Maybe a little closer to understanding the answer to: why does it take so long to train stockdogs?

 

Is the answer that they simply didn’t start out as stockdogs?

So, hang with me a second. If you remember, I was having a crisis about this: you can’t sell a rancher a dog and expect them to take lessons for three years for them to get a good working dog, but that’s what it’s felt like all this time, right? And so I went trying to find the answers – like perhaps training is the answer, or better handling or . . .

But today at the Woods, Shannon brought out a dog she got that’s not related to her dogs that’s I think a year or more old and was saying they were kinda disappointed in her and wanted to know what I thought. So, rather than taking a casual watch – I paid attention.

And my thought was this: she looked just like every keen started Aussie I’ve ever seen on its first couple goes on cattle. Most of her dogs work like a dream right out the gate compared to Aussies I’ve seen start, so this was the first time when I was like, “No, wait, there might be more here.”

And every dog I’ve seen them work has either been raised as a pup from them or started by someone who gave them a lot of exposure to stock at an early age.

Like how early? Look at this great natural work by a very wee puppy – I haven’t been keeping track, but maybe 3 months old: https://www.facebook.com/Dswcowdogs/videos/vb.436216119850503/509926379146143/?type=2&theater

They wait for serious training and to put them on cows until later, but how many people that I’ve seen start dogs have had that kind of exposure on the regular since that age?

Most I see are like me: maybe they see cows on the hills hiking, but they’re hanging out being pets until you take them to lessons sporadically. I’ve always noticed that the people who have their own stock progress faster but I always thought it was training and handling experience.

But is it? One of the things I read in the Vest book was that you think of a dog like a drum of oil. Some dogs come full of confidence, some don’t, but if you take a dog like the one Shannon was working today, who didn’t know her own name and likely was just raised in a kennel and nothing done with her, and then start putting lessons on her and she’s not all in – you get frustrated because her confidence didn’t get built up. That’s your job now – not just training, but building confidence.

I always say this about “talent.” If you start early , put the work in, and keep doing it, in the long run you’ll be “good at it.” I learned to read early and got encouraged to write and read a lot and now I’m “talented” at it. I have a solid base so I can get good at it.

Why should stockdogs be any different? Maybe it’s not all the training and handling and it’s the actual start they get? And if so, why has this not been obvious to me for so long?

Like I keep saying . . . we shall see. Lots to learn still.