHere over and over sounds a lot like ‘faster faster faster’.  See what i should have done was stood either close to corner so they’d head up the corner and she’d stop right in front of me, or stood further from the corner and had her push them into the corner and stop. This seemed like such a good idea at the time. heehee oh well.

To continue the comedy, inbetween my inside flank and take pen/repens a very nice woman, Lauren i think, came up and asked about that very cute little dog i was working.   She’s puppy hunting.  She made some really nice compliments about how Molly worked and how i was using my voice. EEE!!!  Since i was still standing in the sorting pen with Molly and sheep, I found I had to stop our conversation occasionally to turn Molly the other direction. You see she’d broken her stay and was doing her inside flank drills without noticing that i wasn’t actually involved.  So, instead of stopping her i just turned her the other way and she started doing the away side flanks.  Remember, the ones we’re struggling with?    Apparently the correct command isn’t ‘away to me here’, it’s ‘hey, Obsessive Compulsive.  Other way.’ with a little hand gesture.  Who would have thought?