Training Breakthroughs

I’m exhausted and cold, but will try and write a quick entry before bed.  It’s supposed to go down to several degrees below freezing tonight and we don’t have any heat going in the house.  Our heat comes from a wood stove and my roommate and I each got home late tonight, and decided that a heavy sweater, hot shower and early to bed was easier than firing up the woodstove just for an hour’s worth of heat.  That of course will change as the temperature steadily drops over winter.  I am going to have to learn how to light this thing and keep it going strong during the days I sit at home and write.  I actually think it will be quite pleasant as the dining room table is next to the stove and a lovely place to work.  But I digress…

On the way home from my parents’ house yesterday, I stopped once again to train the dogs at my friend’s farm.  The three of us who trained together on Friday got together again yesterday and worked our dogs.  The weather was much more cooperative, and while cold, was at least dry.  The leaves are all turning and quite frankly, it was a beautiful day despite the chill.  I do love fall weather, as long as I’m dressed for it.

One friend had an idea of how I can work with Hannah to get better pace. She explained a technique to me that was taught to her by the big-hat handler who trained one of her dogs.  The idea is simple: when the dog doesn’t behave, she loses her sheep.  To make this happen, you call the dog off as soon as it starts to go wrong.  I wasn’t really sure about this method, but I tried with Hannah with surprisingly good results.

To start, it was important to set things up correctly so that everything would stay in control, and also so it was really easy to read what is going on.  We had to set the sheep somewhere that Hannah could fetch them from without strange draws pulling them sideways, or a swamp to push them through.  Such obstacles would cause the sheep to move crookedly and then it would be a guessing game as to whether or not what Hannah was doing was correct.  As I’ve written before, Hannah starts to flank back and forth a lot when fetching sheep to me.  This might actually be ok if the sheep are zig zagging on their own, or if she needs to push them through a swampy area and they are refusing, but if they are coming nice and straight, she should be calmly walking behind them.

So we found a couple of spots where the sheep would walk nice and straight.  I kept the distance relatively short, and sent Hannah.  She did a beautiful outrun, a nice, quiet lift, and started bring the sheep.  She obviously knew something was up because she was being very calm and quiet at first.  But then she couldn’t resist and bumped the sheep.  They zigged, and she went to zag, but I was faster and hollered sternly “That’ll do!!”  Shocked, she came to me with an expression of amazement and wonder on her face. “What did I do wrong?” she clearly was asking!  Getting her to figure that out is exactly the point.  I can correct her and mechanically control her with hollering and jumping up and down and whatnot, but what I really want is a dog who knows what she’s supposed to do and who does it right without me having to say a word.

I sent her a second time.  Again a nice outrun, and gentle lift.  Then the fetch.  It was slow.  Painfully slow.  Obviously she knew what she had done wrong and was swinging the other way.  I could almost sense her sticking her tongue out at me, as if to say “so you want them slow, do you? I’ll show you slow!”  She would gently nudge the sheep until they moved, then lie down and wait until they drifted to a stop.  Then she’d get up and nudge them again.  Repeat.  It was like watching pain dry.  But it was better than the rodeo she usually makes happen.  And clearly she was thinking.

I told her she was a good girl, we reset the sheep, and I sent her again.  This time she was a little faster, but very controlled and gentle.  The sheep came straight and stopped about 5 feet in front of me, with Hannah lying down quietly about 30 feet behind them. And all the time I said nothing.  Is this my dog?  Who knew she was capable of this!

I made a big fuss over her, told her how fabulous she was, and then put her back in the car and pulled out Mira.

I started to work Mira and she was just full of beans.  She raced about and dove in at sheep.  I worked at trying to send her around without her busting them up, then doing a little wearing in figure eights and so on.  At one point I turned and she went around to the away or right side (her weak side) and she dove in and gripped one of the lambs.  It was totally uncalled for, or so I thought.  But just as I was about to yell at my dog (I hate yelling at my dogs), one of my friends laughed loudly and said “that was YOUR fault!”

