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

Simon doesn’t get a lot of airtime here.  As a general statement, this is my training journal.  However, none of this would be possible without Simon.   You see it was Simon fetching the neighbor’s horses out of our field to return them in the dark that led me into working dogs.  I wanted another heartbeat in the house and he needed a place to live, 6 years ago last month.

Above all else, Si (pronounced “Ss-Eye”) is chief caretaker/greeter in charge.  It doesn’t really matter how you feel about dogs, he doesn’t care.  At the ARPH/ Seattle Kennel Club rescue booth he was often on his longline carefully inspecting pockets for munchies, then would sit infront of who ever had them.  Didn’t really matter much if they were in motion.  One year, a woman approached him at the booth pet him and then burst into tears.  He looked just her dog who had just passed and she needed a set of ears to scratch.  He knew it too, just curled up right next to her and let her cry on him.

When Molly was recovering, she kept falling off the bed. However, keeping her on the bed was the easiest way to make sure i got her outside in a timely manner at night. So despite a deep dislike for sleeping on the bed, he sucked it up and for a full week Molly slept between us on the bed. He was miserable. She still worships him. Go figure.

Don’t go and think he’s all soft and gushy.  He’s tough enough to move just about any cow and is plotting the demise of the raccoon who has foolish;y chosen to nest in the maple tree on the back of our property.  He’s the reason I happily camp where ever i want thank you very much.  Not because he’s dangerous, but he’s 24″ and 70 pounds trim.  He’s totally approachable but most folks don’t try hard.

The irony is that it took almost 20 minutes of my sitting perfectly still for him to approach me the first time we met in Spokane.  On the first approach he was pretty close and i stuck out my hand for him to smell and he pee’d and took off.  It took a long while for him to figure out that i wasn’t out to get him. Not that anyone would know now.

So happy adoption month Bubba.  Not sure exactly who adopted who, but at this point I don’t think it matters much.

I’ve really struggled with this post.  Sometimes when writing i feel a little like i’m posting to two masters; the Training Journal concept and the very public nature of a Blog.  Which, when things go great, are great. When they don’t go as well as hoped, it can be hard to really publicly call a spade a spade.  It puts one in a  position in which they need to look past the appearances and really see things as they are.  In sticking with wise advice from smart friends, lets start with what went right instead of doing a post in chronological order.

On heavy cattle – Molly was totally obsessed with keeping her cows together and found that she could use this obsession to work together with another dog who’s obsession was to move them – anywhere.  So where the BC was working on the outside of the roundpen and occasionally going in for the heel and getting the cattle moving, the two girls kept the cows moving along nicely in a group – the BC in charge of forward motion and Molly dutifully working just off the fence in side the pen and keeping all 3 cows together.  When the cattle got to a spot where the BC  couldn’t get in a reach, Molly eventually pushed just enough to get them on their way a bit. Even went in for a grip.

She’s fine working in the pen without me there. Meaning only that she doesn’t cause trouble. We were working to get the cows into a side chute from the arena. Molly was in the arena with a lone cow. At first i was out with her and she wasn’t sure what to do.  Eventually as she watched me go through the chute she started holding the cow to the chute.  She had to push the cow into a small (cow width) chute just taking her commands and using a little common sense.  It was slow – really slow – but she got it.  Moving one cow by it’s self is hard.  It’s always easier to take a group to the one, but this is what we had.

On Goats – She was awesome with her short flanks.  There was a dog kennel with distracting puppies in the goat yard. I was having some problems keeping her engaged.  “These goats just follow you. I’m going to lay near the stocktank until you actually need me.”  I starting having her do blind short flanks with goats around the puppy pen.  It was about 3 feet off the arena fencline and 10 feet from the corner. So i  had her holding them close to the pen on the arena side and fetching. Then then swinging around on an inside flank, turning them the other way and bringing them through the 3foot ‘alley’.  Stop her for a hold, coming all the way behind me and doing a little drive through the alley and to the corner.  Hold them in the corner  – confirmed only by the fact they didn’t run anywhere else as i couldn’t see them! Then finally calling off and finishing.

