Back to Basics Again

Here's why I'm still a mediocre trainer at best: I entered my dog before she was ready in a trial, put too much pressure on her, and caused her to mostly shut down on me, not because she doesn't want to work, but because she doesn't know what I'm trying to do and I'm telling her too harshly - or so I think.

I have taken a break from stock for a few weeks (and with my current schedule, I expect it to be longer with spurts in between) for a number of reasons. Her shut down, me feeling sick constantly, no time, and me thinking I'd be leaving on vacation and thinking a break is a good thing. But we canceled the vacation because of my work and how I'm feeling so that's off the table.

I have been feeling better and better now and so today I meant to go out and work sheep and ducks - but work called me away before I could make it to the ducks.

This was the first full session on sheep for both dogs in a long time and I had a couple goals:

1. Short works
2. Emphasize fundamentals
3. Test to see where we're at.

I started with Rippa. She did a magnificent job doing her pen work and helping me sort, as usual. We then backed up expectations and I set her up for short outruns with me in between the stock and the dog . . . and I brought back the BIG POLE WITH A BOTTLE ON IT.

It is so interesting seeing how my handling is as inconsistent as anything. When I use the short stick, I am so much more aggressive with my body language and voice than I am with the long pole. Mostly, I think, because I have so much more control with the long pole that I can be relaxed (at least, with Rippa). I can have a little bit of poor timing or be behind and still be there to kick her out if I need to be.

Rippa's also been on a bit of a doggy boot camp in her day to day life because as we all get, I've been relaxed with expectations of her in an informal setting. She had really crisp responses to stuff most of the time, but it was clear that foundations eroded.

Her outruns were really clean if they were set up right (more here later). She was super good in Stephanie's tight holding pen. She was really good at fetching, and if she got in tight, all I had to do was poke the stick in her direction and she'd literally jump out of the pressure area and go around wide.

So I started seeing what her drive looked like and it was bad. She got kind of mad at me for having her circle out of contact with the stock and when I laid her down and got out of the way for her drive/walk up, she would stall out, not believing in me or in the job. She'd get a couple steps and if the sheep started running, she'd ignore me and blast through them to get to head and bring them back. She was really good if I could get a couple steps and then before they started running get her to flank around them, but it's definitely back to baby steps with the drive. She feels out of control and she blows me off when that happens so obviously I haven't been making her feel like my side of the partnership is working. She's not being a jerk when she blows me off, she just doesn't want to lose the stock.

So, I think we're going to stay working on sheep (and ducks when I can) and go back to cattle when I have this stuff sorted. Aka: good outruns, solid understanding of the drive, responsive to "out." From what I got out of her today, I don't think it will take very long: IF I can get my handling right and think through what I'm setting her up with.

The Fury got some really good work in today, though I made some big mistakes. We also worked on outruns, but she would do her close-in dive thing because the long stick doesn't really work with her. I've used it too poorly for too long that she just squints her eyes, lowers her head, and pulls back her ears and runs straight into it. I find with her that it's better to just use body pressure to remind her where I am and back it up with the stick when she feels like I'm off her jock enough.

But she really, really feels the pressure of the animals when she gets close to them. Like really. So, I though, well, let's work on that small take pen. I've found that as long as I am calm, the dogs get comfortable with the stock in small places and can take more up-close pressure without acting like a fool. This is the first time I have tried it with the Fury.

I had a really hard time getting her to enter the pen calmly. There was a lot of corrections, kicking her back out of the pen, setting it up again, again and again until she'd come into the pen quietly and lay down without trying to get at the sheep.

The Fury hasn't been on sheep in a good long while and she was very, very amped. I let her go by around them in the tight space and she basically just went WAY too hard. She would hit noses and heels equally to get them to move FAST out of her way, and while she wasn't being overly hard with them, it was really chaotic, so I had to do a lot of corrections when the plan was to be calm. I think that was a mistake. The Fury has a lot of bite to her, but only when *I* put pressure on her. I'll get to the proof of this in a second.

Stephanie had a long line on the fence so I grabbed it and thought maybe I'd try the Ben Means thing about walking them behind the stock and correcting until you got calm behavior. This was also a mistake for a couple reasons: too many sheep in the pen, leaving the whether in there with horns that would turn and challenge her and ram her if she let him (so I was balancing keeping her back while not letting her lose power and have him charge her), and the pen was just too small for the goal. I did it for a bit and the sheep and the Fury felt the pressure too much, I saw I'd made a mistake, put the leash away with Fury on a down in the gateway, and came back to try it differently.

This time I remembered that The Fury's not going to do any damage to the sheep even if she gets in there like an idiot nipping at anything in front of her face ( heck, she barely has any front teeth left anyway), so I should just CALM down and let it settle like I did with Rippa. And so I did. When she went to nip something, I told her "no" firmly, but not panicky, and would you look at that, I had her quietly working the perimeter of the pens. I had her lay down at the gate while I opened it and told her she was a good dog, and then .. . . WHAM . . . that damn whether got his revenge on her, smacking her in the ribs. The Fury, being apparently still a total hardass, barely even noticed it and was still focused on me telling her I was good, but I couldn't let that stand, so I told her to get him, and she happily obliged.

From there, I got some really nice fetch work out of her. She's learning she can balance to me and the sheep and not just run hard at everything, and that I'll hold my end of the deal.

I thought to myself, "Yeah, there's no way I can get to open with her" because she's so unable to calmly walk into them right now, but you know what? I always think stuff like that. Fury's listening to me, she's learning stuff despite our bad habits, and maybe we just might. Not bad for a 12.5 year old dog.

Watching her challenge the sheep and get her fetch on . . . I've got a lot of use left in her. . . and I'm so glad to because she's definitely a different dog than Rippa and it's good to have different handling challenges if I'm ever going to be more than mediocre. :)