Rippa gets handled and you get a mini Kathy Warren clinic.

So the video is fuzzy because my computer wanted to take FOUR HOURS to render this 9 min video and I was not having that. It’s not as pretty to look at, but you get the idea.

Circles and Circles and Circles

I haven’t had time to digest the video yet, but I know some people are waiting on Rippa Puppy updates. This past weekend we did three solid days of training.

We worked on Rippa’s outrun (she’s quit splitting them for the most part, and quit doing that “change direction thing” that I talked about earlier that was hard for me to figure out how to manage), on her obedience (she still doesn’t stop before pushing the sheep past me), on her outs, and on my ability to hold the sheep.

First thought is: why do *I* run more than everyone else at lessons? I forgot to ask Kathy about this, but I think it’s partly that I can (when other folks are retirees or injured or just not in shape) and partly that I have more high-powered dogs than some. You gotta MOVE to keep ahead of them. Kathy’s pretty nimble herself and she gets out there, but I think timing has a lot to do with it, too. I need to hustle to get where she was two seconds ago.

Second is, MAN, am I tired of saying “Out.” The thing that you have to understand is that our dogs were not developed to work 3-5 sheep. They were bred to work a huge flock. That pressure is really important because when you have a huge flock, the front animals don’t feel the dog’s pressure, but they certainly feel the pressure of their compatriots urgently pushing on them. So, at this stage in the game, you’re trying to teach the dog to stay out so you don’t end up with a mess. Rippa listens for the most part, but there’s only so much she can take. She’ll get up, control herself and then . . . munch! Those lamb hocks are just too tempting that close up! MOVE, sheepies! Rippa is very pressure sensitive, both with stock and people. I think this makes her a nice cattle dog, but we’ve yet to see. She does not like a lot of pressure up front.

I’ve been dutifully chucking dog food at Rippa at feeding time after she lies down at a distance and Kathy says she sees improvement, but she needs to learn that lying down is a good thing. She just doesn’t want to. She looks really guilty when I ask her to down and go to her. Funny little dog.

The outrun issue, for the most part, have been fixed. She will take direction indications (ie, my body and stick placement), but she still runs pretty fast and flat at them. I have to run to keep her out around them, but I can feel her getting more control of it as time goes on.

Overall, good improvement over the three days. I started not being able to figure out what to do and Kathy stepped in to get Rippa right for me. The difference is night and day. She balances up (walks straight along with the sheep) with Kathy handling her, and with me she wears back and forth (what it sounds like, checks the outside eye of one sheep, runs back, checks the other, repeat). Why? I have a hard time holding my sheep – which is also how I broke Fury so badly. The sheep get past me because apparently when I run out to her to push her out, I run into the sheep’s flight zone and Kathy manages to stay out of it, so the sheep stay pointed toward her instead of going wide around me. We’ll see in the videos soon and hopefully get a clue as to how to fix this.  

Happy sheepsies in the mean time!

The Farmer’s Dog Philosophy

I finally got ahold of a copy of The Farmer’s Dog by John Holmes. Kathy told me to get it, along with a big list of other ones. I read the whole thing over the weekend and it was kinda neat to see what this guy had to see. Written in the 1960s, it’s a little “old school” but that’s how we kick it around here.

He spends most of the book trying to teach you about the instinct and choosing the right dog. He says in his second part:

“I cannot emphasize too strongly that dogs are not machines, but the reason I have written so much in Part I is to help you to prevent things from going wrong. To be able to do this, the first essential is to acquire some ‘dog sense.’ This is the ability to understand the canine mind and to be able to see things from the dog’s point of view. Without some dog sense the advice I have still to give you will be of little value.”

He says about instinct:

“It is of the upmost importance to remember that, when a young dog starts to run, he does so instinctively. When they see an untrained young dog ‘wearing’ a bunch of sheep many people say ‘It’s amazing how intelligent he is.’ Intelligence has nothing to do with it. The young dog which suddenly decides to run can be compared to the young man who suddenly decides that a certain young lady is the most attractive he has ever seen! one does not have to be clever to do that sort of thing, and there are many who looking back who wonder how they could  have been so stupid! The young dog herds, not so much because he wants to herd, as because he cannot help  it any more than, when he was born, he could not help squirming around until he found where the milk came from. “

“Run” = “herd.” But I like the term run because dogs start “running” far earlier than they truly “herd.”

He talks about the reserve that you see in stockdogs that gives people used to “city dogs” and the affect it has on his breeding:

”Temperament in the working dog is much more important than is generally realized. To the hill shepherd it does not matter so much as he is usually on his own. So long as the dog does not bolt at the sight of a stranger, it may be a first-class worker. Many good hill dogs are, in fact, shy partly because of temperament and partly because they never see strangers. On the general farm, conditions are very different. As the peace and quiet of the countryside become smore and more a thing of the past so does it become more and more important to get a dog with a good temperament . . . to keep up a team of demonstration dogs required constant replacements. Of the puppies which we selected at eight weeks as suitable, I doubt if 50 percent ever appeared in public. By the time they were six months to a year, we had to reluctantly decide to discard the other 50 percent . . . in most cases it was due to their not having to put up with people, the noise and the hustle bustle . . .”

He digs at people who breed for trials:

“Although trial dogs have done so much to raise the general standard of working dogs they have undoubtedly resulted in the production of a great many dogs that have no practical use to anyone. Many classically bred dogs have quite an abnormal instinct to work. The skilled trainer can use this keenness as a foundation for training the dog to the very highest degree. It will respond like a flash to each and every whispered command like the high-powered, well-tuned car responds to the slightest touch of the accelerator. But a high-powered car with a bad driver is far more dangerous than a low-powered!”

I laughed – I use this analogy ALL THE TIME.

He has a couple points that inform his training:

1. Dogs usually do not reason, so do not assume they will in training. (Actually, he says they cannot – and I disagree.)

2. No dog understands every word spoken to him.

What does this mean? That your dog is learning by association of ideas. So, when Kathy says “take the dog’s sheep away” after being bad – that behavior = no sheep.

Of correction:

“In the training of sheepdogs I rely almost entirely on two forms of correction.” Form 1 – grab dog, lift by scruff and shake. Form 2 – toss a hosepipe at it.

This is pretty consistent with training at Kathy’s. Ain’t no clicker that’s stronger than a dog’s instinct to run.

“If there is a secret to training I believe it arises from the ability to apply the type of correction and reward suitable to the particular dog, to strike a balance between the two and, most important of all, to apply them at the right time. The majority of failures in training are due to a – too much emphasis being put on how to correct or reward a dog, and too little on when to do so, and b – trying to work on the dog’s body rather than on his mind. The minds of some dogs can only be got at by making disobedience a painful occupation.”

And another gem:

“The first essential in training is will-power combined with the an active mind. This enables one to concentrate, to anticipate what the dog I going to do and, therefore, to correct and reward him as he does it. “