On Simon – I often forget just how powerful that dog is.  He could move a cement pole.  I love that about him.  He only works once or twice a year, but he knows exactly what he’s doing. It may not always be what i’m doing…  It’s not always pretty, but come hell or highwater the cow will move.  Head or heel, it doesn’t matter and half the time he doesn’t even have to threaten a connection.  A cow lowers a head and he lowers in turn, gets 2 inches from their nose, lets out a few barks and even heavy cows will turn.  Bad breath?

The general bad: she was flat.  Earthworm flat.  Unhappy, ‘i am doing this under protest’ type flat.  The kind of flat that is really just painful to watch.  I didn’t register The Perpetual Motion Machine as an act of irony. I put her on different goats and she was still flat.  She blew out two pads and worked just as flat.  i couldn’t even tell a difference until she started limping.

There are a lot of reasons she could run flat.  Maybe because i was nervous beyond my normal nervous?  I’ve not worked goats before so i wasn’t sure what to expect.  Maybe because she started follow Ron and I after i told her to Down and forgot to say Stay and he got after her?  Maybe because it was all new stock types to her? Maybe choosing heavy stock instead of stock that required less pressure was a bad call on my part?  Maybe different terrain was messing with her head? Maybe she is just coddled – which i’ve tried hard not to do, but what is heavy pressure to a bitty girl is different?

Really, who knows.  The moon was in the wrong position… whatever. While i was really disappointed that these Border Collie people that we were visiting with were seeing a working Aussie for maybe the first or second time and saw my flat flat dog. I got over it when one commented that ‘the stock don’t move unless the dog is moving’.  It’s the breed type, but if that was the part that was most bothersome, then there was no making a good impression with my dog anyway.  Not in a bad way, butjust as a general statement.  We’re looking for different things.   I’ve been insulated by the AussieFolk too long. LOL

Don’t read this so much as being ‘down on my dog’.  It just wasn’t what I expected.  I didn’t expect a Cowdog, but I was expecting more power. meh.  Will come with confidence. Between now and then, i know that if  Elsie is doing cattle lessons… we can talk seriously about doing a lesson.  Previously my concern was that she’d be too much. 

This, will probably be long.  Consider yourself forewarned.

My work Molly these last two months has been intermittent, but she has really done everything i asked her to.

So here is a map of the setup:

When i got to the farm one weekend… my fields were empty. Meaning that my yearling sheep were still napping in the barn. We had to go get them for ourselves. The mud is a little deep.  Molly was a pretty good little dog. We had 1 crash, but after a lot of thought… i know what i did wrong.

I know it doesn’t make a ton of sense… i’m doing it from memory.  The red line is that of the sheep. So they’re in the barn yard (the center box), see molly and start trucking into the barn where it’s safe. The interior of the barn is U shaped for hay storage in the center. we had to continue carefully along through the barn, into the small sorting area, through the footbath line and into a small (8×8) holding pen. Sounds a little hard. Now imagine this: she’s never worked with me not in the same pen. But i knew that I needed to be able to close the gate between the small pen and the footbath line. 

I was watching my feet and noticed a worm living in the mud, but didn’t get a chance to get a photo .

After doing that a few times the sheep were down with the program. So i took my 5, merged them with their buddies in the field and started working our outruns. Specifically not cutting in and coming in nicely at the top. We did a little large group driving, but nothing very far.  Just seems to be the only way she can drive successfull.  I’m sure this is a handler issue. However, she worked a solid 2 hours so i was just pleased she kept her head together.

The next week I took Molly out and we fussed around with the AKC obstacles (which BTW, i love) and she was really great. We spent about 20 minutes talking about what Down meant and completing a Come Bye flank toward a corner. Once we got a bit of a rhythm she was really tuned in and we both learned.

