2/22/11

Charm has been getting the majority of my time here lately. Today is no exception, she is starting to work with me instead of fighting me on this driving. Today I started out with some simple fetches then made the fetches some what harder. I placed a rubber tub of oats in the pasture. Ha-ha now we got something going on. Those steer did not want to leave that grain. They seriously wanted to keep their heads buried deep in that tub forcing Charm to hit heel to get them out. Heeling isn’t Charms specialty. She prefers to jump up and grab the tail of high on the back leg. This tactic isn’t working well for her today. Two would come off the tub and circle as she was lifting the remaining three. The three would then lift as she tried to push the remaining two and so on. Her dilemma here was she couldn’t effectively lift all five head at the same time using her normal tactic. She finally put on her brave face and walked in cool as a cucumber and hit a heel with a near simultaneous bark. They all five lifted towards me. At a trial this would have been a time clock killer. Hummmmmmmmmm” wonder if I could get her to drive them off that grain?

I don’t know how other people train their dogs to do certain things, maybe I should learn. Still I look for techniques to enhance my ability as a handler to get the most out of these dogs. Every thing they learn in a working situation, helps us as a team, to perform different tasks efficiently. Now how am I going to get Charm to understand I want her to *drive* them off the grain? Quickly I put two leashes together and attach to Charm’s collar. We start walking towards the rear of the cattle as they are eating the grain and I’m whispering “walk up” Good girl “Walk up”! She is now tugging at the end of her leashes, trying her best to get at those steers. Sppppppppp “walk up” good girlllllllll. Because of the reach of the leashes she could only do a very low heel. The steer would then kick out at her but go way over her head. Soon all five are moving away from the grain. Wow this worked far better than I even imagined. So I reversed the order of things, instead of having her fetch them off the grain then go into drive mode, I had her fetch them to the grain, then drive them off. I added several pieces of baling string to make a long line. This stopped me from influencing the movement of the cattle. Soon Charm was pushing or driving the cattle all over the pasture. I think we just had a major break through. This is the first time she has enjoyed driving practice.

1/23/11

The start of another wonderful day training, its kind of cold this morning and the ground is just starting to thaw a little. Well at least its not going to be all muddy.

This morning I took Kiki and put the cattle into the pasture. They are healthy now so are roaming freely around the two pastures outback. Two was in the pasture with the horses and I wanted them in the pasture with their brothers. Kiki is surely a bright spot in my life. She makes these simple tasks look so mundane. Within seconds they were sorted off the horses and in the pasture next door. Her reward for a job well done– was a pat on the head while I was muttering “Good Girl” as she was placed on the chain in the waiting area.

Charm was loaded ready to go today. She must be full of herself for doing such a good job yesterday. She was just giddy lying down waiting for the outrun command. I set her up on the Bye side and gave her a Sppppppppp.  Charm was off like a rocket, going as wide as the fence lines would allow, turned in deep on the top side and lifted with confidence. I could see a new demeanor in her today. She was so full of life, fluid in her movement, every thing was business, with a fun element added in. I placed my back to the fence line and gave her an “awayyyyyy” flank.  She took off counter clockwise looking like a old pro. The moment she caught the lead steers eye she wanted to return to balance. “Away, away, away” I commanded vocally. She hesitated then its like she recalled yesterdays lesson and passed between me and the stock in the appropriate direction. Wow was I ever pleased. I went right into the pasture gave her a big hug, some pats,  good girls, petting was lavished all over her. She was just beaming her body was almost quivering with anticipation of her next command. I decided to pull her around and start a short drive. She was taking her inside flanks so well I was sort of in awe. Its now almost 11 am and its starting to snow. SNOW??? Holy smokes I didn’t ask for this snow!!! I have only a few more days to get Charm ready for her début in her first trial.

Once again Kane just makes every thing look so easy. His flanks are crisp and sharp. We do both vocal and whistle commands and he is Johnny on the spot. The only reason Kane needs this is to keep our timing and understanding of each other. Now its really snowing hard, we called it a morning.