It was?  Hurray!!  Because if it’s my fault, then I can easily fix it and we can start to move forward with our training. Someone finally actually saw what I’ve been struggling with all these months, and knew how to fix it.  Oh happy day.

I discussed earlier about how I need to project my pressure off in a different direction with Mira in order to get her to widen out.  In other words, pushing towards her actually pulls her in, even though intuitively you’d think that should push her out.  So when I send her ‘away’ (counter-clockwise, or to the right) around the sheep, instead of running towards her, I need to then walk straight off to my left, or perhaps at a bit of an angle to my left, aiming towards 9 o’clock.  In other words, I need to move almost in the opposite direction to my dog, and instead of her pulling in close and tight, she will actually kick out nice and wide.  I did this over and over, and every time Mira was nice and wide.  It was amazing.  She is a very stylish little dog, with very square flanks and a bit of eye.  I was very pleased with her.

Next we worked a little on getting her to stop. This is a big problem with her.  Recently I read in Vergil Holland’s book Progressive Training about dogs that are extremely pressure sensitive.  These dogs, he writes, are so sensitive to any movement or any pressure that they simply MUST react.  So if the dog is in a down and a ewe twitches an ear, the dog feels compelled to get up.  Such dogs are apparently the hardest kind of dogs to train (no kidding).  He offers some good training exercises that I am going to review and try with her.  I know I followed some the first time I read the book and they definitely helped.  Now that we are more advanced, I am re-reading and learning new things to do.  Every time I look at this book I learn something new; as I learn more myself, things he said that previously meant little to me, or seemed of no interest, suddenly take on new meaning and importance.

Back to Mira and her stopping problem.  My friends encouraged me to really get after her when she won’t lie down.  I told them that if I do that, she will lie down and not get up.  Mira has actually been getting better about this with time, lying down more readily, and also getting up more readily as well.  I have not been too hard on her or pushed her too much with the lie down, and tried to get her to stop on her feet.  That would be fine, but she really doesn’t like to stop.  At least I think I now understand why.

First one friend, and then the other, tried to work Mira for me to demonstrate putting a stop on her.  I let them, hoping they’d have better success than I did.  The first friend got her working, and then when she didn’t take his lie-down, he stepped at her and waved his stock stick.  She dodged around him so he stepped at her a bit more sternly.  That was too much for her and she ran back to me and hid behind my legs.  I tried stepping away so he could get her back, but she was having none of it.  My other friend stepped in, thinking perhaps that Mira would work for her, being female.  She tried to call Mira to sheep, but my dog was firmly attached to the back of my knees.  My friend came over and took Mira by the collar and started to lead her to sheep.  Pull her, actually, then drag her.  Mira had all four feet out in front of her, digging into the ground and looking very pathetic about the whole thing.  I was very glad to see she made no effort to bite, snap or otherwise ward off my friend with any aggression.  She just sank her butt on the ground and dug in like a mule.

This was obviously too much pressure for Mira so we let things go at that point and I started working her again myself.  She seemed so relieved to be working with me again, that she took every lie-down I gave, and nicely popped out of them too.  She kept her flanks wide, and her gathers honest.  I was very pleased with her and called it a day.

Kess was Kess – keen, pushy and talented.  And totally not keeping me in the picture unless I was within 20 feet of the sheep.  At one point I stepped back to see if she’d bring the sheep to me, and she just pushed them past and drove them (beautifully) about 100 yards in an arrow straight line to the back fence.  I’m sure I’ll be really happy about this when it’s time to get her driving, but for the moment I’d like her to hold the sheep to me!  I really must get her going in agility to work on our relationship.

Finally I brought Hannah out again and did a couple of more short outruns and fetches to make sure she had learned her lesson.  She had and I was mighty pleased.  I am going to keep working on this, gradually stretching out her outruns until she can bring sheep to me at a nice pace from a distance.  As I mentioned before, she can easily do an open length outrun, but then blasts the sheep all the way down the field until she’s within 50 or so feet of me.  Clearly she’s learned that she only has to listen within a certain distance of me, and that’s what I need to change.  I’m going to push that distance out 10 feet at a time if necessary, and gradually we’ll get there.  Given how quickly she changed her behaviour yesterday, I don’t expect it will take too long.

