#herding training

Yesterday was a great day, but I was too tired to log these training notes last night.  For people reading this, I have a pretty hectic life schedule, so it is amazing when I get to simply go work dogs for hours without having some other schedule to run to.  Yesterday was one of those days.   My primary trainer lives an hour and a half south of me.  My good friend and I loaded up dogs (9 on this trip) and headed down to spend the morning with Carol Calhoun in Elizabeth City, NC.  Compared to many trainers, she has a relatively small facility with a few acres out back to practice larger outruns; however, her knowledge is immense and just maybe, writing down what she tells me will help it stick.

We started the day with puppies!  Eve is 7 months old right now and she has been on sheep 3-4 times.  She is still not quite mature enough (we don't do age, we go by what the dog tells us when they are put on livestock), but can definitely start being put on livestock every week or two.  She is super keen and is loaded with a desire to work.  She is my first puppy that I will have started from the ground up and she is going to make me work for it.

Since the last time she was on sheep, she was giving me a lot more space around the sheep, allowing forward movement rather than trying to hold the sheep at the head.  She still wants to grip excessively and will hold on to what she grabs.  While I want some bite, it is going to be something I want in proper situations so we will have to train her bite inhibition without taking it out of her.  

If anyone thinks biting sheep is mean, I would encourage you to see what livestock can do to a dog.  Part of my dog's job is to get work done and part of my job is to monitor safety.  But if a cow, sheep, or goat is going after my dog, they must be able to protect themselves and that is in gripping.  I do prefer a very proper nose grip in my trained dogs, but a good low heel works nicely when they need to move.  Livestock can seriously injure and kill a dog - stock work is not a game.

Now, back to Eve.  She is fearless.  Absolutely no hesitation about anything, just going full tilt, not too worried about going between the fence or through chute and completely not concerned about the rattle paddle in my hand.  She is going to be a fire cracker and, I think, a very talented and amazing dog if I don't screw her up.  Carol's homework for her is to encourage tug games and use a claiming word like "mine" to tell her to release and to prevent tug in intervals.  The hope is that I will be able to use that claim word when she is on livestock to prevent her from diving in as much and to release her from when she has a hold of a sheep, without discouraging the use of bite completely.  

I also worked a pair of puppies for Carol that are not quite so forceful.  One is not showing any interest currently and the other is pretty sensitive but keen.  He was a lot of fun to work because he is very handler responsive and, with time and maturity, I think he will turn into one very nice dog.  I do hope that his owner decides to do stock work with him.  

To try and get interest from the other puppy, I pulled out Beck to move the sheep around.  When you have a dog that is not interested (or puppy), trainers often pull out another dog in hopes that the movement of the sheep will spark the instinct and drive of the dog.  Beck was an absolute gentleman.  He has been used to help train up other dogs, so he understands helping out a puppy - getting behind the puppy and working the livestock from there, helping keep the group from running if the puppy is pushing too hard.  He is my great dog for a reason.  Unfortunately, we were not able to get a response from that puppy at this time.  

Next up in my dogs was Quelle.  Out on the largest field, where the sheep graze, I sent out her to collect the whole field.  Quelle is an outrunning fool - she went huge, which left the sheep to gather together on their own and wait for her to come in contact with them.  Training note #1 with Quelle is that when I need a smaller gather from her, do not set her up to my side at a 90 degree angle, but just slightly in front of me at a 45 degree angle.  I will test this out next time I am on a bigger field.  This is in hopes to pull her in.

From there, we did a drive away, cross drive, fetch back to me, and started shedding small numbers of sheep of the big group until down to just a few sheep.  When I first got Quelle this past May, she did not want to lift sheep for me and had a very slow pace.  Now, she is crazy!  She is showing signs of being very pushy and fast, meaning her driving is at a run, having to take quick flanks to hold the line, and me having to whistle almost continuously!  I can say for certain that her flanking is getting a lot better!  This was the first time that I have done that much driving with her taking the correct flank each time.  It has been a requirement that I stop her before giving her the next flank each time because on the fly, she was taking the wrong flank (going around the sheep in the incorrect direction).  Not yesterday though, she only took one incorrect flank, the rest was beautiful with no lying down.

Quelle Training Notes 2 & 3 are related.  I have to put an actual lie down on this dog.  She will take a verbal lie down, but it is hard to get her down and keep her down.  Her lie down whistle was a combination with there and steady; it however is ineffective.  I am going to have to figure out a real whistle that means lie down now.  Also, her pace!  I need her to slow down, so while training that real lie down whistle, I will be fixing that slow down/steady whistle and put a verbal on it.  We can't run the whole field!

When it comes to shedding, I need a lot of work.  I am getting better, but it is my current major project that has been ongoing.  Quelle comes in easily enough, but she also tries to come in before I call her and wants to flank without my telling her to.  She and I need to work on team work and she needs to learn that she can't just work alone.  

All in all, I was so pleased to see how much she has improved.  She is only 2 years old and will be moving up to the Ranch class at her next USBCHA trial.  If I can get these things fixed, she may just move up to Open at the beginning on 2015.

The last of my dogs to work was Beck.  I need to pause a moment to publicly declare just how much I love this dog.  He is a jerk, do not get me wrong, I know and understand his flaws.  But, when the chips are down and you are in a hurricane, this dog will drag you, the sheep, and himself right on out by his teeth if necessary.  It is my love for this dog that led me to getting Eve, whose parents work similarly and come from a long line of cattle trial dogs.  

Beck can be a lot of dog and, as a novice handler, he can be a bit much to handle.  His outrun can be huge, he is powerful, and LOADED with come forward.  This means he is horrible about stopping and if the livestock makes the choice to stop, his solution is often with his teeth.  I love him.  

As he had helped puppies earlier and then held some sheep for his son to work, I only needed to work him for a small amount of time.  I sent him to gather up a group and, like Quelle, planned just to do a drive away, cross drive, fetch, and shed.  He gathered beautifully, brought them straight to me with very little input, and started his drive.  I had a total "wow" moment when he took every flank and kept his pace to a crawl, making the sheep walk that drive in a nearly perfect straight line and gave me a nice tight turn at the panels.  The cross drive was high, but that was my fault, and he fixed it for me and stayed at the nice pace.  All of his driving was beautiful.  

When we started to shed, he started to flank around a bit too big, putting him out of contact.  He is an excellent shedding dog, coming in easily (even if there is no space).  But between working for the puppies and then working the field for me, he was hot and tired.  When he runs out of steam, he tends to start running and not thinking or listening.  I got one shed in and called it quits.  He had done such a nice job for me all day that it just wasn't worth the headache to work through it.  I didn't want to end it all on a sour note, so I sent him to get water and let him rest in the shade.  

He was able to end his day doing some basic farm chores and moving sheep out of holding pens to the fields.  His training note for the day is actually about his stamina.  We are going to start doing some running and working to get him in shape so that, when it comes to the pen and shed in a trial, I will have enough dog to complete the trial.  I am hoping to move him up to Open in USBCHA in the next month or so, but can only do that if he has more stamina to do those long runs.  He was used to work all day long on a cattle farm prior to me purchasing him and had run in open, so I know we can build back to that capability, but it is just going to take some time and effort.  

Crystal was not able to join us as she is currently in heat.  While she can still work, I despise having her in contact (even in a crate) with males because they can loose focus on work and they vocalize during travel.  Since I hate that, she stayed home.