Its now 4 PM and snow has stopped for a while. We received an even four inches of white powder snow. What the heck I have a big trial coming up and a dog that is needing to drive. Once again I use Charm for the chore part of this job. She expertly fetched the cattle from between the horses, plus off the round bales of hay. Just a few weeks ago this task would have been over her head. She has matured a lot in the last year and its showing through her work ethics. Once she had them away from the horses they had to pass through the gate to the pastures next door, I decided to move away from the gate so she would have to cross over in front of me to ensure they went properly through the gate. This worked like a charm!!! ha-ha couldn’t resist! We then went straight into a drive. Charm took them across the pasture about 50 yards and so far I’m still in the pasture next door. Wow what a difference a few days can make. Charm is still enjoying her new found method of controlling stock. I think she is starting to realize that the stock isn’t getting away, they aren’t stampeding into the next county. She is still hesitating on her inside flanks. This shows she is thinking and trying to do them correctly. Once again I covered her with loving pats and praise.

2/24/11

OMG it’s a winter wonderland here. We received 14inches of white powdery snow since yesterday. The wind is whipping this snow around and in some places there is drifts over three feet deep. The gates are very hard to pry open this morning. The wind cuts you like a knife and the gusts of wind sends blasts of snow all over you. It stings anywhere its touches your bare skin. It only takes a few minutes before you realize jeans will not protect you for very long. After letting the dogs run for about 15 minutes I was an ice cycle headed for the warmth of the house. The wind had filled my barn floor with snow. The dog kennels well covered in white even though they are inside. Thank goodness for their hay filled closed in area inside their kennels. Once I warm up and put on layered clothing I’ll come back and work a few youngsters.

Charm isn’t as tall as the snow is deep in areas. She is running full blast and it looks like  snow dust spraying across the pasture. The wind is carrying this snow dust clear across the pasture to the fence line. Charm don’t seem to mind the -10 wind chill factor. Even in layers, with a heavy beanie under my hat it is still freezing out here. We are not going to work long today. Her outrun was beautiful. Once I caught a glimpse of her face I started laughing at her. She was almost white with all the snow covering her.

Soon as she finished her outrun we went into a drive. Now all of a sudden these steers don’t want to run anymore. The snow is having a big effect on them. Without adding a lot of pressure they only amble slowly through the snow. Charm wanted to go around to head, yet I’m holding her back. I was wishing I had of thought to bring the long line. Well lets use this as a form of teaching patience. Not just for Charm, for me also. Slowly but surely we marched them across the pasture. Now I’m shivering and so far everything has been a positive training experience for Charm. I decided to call it a day right here. I have many sidewalks to shovel and I know this will be her only work for today. Hmmmm, she didn’t dive into the stock tank today hahaha. Fresh grass hay for everyone to sleep on tonight.

A Little update

After watching the weather report on TV I decided it might be prudent to put the calves in the barn tonight. possibly  going to be seven below zero. They said add the wind chill factor and it could be like 22 below. That’s cold!!!! Anyway I went out in the dark, whew it was very cold. Almost instantly my breath froze to my moustache. The steers and horses are hiding out near the trees I believe. I thought of using Kane; but Charm is so in need of experience, so I figured why not and called Charm out of her warm kennel. Sent her on a Bye command and she zipped out of sight. She went to the side of the barn then across behind an old truck sitting out there. Appears they weren’t in the trees at all but using the old truck to buffer them from the freezing winds. They haven’t been placed inside the barn now for over a week o now this is no longer a mundane type task. I must say Charm kept them in complete control, no gripping no overly pushing, just clean calm work. Because of the darkness, I decided to just let her fetch them into the barn. “GOODDDDDDDD GIRLLLLLL” Charm. I gave her an extra ration of raw beef, scratched her ears with a gloved hand and told her— nice job good night girl.

2/25/11

When I got up this morning it was still one below zero. I turned around and went back to bed. Around 7:30 am the dogs all started howling, next I heard sirens going by. Appears none of them froze last night because I heard four distinctly different howls. I still want to sleep in but it isn’t happening. Oh well I have cattle in the barn that needs to get to water, so I start bundling up.

It is absolutely gorgeous outside. Blue sky’s forever. With the white snow the brightness is intensified twenty fold. Even with the cold biting my ears I was taken aback, and had to breath in the sight of this beautiful cold winter day.

