Strangely, I’ve had two separate off-the-blog conversations with people from different areas and different experiences who are asking me some poignant questions about my training style (which, as stated before, is purely the Kathy Warren method at this point).
Mostly this has to do with why the heck I am letting Rippa run back and forth at full speed instead of turning her back and forcing her to move straight or using a line to teach her to walk.
So, here’s my stab at an answer to this:
It seems like, in my limited experience of “other methods,” that there are a number of good short cuts to the end product, including things like forcing a dog back and using a line. I actually tried a couple of others’ advice when I was working with Fury by myself on super light sheep. But these methods are ‘training the dog.’
And I think what Kathy’s trying to do is “train the handler.” The dog will, if using these methods, slow down and balance up (yes, by God, she WILL walk) because she will finally figure out that it’s better than running back and forth. What we’re doing with all this back and forth with sticks business is working with the dog’s instinct to circle and letting her essentially teach herself what works.
How?
We start out by not asking much except for the dog to not eat the sheep. Then we ask for them to stay out from the sheep. Then we ask for wearing by using the stick to block the circling, and, if the dog has good instincts for this, when we ask for it, that will seem natural. Once the novelty of this back and forth wears out, the dog usually starts to think more and use less instinct, and you’ll see it in some of these videos I post – the dog will settle down and start just reading the sheep and doing the minimal work to keep them going how they should be. You can do this all with out “training the dog” and without commands if you are good. You don’t even need the stick (but that is a LOT of running around). Essentially, you’re not telling the dog what to do, you’re just telling the dog what not to do.
You can actually see this really easily in the first video I have of Rippa working:
She gets faster as time goes by because she’s more and more confident and she’s working lighter sheep. You put Rippa on some heavy woolies right now and I promise you she will slow plenty down and pretty much check out. We need her to keep learning and stay interested, so we don’t let that happen.
It is then, when the dog understands how to balance herself and read her sheep, that we start to teach what to do. That way, when you mess up whether you’re trialling or working your cattle on the ranch, the dog will think for herself and be a good stockman without you telling her how.
Having worked Fury with very little commands on a large head of sheep, I find this “working with instinct” very valuable. My favorite story is of having to move sheep from one pasture to another with this road and wide open space to go between. Once, the sheep banked left and got out and it became a full afternoon’s operation to get them back in. After that, Fury always banked left to protect the hole and the sheep went from pasture to pasture without incident. That’s thinking without me telling her to.
As I know from training extensively in other venues, a dog that’s taught to look for you for direction will default to that and I’d simply rather not be the driver of my dog but let my dog make the decision. A good ranch dog knows the drill once you’ve shown them what you want, and so does a trial dog. It’s not like a seasoned dog is going to go, “My God, you want me to put them THROUGH THOSE PANELS? GASP.” They know what they’re for. And my favorite dogs, which may not always win, are the ones that show it with minimal help from the handler.
As Kathy says, the ideal fully trained dog is one that will bring in the sheep and pen them, and all you have to do is sit in your lawn chair sipping your Mai Tai (with umbrella, this is key). Same with an ideal ranch hand. And that’s why we do it this way.
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