Wet!

After a mad scramble to get out of the house this morning, I finally got packed up, loaded the dogs and Liam cat, and headed out.  I usually bring both cats with me, but today Evie took one look at the cat carrier I pulled out of the closet and promptly disappeared.  I spent nearly an hour looking for her, wondering how on earth a cat can hide so well in such a small, relatively tidy house.  There was no finding her.  I called to her, tried to tempt her with food, went about my business for nearly an hour hoping she’d come out.  All to no avail.  Evie was not showing herself.

So I left.  Am I a terrible person?  I feel kind of bad now.  I didn’t at the time.  At the time I was mad and very irritated.  I don’t get along with that cat very well. I never have.  She’s the one everyone else loves, but we’ve butted heads from day one.  She does what she pleases, when she pleases, and refuses to cooperate unless she’s in the mood to do so. Evie is essentially a roommate, sharing a living space, occasionally wanting to chat, and otherwise living a pretty independent life.  So I figured she’d be fine fending for herself for three days.  Tonight is nasty but it is supposed to be nice for the next three days, and it’s not going to freeze.  She can get into the enclosed shed which has a cat bed, so will be dry and safe.  And maybe she’ll finally get hungry enough to eat the mice she loves to bring home and leave on the doorstep.

I arrived at the farm in a strong drizzle.  My friend was already there, and the owner of the farm was home early from work.  The three of us sat in the barn and chatted.  I let Ross out, who sniffed around and then settled at my feet in the straw.  He seemed very at home there in the barn.  I felt at home too.  It was a very pleasant way to spend time, despite the rain and overcast.

After gabbing for about half an hour, the rain didn’t show any sign of letting up so we decided to just get out and work dogs in the wet.  We decided to do outrun relays, where one person holds the sheep and the second one sends their dog on an outrun to pick up the sheep and bring them to the other side of the field.  Then the first person sends her dog and brings the sheep back.  Seeing as there were three of us, we made a triangle and sent the sheep around and around, first one way, and then the other.

I worked Hannah because she’s the only one who can do outruns of any significant distance.  At one point I sent her about 350 yards to pick up the sheep.  She has no trouble at all with that.  What she does have trouble with is pace, and with listening to me at that distance.  While she can do open outruns, she is not ready to work a quarter of a mile away from me yet.  Putting it in those terms makes me feel less frustrated.

All things considering, she did do a fairly good job.  She always got her sheep, and always brought them back to me.  She simply brought them too quickly, and in a crooked line.  I’ve been reading up on this problem, and after training the three of us had a little debriefing session.  They had very supportive and constructive feedback.  The other two trainers are both more experienced than I am, so it was fun to get their input.

When discussing how to get Hannah to bring the sheep at a steady pace, I commented that I was also struggling with her bringing them in a straight line.  She gets them going straight, then flanks to one side, pushing them off course.  Then she flanks to the other side, pushing them the other way.  In this way the sheep zigzag down the field towards me.  It’s not pretty.

One of my friends explained that the problem with pace and the zigzagging line are one and the same.  Hannah pushes hard on the sheep because she wants to move them quickly.  She can run faster than they do, but of course is not going to run past them.  What she should do is slow down and walk steadily behind them.  But she doesn’t.  Instead of slowing down she zigzags back and forth.  Maybe she feels like she’s bringing the sheep more quickly this way, I don’t know.  The good news is that if I can get her to develop a better pace, the zigzagging should stop and her line should straighten out on its own.  The trick, of course, is getting pace.

Mira has terrible pace as well, so clearly this is a problem in my training, and not in my dogs.  I have some ideas and had found a couple of things that were working for Hannah, so we’ll keep working at it.