Charm is loving this being the main working dog here of late. Her whole demeanor has changed. Instead of rushing to get the basket ball, she is standing by the gate ready to go to work. The other dogs don’t even exist at this point. Today was no exception. I had to admire how much progress this little girl has made in such a short time. I opened the gate and gave her a cross over flank, she hesitated and looked at me for reassurance. Once again I told her “away” quietly and she passed in front of me, very calmly lifting the cattle out of the barn with ease. This little exercise turned immediately into a drive. Today Charm didn’t get nervous about the steer rounding behind the pick up truck. She walked behind the steers and took one single inside flank that pushed them into the pasture where I wanted them to go. “That’ll Do Charm” I said  in a cheerful voice. Charm came running wiggling, showing me how much she appreciated this opportunity to work for me. This is now becoming a fun project for me and Mz. Charm, yes it is.

Kane once again showed that these steers are much to easy for him. Or is it he just makes it look so easy? He is taking every command without any hesitation at all. He is in total absolute control. There is no challenging him, no kicking at him or anything. They just accept his control without question.

Afternoon

I got on the tractor to take a round bale of hay out to the stock. I decide to use Charm to keep the cattle off the hay until I had it in place. No, no Charm if you fetch them they come to the hay! Plainly she wasn’t understanding this new method of working stock. Gosh they wanted to come and yet I didn’t want to let them come, Ummmmmm what’s up with that?

Walk up “walk up” Good girl—-hesitation. A are you sure look from Charm towards me. Sppppp get em! Really are you sure look? Charm was truly confused with this method of working off the tractor. Once the steers are eating on the hay bale there was no way for Charm to come between the steers and the tractor. I stopped the tractor and step off where I could see Charm and the cattle plainly. I left the tractor running and set the roll of hay on the ground. The steers are eating on the round bale, so I decided to try to build Charms confidence a little. Walked to the barn and got a few pieces of baling twine and tied them together. I didn’t want to confuse her by letting her get around into fetch position One end of twine tied to Charms collar the other wrapped around my glove. “walk up” Sppppp “walk up” Charm seemed to like this. She walked into the larger steers face and he had no intention of leaving that hay bale. Sppppp “get em” she lounges forward gripping him on the end of the nose. He turned bumping the others so nothing but heels was turned toward Charm. “walk up” Sppppp “walk up” Charm is a high heeler and I’m not exactly sure how she don’t get her head kicked off, but she got them moving. I tighten up on the twine so she can barely reach the heel, that way she was heeling low. She kept hitting heels until they were off the bale and moving across the pasture in a drive, I let got of the twine, its still attached to her collar. I got on the tractor as fast as I could and still keep a eye on the action. Charm has them under her spell now and me being on the tractor isn’t seeming to influence her actions or presence on the steers. They still want to turn and come to the bale but Charm is pushing them at times backwards. I place the bale in the feeding area and gave Charm a full flank command. She very eagerly went around to balance and fetched them to the bale. Whewwwwwww adding a tractor with food made this a brand new adventure. Maybe tomorrow I’ll put some grain in the bucket and see how that works LOL Like I said always looking for a way to teach. It’s around 14 degrees outside and Charm is panting from this little session. Must have been very nerve wracking for her.

Only two days Training left before we head to the Winnemucca, NV Cow Dog Trials.

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!!!

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!!

I got some video of us working the Come Bye inside flank.  To cover the obvious; yes i can see now that the camera needs to be moved to the left.  oops!!

Here is the first video.  Remember this is the 3rd time she has done a Bye side inside flank and the second time she’s done them successfully.  So there is a lot of hand-holding here.  I want to build her confidence.  So there is a lot of leaning over and you can’t hear it, but there is lots of Yes! and such.  She seemed really unsure still.  i want her to go under the stick.  i want her to come around in front of me, but as we played more i was afraid that she would start associating the inside flank with coming to me instead of just coming in front of me.  I realize the difference is small, but Molly gets into these habits. She remembers and associates things. After a while i was not asking her to Come Bye Here not so close to me, but also behind me or a bit in front – depending on where the sheep were.