But here’s the neat part:  She remembered all her manners. It was so nice to work her and not sweat some of the little things. I took her lead off before we went in the arena and she tuned into the sheep from across the field, but sat immediately upon request. I hitched her up to the centerpen so i could go look at the set up of the obstacles and moved a cone to use for outrun work and she didn’t flip out. Just stayed there.

Truth be told, she could have gotten loose at any moment. Not like i *tied* her. She broke 1 stay while we were working out outruns. I didn’t freak out. Just said “oh hell Peanut” and she pushed out and got around instead of busting them up.  I think the yoga is working… things started to fall apart and i remembered to breath.

Crowning glory: There is a small sorting pen that also serves as an easy access between 3 pens; the one 1 was in, the field the lambs live in and small training pen. The lambs were put into the sorting pen while 4 or 5 lambs were in each field. Which means to get out of our field, we’d have to go *through* the 20ish lambs in a smallish pen without causing chaos. She had been so good that i kept her short leash off and had her ‘follow’ through the pen. She looked a few times at the sheep, which is fine. She never caught an eye or went rigid. Very polite. I was SO proud.

Reactive Rover isn’t stock stuff, but it’s Simon and when he is sucessful i like to give him the credit he deserves.  There are a lot of Reactive Rover type classes.  They are for the dogs that can’t seem to be near other dogs on leash.  Lots of pulling on leash and whining and throwing a general

fit.  Some times they are lungy, but the dogs in this particular class don’t have a history of true aggression.  This class is taught by my friend Christine Hibbard of Companion Animal Solutions.  Anyone who has taught a class in anything will tell you that having some extra help is always welcome.

We have been intermittently using Simon and Molly as Stimulus Dogs.  Anyone who has met Simon, especially on leash, knows that self control isn’t his forte.  Using him as a teaching dog to elicit a response out of the class dogs has put me in the unique position of practicing alot of the techniques i’m out of practice in.  He’s really doing beautifully and i’m able to take time in between class dogs to practice heel patters and loose leash walking in the middle of downtown Seattle.  Which is a huge plus.

He’s such a good lap dog.  She tries so hard.

Simon with the ducks was *highly* entertaining. For the first half of the lesson I moved the ducks around the duck arena and happened to have a 65lbs dog on a lead. I, by the way was a great duck dog. I got all the obstacles in the AKC arena and put my group back together a few times.

The hard part about Simon is that he knows what an arena is and there are fun things in there.

I think he was a little disappointed to find there was nothing in there except ducks, which he’s not been allowed to interact with in the past. So he spent a lot of time sniffing around the fence, attempting to mark and even ate a piece of poop. He was generally confused. After watching that for about 10 minutes Chris decided to put him in the Take Pen with the ducks to develop interest. Same rules as any other time you’re in a small pen, you are center and keep the dog to the edges and change direction occasionally.

After that, he was pretty well on. I had to summon my inner Ron as he instilled most of Si’s commands. it was really hard to balance between keeping him interested in the ducks and continually instilling in him that he needs to pace and keep his distance using his liedown.

sometimes i left a little too much room, but where he had enough line he’d regroup the ducks which was neat.

All in all we spent about an hour messing around with 2 different sets of ducks. Taking a break to make multiple sessions of course. Poor ducks.He did a great job. There were a few small squishes, but not as many as i was expecting.

Fall, Winter and Spring in the Pacific Northwest present a number of challenges for dog owners.  I received an email from a friend not long ago that simply read “it’s dark when i leave for work, it’s dark when i get home and my dog is driving me insane.”  We’ve all thought this at least once as a dog without proper body and mind exercise is an excellent way to end up with a destroyed house/furniture/car/crate…  When it’s constantly dark, many people loose the urge to leave the couch, let alone go out side in the rain and play ball.  Not that i’m that person at all.

I can only guess that i’m not the only person who has dealt with this.  So here are a few tools that I use on my property to let them run about without making myself miserable.  We’ll divide them into Stuff for the Dog & Stuff for Me!