By the time we had each done about half a dozen outruns, I was completely frozen.  My teeth were chattering, I could barely move my fingers and I was shivering all over.  I was not dressed properly for the weather!  My coat is no longer waterproof and I can’t find my rain pants.  I also can’t find the liners for my rubber boots.  Time to get some better wet weather gear.

I was too cold to work the other dogs, or even take them for a hike.  I had Mira help me put the sheep away, and we called it a day.  I drove home with the heat on high and my hands hovering over the vent.  We are hoping to get together again on Monday and train some more.  Hopefully the weather will improve by then!

Homeward bound

It’s pouring rain out.  Again.  At least it’s warm – I was able to leave the patio door open to my bedroom last night, which is nice.  This house is very damp and the air not fresh when the house is shut up.  I kept that door open from the day I moved in until 2 weeks ago when it started to go down to nearly freezing at night.  I hope this wet, warm weather is not our “Indian Summer”  I was hoping for a few last sunny warm days – in fact I need them to finish putting my garden to bed for winter.

The little dog yard off the side of the house is starting to get muddy.  I left the grass fairly long, but the area around the composters is completely packed down and has no grass, and the far end is a bit torn up from when my roommate plays ball with them in that yard.  I run them on the rest of the property but she is nervous to let them out of the fenced area in case they don’t listen and take off.  I don’t think they would, but I appreciate that she’s very careful with my dogs and prefer it that way.  I have always been very reluctant to have others let my dogs run about off-leash when I’m not around.  It’s just better to be safe than sorry.

Today I am heading to my parents for the weekend and to spend Thanksgiving.  My brother and his wife are coming up from NY state, and my grandparents are driving from about 5 hours away.  It should be fun.  It’s also supposed to be very nice over the weekend.  Dry dogs will make my mother much less grumpy about having them around, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for lots of sunshine!

I am heading out in hopefully just over and hour.  Lots to do in the meantime so I had best get down to it.  On the way home I am stopping at the farm where I trained over the Labour Day weekend.  I will be meeting a friend there and we are going to train together for a couple of hours.  Should be a good time.  Shame about the rain, mostly because I don’t have a waterproof jacket and am going to get soaked.  I really must replace that leaky coat this weekend as the weather is not going to get any nicer.

Working on Whistles

Yesterday we finally had a half decent day, weather-wise, so I took the dogs training last night.  I now have to leave pretty early to get in a decent amount of training before dark.  I arrived around 5:30, chatted with the owners for a bit, then got down to work.  They knew I was coming and had kindly put some sheep in the small training field, and a few others in the round pen.  I actually prefer training in the big field behind the barn where the dogs have space to move and the draws are much less intense, but since they sheep were already waiting for us, I decided to change my training plan and use the set-ups that were there.

I started with Kestrel as she has been worked the least of late.  Last weekend I worked Hannah a lot, and the other two just a little.  Last night I reversed this.  I started with Kess in the round pen.  I did this mostly to burn off her excess energy as we didn’t have time to do much of a hike and she hadn’t been run yet that day.  So I let her go around and around in the pen for a few minutes until I saw that she had shaken out her excess beans and was ready to listen.  Once she was taking her downs nicely, I called her off and took her to the other field to train.  This is actually  a nice little trick for reinforcing calling her off sheep.  I called her too me, we went out the gate, and straight to other sheep.  I have a little trouble calling her off sheep and rewarding her with more sheep should help sort that out quickly.

Kess was really hot to trot last night and I had trouble getting her wearing in that small field.  By the time I get any semblance of pace on her, we’ve hit one side of the field and need to turn.  The draws are so strong in there that the sheep will bolt back to the south end of the field the second the dog is not there to stop them, so getting her to flank around the north side of the sheep was quite a challenge.  In her fear of losing the sheep she would come in close and tight, which of course caused the sheep to bolt down the field and right over top of me.  I quickly gave up trying to do any square wearing (i.e. where I go in straight lines around the field, making a box).  Instead I did figure 8’s, making sure the motion never stopped and the dog was always in control of the sheep.  It worked, more or less, but wasn’t pretty.