This is the next time we went out on the same day.  In this video she’s much smoother.  She doesn’t care if the stick is out or not.  She doesn’t need me to draw her in, just use the command that she’s already associating.

We also worked in a different and slightly larger sized pen. I think next weekend i’ll work the Bye side in the corner of a field. Different places so she doesn’t just associate this little chore with one particular location.

There isn’t any video for the Away side, but i’ll start that this weekend.  She did really well on the bone shape excercises.  Just moving them gently from one pen to another.  She had a hard time at first understanding to push them past me and into the other pen. So when she was about to pass she sheep to bring them back while we were all still in the alley, i told her There and then Walk Up again.    These yearling weathers were happy to keep walking to the pen… so that helped too.

I think for a lot of people, when there is epic failure we tend to go back to what is comfortable.  2 steps forward, 1 step backward.  Maybe it’s just me.  But  i’m a huge weenie.  However, last weekend when  I took Molly down to Fido’s i decided to not have a real plan… just walk in and do what came to mind.  No training goal per se, just go in and do and enjoy doing.  Let it flow?

We did a few fetch drills.  She’s not bending in on the Bye side as much anymore, but still inconsistently on the Away side.  Which is ok. Time and consistent work will work that out in time.   I’m not too worried. I am starting to send her off my side though.  She’s using me as a crutch otherwise and i’m tired of it.  I don’t wanna walk that much anymore!

We did some pen work.  Which she did well at with one caviot: she’s unsure about going around if i’m behind the gate.  behind the fence is fine, behind the gate makes for a black and white chicken.  Considering though that this is the 3rd time i’ve ever worked take pens with her, she’s doing not so badly.  She also put sheep out into the arena for other people.  Not quite and AKC style set-out, but put them out the gate nicely and they did happen to land around the right place. Yay – since i’d like to try to use her as a setout dog sometime.

We also did a baby crossdrive as per directions below:

In this image, i am yellow, Molly is purple and Sheep are red.  Though instead of going out and around me like in the pic, she’s walking right in behind the sheep because they’re already at the fence.   There are two ways to look at this and i’m sticking with the lemonaide version:  she walks up very nicely, slows on command as needed and after 10 or 15 steps does a lovelyjob of peeling them off the fence back to me. Which for a speed demon is a minor miracle.  The reality version is that she walks up very nicely, slows on command and cannot seem to take a flank toward me.  Tried calling her in Come-Here, Away-Here.  Tried just Come Bye so she’d flank out behind me, and she takes the away to fetch them in to me.  So, instead of perpetuating a bad habit that we can talk to Elsie about it on Wednesday.  When she did it last weekend i tried it twice and she just couldn’t get her head around it.  When i tried it this past weekend i started telling her to Lie and then the flank hoping that it would catch her attention.  Not so much.

However, in a brighter spot, in an open field she’ll push them off me and drive them away straight off me.  She’ll catch the eye and just keep on going.  I’ve had to reinforce the Walk Up which has worked well as she’s forced to Walk Up walking away form me.  So she’s not associating the Walk Up with walking toward me.  Now to just teach her that covering flank. OOHHHHHH Elssssie….

At least i had the good sense to ask for help before i totally break her this time! LOL

Oh and nothing new with Simon.  I might put him out on Wednesday for kicks.  He has a drive so maybe i can figure out steering a little better with him.

No matter the size of your hat, occasionally everyone needs a second set of eyes.  If you can video yourself and watch it, that is super helpful.  However, if you have have someone with a different (or better) set of skills watch you, you’ll find that honesty to be super uplifting.   If you choose to have someone be your second set of eyes, look for someone who is good at constructive criticism.  There’s nothing worse than doing what you think is not horrible work and having someone tear it apart without any empathy or alternating reinforcement.  You’re feeling that Post Work High (or low) and there is someone inadvertently tearing it alllll down.  Not awesome.  Not everyone can do this well. Some people do it naturally.  Some people have to learn and practice and will sometimes trip and fail.  Even the best instructors sometime have a lesson with someone else.  Usually they have couple of someones that they go to.  Is perfectly natural.