Stuff for the Dog

The Beacon by RuffWear - This is my favorite new thing.  When you own a little black dog you learn that you’ll find it easiest in the moon light as it is a shadow that moves.  With NW cloudcover, we’re seeing less moonlight and there is more ‘OMG Where is Molly?? Oh, standing next to me.  Sorry about tripping over you like that.’  The description for the product will tell you that it’s visible for up to a 1/2 mile and it’s an LED light so no bulbs and the batteries last forever and it can either clip or be attached to the collar using a ring and blah blah blah Here’s the real scoop: you can see the light through a long coat.  If you’ve tried other light up collar products you know what i’m saying.  With other products I could only see her when she was running away from me, which is obviously a problem.  Well worth the $13.00 and i’ll be asking Santa for second one.

Bells - Popular with people who hunt with dogs, typically flushing dogs, a bell can be a great tool. There’s no battery, and if you hear better than you see, then this is great. In addition, a light can be hard to see during the day.  Obvious, i know but if you have a lot of brush this really is a great $4 investment.

20′ Lead - This link is to one that i’m sure is wonderful, but it’s not the one i have.  So a link instead a full pic.  But a 20′ lead is a great multipurpose tool it you have a large dark yard, small creatures, forgot the umbrella and someone *has* to potty.  The one i have a adore as it’s parachute cord. So it’s been chewed yet has retained it’s strength and has served as both a drag line on stock and a walking leash.  I purchased mine at EarthPet.

Coats - Not having dogs that require coats, i don’t know a lot about dog coats. However, i do know a little about outdoor fabric.  So when purchasing a dog coat, be sure to look at the material.  If it’s marked a rain coat and has a super fuzzy collar, run away.  It’s a rain coat for people who are ok with replacing it after 5 uses.   I thought these were adorable, and appropriately marked.

Towels - More than a few boutiquie pet stores have started selling ShamWow’s claiming they are superior for removing water from dogs.  This may be true for shorthaired breeds, but it’s been my experience that they are worthless if your dog is of medium or long coat. Sorry to disappoint.  A cheap cotton towel from Target or a blowdrier will work just fine.  If you attend the ASC of WA April trial, we give out embroidered towels as prizes because the person who puts the trial together is obsessed with functionality.

Beds - There are a lot of options when it comes to beds.  You can pick up a bed at Costco for about $20-$30, though if your dog isn’t dried off upon reentry it will only be good for a few months.  There are some new beds that are water resistant and come in a variety of styles. For instance some look like Ikea couches and some are water resistant and then use metal zippers. hum.  I’ve been making some water proof dog bed covers to encourage people to keep their existing beds longs.  No matter what you buy, it’s important to buy a bed that you’re comfortable with, and won’t mold just as your family shows up for Christmas. Ew.

So just a few things to get your started, i’m working on Indoor things.  Part of lowering the frustration level is having the right tool.   Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Despite my efforts, this weekend was not a stock weekend.  There was thunder and hail and a power outage… oh mi.  Besides, we had ground work to do as per previous post.

So first Molly and i started on leash with the clicker doing moving downs.  We walk, i tell her easy…. down, she downs and after a few steps shes released.  After awhile we use the 20′ lead walking further away and downing her when she’s in front of me or behind me.  Eventually off lead. Which has also had the unintended consequence of creating a very nice little ‘follow’ as i called her to me with ‘follow’.  Genius, i tell you.  I took Friday and Saturday to do this and then on Sunday added a distraction: Simon.

Simon is not a toy dog, but after a few months he learned the joys of chasing his ball and bringing it back to me so we can tug or he gets a treat.  The downside of this is that there is only one acceptable ball to play this game with: Jolly Ball’s Romp and Roll.

To the credit of the JollyBall people this ball has been run over by lawnmowers (yes plural), floated in a flood and i’m pretty sure that some of the adolescent coyotes were playing with it in the yard one night.  They destroyed the rope and Simon was heartbroken until i put a new nylon rope in it.

The way we used Simon as a distraction is as such:  Simon has to wait with me for the ball to go fly.  Then when he takes off  Molly also takes off wide and when she gets to ‘balance’ she gets easy…down.  I started just doing little throws, but after about 30 minutes she’s getting pretty consistent at a distance.