Last night, for the first time, Kess started splitting up her sheep and letting some go.  I’ve never seen her do that before so I made sure to send her back to pick up the ones she dropped.  I’m not sure why she’s starting to do this as she has always done a really good job of counting her sheep and not losing any.  I wonder if I’m doing something to cause this.

My other challenge with Kestrel is that she doesn’t seem to want to gather the sheep.  She does a wonderful job of holding them to me when I am close, but if I send her to get sheep from even 30 feet away, she will just walk straight up on them and push them away until they reach a fence and stop.  There she will lie down and hold them, and that’s it.  Mira used to do that as well.  I think this is the sign of a dog who is a natural at driving (pushing the sheep away from me) and less natural at gathering (bringing them to me).  I taught Mira to go around the sheep by doing sling-shot outruns.  By this I mean I could call the dog back to me while I am moving away from the sheep.  When the dog catches up to me, I turn around with the dog swinging to the outside of me and then release her – like a slingshot – back towards the sheep.  This sends the dog out on an arc, instead of in a straight line.  Some people are very against doing this, but it worked very well for getting Mira to go around the sheep and bring them back to me.  It also helped get her to come off sheep when I call.  She expects to be sent back to them, and enjoys the process.

As I said, some people are very negative about sling-shot outruns.  I definitely think you need to eventually phase them out and have a dog you can send from your feet without having to wind them up first, but I’m not sure exactly how to convey the idea of going out around the sheep otherwise.  I will do some research and see if anything else become obvious, otherwise I will try this same technique with Kess.  So far I don’t think it’d done Mira any harm (hopefully I’m not wrong about this!)

Speaking of Mira, I took her out next and always worked her in the round pen and then in the small field.  I did the same with Hannah.  Both dogs should really be working in the bigger field so I just spent a little time with each working on their whistles.  I think I am making progress but I’m not sure.  I’ve heard about dogs that supposedly pick up their whistles in two days.  Not mine.  I’m probably doing something wrong, but when you have no-one to show you stuff, you muddle along as best you can.  Basically I blow the whistles I want them to associate with various commands just before they are going to actually do that action.  In other words, if I position things such that the dog wants to go ‘come-by’, I whistle that command and step further out of the way to encourage the dog to move.  Eventually I stop moving and just blow the whistle and the dog should move in the correct direction.  I did the same thing to initially teach the words, so this should work.  Mind you, it took months for Hannah to get her flanks straight.  Hopefully her whistles won’t take nearly as long!

108 Border Collies Rescued from Swafford Puppy Mill in TN

Warning: the following may be upsetting – it sure upset me, which is why I had to post this here.  The owner, Richard Swafford, has been notorious in the border collie world for a long time.  Claiming to be a ‘rescue’ he’s a full-fledged puppy mill.  He also claimed to sell registered, working border collies, yet the American Border Collie Association expelled him from their registry some time ago.  In the rescue world I’d heard his name come up many times over the years.  It’s heartbreaking that it took so long for the authorities to shut down this concentration camp for border collies.

From this press release:

“The Humane Society of the United States worked in conjunction with the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department to remove 108 border collies from squalid conditions at an alleged puppy mill in Portland, Tenn.”

The HSUS was called in by the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department to handle the removal, transport and placement of the animals and to help gather evidence. The Sheriff’s Department, worked with several law enforcement officials over the past year to investigate claims of inhumane conditions at All Around Border Collies made by current and former facility employees. The property owner breeds dogs for sale and runs Border Collie Rescue of Middle Tennessee. According to his Web site, the property owner takes in rescued border collies. But many of the dogs on the property were those the owner had bred and made available for sale on the Internet.

The dogs were housed in a dark, vermin-infested barn and filthy outdoor pens. Border collies are natural herding dogs, and require extensive exercise to maintain a healthy temperament and physique. Lack of exercise and socialization is especially devastating to this breed. It is possible that many of these neglected animals had never known life outside their cramped enclosures.