Lesson on Wednesday was pretty awesome.  Lessons are generally structured like this: i show Elsie what i’ve been working on.  She gives me feedback and then we either fix where i’ve been botching the homework or add a new component.

Recently, i’ve been thinking alot about how we set the tone of our working time.  In a perfect world we would start with a beautiful wide sweeping flank  – that is in reality more often a combination of Molly breaking her stay and my running to get infront of my sheep.  Doesn’t set a tone of calm, thoughtful work.  Everyone is panting, i’m cussing, the sheep are freaked out… bad bad bad. Instead, I’ve started to have her walk in with me and down her about a quarter of the way in.  I walk into and past the sheep and have her walk up (not run) across the field and we all move quietly.

In our lesson we did out new little habit and set the tone to do our homework perfectly.   When i tried to get to walk in too far… she felt the pressure of the sheep and wouldn’t walk in so far as to split them.  She read them perfectly; I don’t mind being ignored when i really deserve it.  This is the beginning of our crossdrive.  Walk up a few steps and stop.  Restart, walk a few steps and then go do something else.  If i push too hard too fast she may develop another bad habit.

Our outrun work is another matter.  Not depressing, interesting.  Molly’s outun should look like the first drawing.

Instead it looks a bit like this.   She feels my pressure, pushes out and then comes in until she feels the sheep and pushes out again.  Which by the way would be not horrible if she felt the sheep before she started to move them.   So the plan is to start shaping the outrun while it’s small by stepping into her as soon as she takes off and get her in the habit of bending out wide.  Eventually i’ll step in less and less until she doesn’t need that crutch anymore.   The trick will be figuring out when she’s ready for that…  This has probably been going on for a very long time.  I’m so glad that Elsie caught it.  That second set of eyes…

Today was another day of Hitting for the Cycle.  To review: Hitting for the Cycle is how we’re teaching Molly the aspiring sheepdog to make small flank movements instead of big (fast) sweeping gestures all the time to move sheep.   So if I and the sheep are in the middle of the circle and sooner or later, Molly should be stopping on each of the points.Someday.

Today was not a note of perfection, but we made a lot of progress.  I decided to try to break this down into smaller, less frustrating pieces in hopes that i don’t end up standing with the sheep in the middle of a wildly circling Molly.  That is was abject failure would look like.   Last week, we started in the corner and moved out to the center of the fenceline.   Which was very successful, if I do say so myself.  This week was staring on the center of the fenceline and perfecting both sides and a center stop.

We were rockstars on the fenceline.  I didn’t realize that as I was stepping away from the sheep to push Molly out further, that the very polite sheep were staying right behind me.  Or maybe i registered that the sheep were with me, but not that we were away from the fence?  Either way,  before i realized what was going on we were 35 paces away from the nearest fenceline and rockin’ right along with our exercise.   We really were doing the diagram for the most part.  Occasionally my timing was off and she’d going from i end to the other (so say from North to South or 1st Base directly to 3rd), but no big deal. The only ugh would have been a full circle.  No circles.  No cheap shots.

i’m not really sure how to describe what happened.  I thought i had broken Chris’ sheep.

For this session, we changed up the rhythm of the work.  I think I was rushing  a bit when i was working her last weekend in the corner.   This time around when she got to the right place I didn’t just stop her, down and then restart.  We stopped.  i drank some tea, then set my cup down and sent her.  Then downed her and watched some of the Karen Child clinic on the field across the way – the view of the big field is great from the arena next to the Barnyard.  Then sent her again, and downed her.  Watched more of the clinic… and paced off how far the sheep were from the nearest fence.  At one point a sheep lied down.  Which to be honest, freaked me out a little.  I thought that somehow having a sheep lay down while the dog is around might be a sign that I’d soured them!  So then I started using it as my marker to see if Molly was disturbing the rest of the sheep when i sent her.  And then another one went down… and i downed Molly and walked around the group looking for signs they were physically ill.  Since they all looked ok, I just kept to the schedule.  Poor sheep.  Bored to um, tears?

