Koondog Shenanigans

Sometimes behavioral euthanasia is your only option.

Maybe someone else could help your dog. Maybe the right trainer could turn everything around. Maybe you haven't found the med that works for your dog yet. Maybe a different or more experienced owner wouldn't have made the same choices. Maybe if there weren't kids involved. Maybe if you weren't married. Maybe if you were married. Maybe if you live out in the country. Maybe if you were more diligent. Maybe if you didn't hover so much. Maybe. Maybe. Maybemaybemaybemaybe.

Maybe.

But none of that happened. And you're here now. And it was the right choice.

It was you. In the home you have. With whoever you had to help you. Or without any support. Handling your dog to the best of your ability at that moment in time.

That includes having limited mental and emotional bandwidth. There may have been more things you were physically capable of doing, but that doesn't mean you had the emotional and mental resources to do them. You would've done them if you could have. If you knew that you should.

But i know for sure that you didn't pay a few hundred dollars so that someone would kill your friend for no reason.

You did it because you were unsafe. Or because someone else was. Or because your dog was so overwhelmed by the world that they couldn't cope.

You certainly didn't walk into a vet appointment where every choice you'd ever made regarding the dog was questioned and you were told about all the local and breed specific rescues because you didn't try.

You made that appointment and walked in and suffered through the interrogation because you loved your dog enough to know that putting them through being rehomed or institutionalized in a shelter would lower their quality of life so significantly that it wouldn't be worth living for them. Or because you knew that no one would ever be safe living with them.

You did it because you cared. Because you loved them. Because you trusted that it was the best option. Because you tried.

And it still hurt. Even if you were angry and relieved. It still hurt.

So, let me encourage you to let go of "maybe". You loved them. You tried. You cared. It was and wasn't enough all at the same time. You made the right choice.

Herding skills!

I practiced some of the stuff i outlined last night and then put it together here. Thoughts?

We're going to herding today so we'll have some real feedback from honeygirl on whether this helps our communication or not lol but anything you guys see in my handling here that could be adjusted for greater clarity?

1. My handling needs to be so much more thoughtful because that's where her and I are ending up frustrated. There's major miscommunication between me reading>listening to her and me directing her and me reading the sheep. It's ending up with her ignoring me and then getting frustrated aaaaaand then sheep loose wool 😅 this is not the kind of relationship (training or otherwise) that i want to have with my dogs so that's led us to crafting a training plan outside of herding to practice these skills.

Which leads us here: set toy down>being dog away>A "walk up" (one slow step)>B "lie down"> repeat "A>B" sequence until close to toy then send to toy

Dog in front of me, toy in right/left hand, extend left/right hand (respectively) at dog's eye-level (ish), cue "left/right" matching the extended hand (sweep hand forward and tilt body if needed)>when dog moves towards the toy hand mark and reward.

Set up Object (like a sawhorse) > place dog opposite the Object from you>toy in left/right hand>extend right/left hand (respectively)> cue "right/left" matching the extended hand> when dog mover around the object in the correct direction mark and reward

Next evolution of "Walk Up" is to set up an Object (like a sawhorse) >walk up > leave dog in a down> then extend appropriate hand for intended direction and cue "left/right"> when dog goes around object mark and reward

(haven't done this one yet) place dog in "down"> walk a pace or two away from the dog>hold toy in hand>cue "walk up">cue "lie down">mark and reward. Gradually increase distance and needed amount of "walk up">"lie down" repetitions

Repeat 6 but send the dog in a circle around you either left or right on cue after last "lie down" and then mark and reward.

Repeat 7 but you're moving slowly away from the dog.

Second send! So i definitely should've waited to send her until all the sheep had gotten to me or stepped in after she started moving BUT i wasn't watching my sheep so i didn't realize that i'd already pulled ALL of the 'm off the fence.

And THEN I'm so concerned with trying to get her to not go around again (which was silly in retrospect) that i put the sheep BACK on the fence because i pulled ALL of us over to the edge. Which of COURSE the sheep went to the fence because that's literally what we've been working on hahahaha we get them off the fence, turn them a few times, then bring them back to the fence, and do it all again. So like. Of course they were going to go back to the dance and i clearly want protecting them from the dog since she promptly split them so why the heck would they stay with me hahahahaha

I absolutely should've just let her go around us another time and moved all of us back into the center and then gotten a few turns/direction changes in and then had her take them back to the fence with me and reset... And paid attention to my sheep when i sent her again hahahahaha instead we got them stuck and had to get the helper dog

A snippet from herding! This was the cleanest portion but i literally made a handling error right out the gate by not following her with the paddle long enough to get her on the outside of that sheep since she doesn't know she needs to swing wide yet and needs the guide. We cleaned up and had a few more really clean runs this session but also a lot of learning moments for both of us lol

Like the second time i sent her to get them off the fence i wasn't paying enough attention to where the sheep were and she split them and put two on the fence and we had to get a helper dog to get them off 😂😂😂😂

Girl goes in a little hot and i've gotta get better about how i'm using space to get her around the sheep so we all stay together