I know what you’re thinking: you’re teaching Molly to work other dogs! News Flash… she’s been doing that for 2 years.  So why not make it work for me.  Simon doesn’t care.  In all of this we’re playing tug.

This mornings excitement was more directly applicable.  The CSA down the street from me has been dabbling in organic beef.  They have traditionally kept the beef cows closer to the barn and away from our normal walk, but apparently it was time to rotate them to new fields.  So surprise at 6am: cows.  For Molly this is an opportunity to continue working the easy down on leash around stock.  She was great.  The cows weren’t especially curious about her and we did downstays on the 20′ like nothing was different.  After the first few times she was great.  I went back and got Simon because he thrives on routine and he’s very appropriate with cows.  We start our walk, get about 15′ from the cattle pen and a full grown steer comes charging the fence.   On the off chance you’ve not had a full grown steer charge at you, don’t go looking for it.  It was pretty obvious that this steer was the chief steer in charge of getting rid of coyotes and he took that job very seriously. He’s kicking out his rear legs and making a scene to show off that he’s one tough hamburger.  Immediately I took the leash loop off my wrist because i type for a living and have rent to pay.  I hold his leash thinking that this will go poorly for us.  Simon took at step up toward the charging cow, his tail went out in line with his spine and he said:

“Woof”

Totally anticlimactic.  No a big dog bark, didn’t even move like he would try to go to the nose.  No big ‘i’ll save you from the charging steer’ type gesture. Didn’t even tug the line.  Just Woof.

Woof was all that was needed as that steer came to a screeching halt.  They looked at each other for a second, then a barely audible growl and a lifted paw.  The steer turned his head, showed off an unprotected flank and Simon sat.  No need to do any more.

Click, treat. That’ll do, big dog.

humm, apparently i got busy. LOL

Things have been alittle hectic, but they are starting to smooth out, finally.

The April trial has come and gone.  It was successful trial with lots of great handlers and dogs.  No matter who got what prize, everyone worked really hard for what they got.  The weather held up really nicely as well.  Though there was the occasional raincloud, for most of the time it was sunny enough to get a little tan back in the cattle pens.  This is Washington, get a tan where you can!

Molly has been working very hard.  We had a lesson the week before last and Elsie seems really pleased with our progress.  We’ve been promoted out of the small pen and given instructions to start doing similar fenceline and off line excercises in larger areas.  In addition, i’ve found that Molly getting her own sheep out of the other pasture seems to help her focus on the job.  There is alot to do between the pasture and the arenas. There are a number of gates, a small pen & a long alley with a partial barrier in the middle.  So she has to not only flank and fetch in large spaces and small spaces, but she has to wait while the sheep move away from her and walk past them of leash without bothering them.  That’s hard stuff, but she’s learning these little skills that build into bigger skills.  I’ll get video the next nice day.

Simon also had a little breakthrough.  Simon has ‘issues’ with bathtubs.  Being that he’s almost 24″ and 70lbs it’s a rather inconvienent problem.  Previously he’d not get into a tub on his own, and if you tried to lift him he’d put all 4 paws to the corner.  Most unhelpful. After a little work, 1/4 of a package of chicken snacks and lots of praise he not only got into a booster bath, but let me wash him down and get the stink off!  Molly also had a quick rinse, but then rolled in a dead thing the moment we got home. <sigh>

So i made it down to what we call the T intersection. It’s the part of the road that always floods and cuts us off from town.

It’s gross.

The videos are narrated, but i can be hard to hear, And sorry they’re all turned funny… i dunno how to fix it.

Not mud from rain… that is silt on the road from the riverbottom.

Pasture…

These are all pretty much the same, but with differing levels of ‘holy-crap’. This is *not* roadsand from the snow. This is all 100% river silt. This people is how beaches are made.

I liked this… in my sick twisted way it is funny.

more soon
Amy, Simon & The Definitive MollyMae