We finished off by moving our group in a little babydrive all the way across the field with only one instance of Molly trying to get around to the heads.  Why is it a babydrive?  Because the sheep walk in front of me, and she wears behind me.   Her wear is really starting to come together.  I’d like to take a moment to congratulate myself for not totally screwing that up and letting her just do, despite my habit of trying to control her every move. Click/brownie to the handler.   She’s catching the sheeps’ eye nicely and adjusting her wear for different sized groups, finally.  She’s done this on large groups, on a set of three last week and a set of four or five this week.  I also noticed that she is in fact directing the lead sheep.  I was watching the sheep instead of fretting about Molly, and when the group was starting to bear right I let them go whereever while i kept moving forward.  Molly turned he lead sheep back to my line. Eee!

In other news: the bombing off is getting better.  I sent her off to drink twice in the sessions, but i’m finding that sending her off to drink when things are calm seems to cut down on her bombing off on her own randomly.  We tried shorter session times, which allowed her to take a break. However, when i bumped up the session times the stress behaviors were back.  The new stratedy is to cut down her session time by just sending her off to drink for about 30 seconds and bring her right back.  Last week we had to do 4 of these.  This week, only 2.  So far I think i’m on the right track for her.

gosh that’s a lot.

This weekend we started Hitting for the Cycle.  I tried to jump in and do the work in the middle of the Big Field.  I found that I was having a hard time preventing the annoying circling behavior that i’m sure i’ll be dealing with when she’s an old dog.  It’s been my experience when something doesn’t work right (for whatever reason), it’s best to break it down into smaller more manageable bits instead of accidentally installing bad behaviors.  I’m sure there are places that idea doesn’t work, but for now its’ working.

Instead of just moving to the next step down, i decided to break it down into the smallest component we had experience with.  Molly has become very successful at pulling her sheep quietly out of corners.  I figured if she can do that successfully, it’s reasonable to think that we could use the same concepts to learn the foundations of Hitting for the Cycle.   Not only was she successful doing small stops when the sheep and i were in the corner,  but she was going all the way to both fences instead of stopping about 3ft off the fence.  Also, she was working a lot farther out and after a little reminding… starting taking her downs.

This might leave your wondering what this has to do with Yogurt.  Which is fair.

After finding this little bit of success, i was feeling pretty good about myself and decided to move away from the corner to the center of the fenceline. That went pretty well also.  I found that a key to breaking the stress cycle was occasionally doing a fencline fetch and then getting back to it.  As well as sending her off to drink.  I was finding that since i was stickless, i was having to step into her and use my body a little more than i was really happy with.   After taking a bit of a break… it started to rain and i decided to munch a bit until the shower stopped.  When he shower stopped, I still hadn’t finished my snack.  As we walked back to the field, i had my stock stick in one hand and my favorite Starbucks strawberry/blueberry yogurt parfait in another.

What i found in working her, while snacking in my yogurt I had to use my stockstick when it was important.  I couldn’t very well fling it around… i might hit my yogurt!  I inadvertently tried to send her with a mouthful strawberry and found that “a-wah ta meh” doesn’t make much sense to Molly.  I had to slow down and be deliberate about where i put her and when i sent her.  In slowing down the process, her stress level was lower and she wasn’t as much The Perpetual Motion Machine.

After I finished my yogurt, i decided to hold on to the cup and try switching corners.   The nearest corner was about twenty feet away.  Molly has always done the best with less direction.  For instance, if i just want her to quietly bring the sheep along i’ll just shush her a little (and sometimes just not tell her to Stay) and she’ll quietly pick them up and bring the sheep along.  With that in mind, I started walking to the corner.  When i could hear the sheep behind me, i told her to Walk because i wanted to see if we could transfer this to other things; like little Drives.  As the sheep went past me, we walked about seven feet off the fence and the i noticed that the group was starting to weave a little.  Out of the corner of my eye, there was Molly trying to come out and catch the heads… but a quick No and then with the weaving again.  As it became less pronounced, i noticed Molly out of the corner of my eye again, and the group weaved back toward the fence. Then a little away from the fence.  Then a less pronounced weave and i had enough time to notice her doing a tightly little wear as she moved her sheep!

Yes folks; we made progress on sheep thanks to yogurt.