The property owner surrendered 68 of the dogs who The HSUS will transport to rescue groups and humane societies throughout the region, where they will be made available for adoption. The sheriff’s department seized another 40 who will be housed with local organizations pending a possible criminal investigation.

After Jan. 1, 2010, the recently passed Tennessee Commercial Breeder Act will require mass breeding facilities with more than 20 unaltered females to be licensed and meet humane standards of care.”

For a short video and news report of the bust, follow this link.

I’ve written in the past about the horrors of puppy mills and why it is so important to buy a dog directly from a breeder and visit the place where the puppy was born and raised so you know what your dollars are supporting.  Swafford actually claimed to be running a rescue!  No rescue sells dogs over the internet.  No rescue sells pregnant bitches.  Nor do they breed and sell puppies, or ship whole litters of puppies out to dealers.  No caring breeder of dogs will sell through the internet or through a store.  Anyone who needs a front such as a store or middle-man to sell their dogs and puppies, horrible conditions like those described above, and those depicted below, is likely what they are trying to hide.

Among the many rescue groups that have stepped up to the plate to take in these dogs, Glenhighland Farm has taken eight and they have just arrived at the farm.  They will likely require extensive time and care in rescue to learn how to be border collies, something GHF excels at doing.  To follow their story (or if you wish to make a contribution to their care), follow this link.

Got Our Game Back On!

Last weekend while farm sitting, I brought the dogs out three days in a row to train.  Gosh, I wish I could work my dogs daily all the time.  What a difference that would make!

I started each visit with a big long hike in the hay field.  It’s about 40 acres and almost square so a walk around it gives the dogs quite a good leg stretch.  Once back to the car, they each get some water and back into their crates.  I had planned not to use Hannah and leave her up for a few weeks, and have Mira help me with gathering and sorting sheep instead.  Mira is quite capable of doing some basic farm chores and I thought the work would do her some good.  But one look at the barnyard and the location of the sheep, and I thought better of my plan.

The sheep were all in a field one pasture over from the side of the bar.  There is a short, narrow corridor (about 100 feet long) between the baryard and the field that held the sheep.  The corridor is about as wide as a single lane road.  The gate to the field where I wanted to work was in the middle of that corridor.  To get the sheep, the dog would have to get behind them in the field where they were grazing, push them down the corridor, then some how or other get around them again and stop them before they blasted back to the barn, and push them through the gate into the field where I wanted to train.  Furthermore, I didn’t need all 150+ sheep, but rather wanted a group of around 20-30, and the best place to split those off was in the pasture where they were grazing.  So we would have to start this whole exercise with a shed (since there are no working gates to help with sorting, just a big cattle pannel held in place with twine).

This would be way too much for Mira to do, who has not started shedding, and is still prone to ignoring my flanks when things get exciting.  I could only imagine the disaster of having to have her flank around running sheep in that 20 foot wide corridor.  It would be mayhem.  So I brought out Hannah, fully prepared to just call it quits and train no-0ne should things get stressful.

I worried for nothing.  Hannah was a superstar.  She shed off the sheep beautifully, walked our group quietly to the mouth of the corridor, then – as they started running – squeezed past them, beat them to the other end, and stopped them.  She then calmly put them through the gap in the fence I had created by removing the cattle panel.

From there I had her do some driving and even ventured a couple of outruns.  Before doing the outruns I wanted to remove a ewe who was limping.  When gathering the sheep from a distance, they usually end up doing a fair bit of running so I wanted this ewe out of the group.  Splitting off a single ewe is VERY hard, let me tell you!  Now I know why they use that as a test at the highest level of trialing.  I ended up splitting off two, including the one who was limping, and decided that was close enough and let them go.  Then we took our healthy group out to the back of the pasture to do an outrun.

This is where things nearly fell apart.  I sent Hannah and she brought the sheep but refused to take any of my flanks or lie-downs until she was closer.  I was upset, mostly with having ruined such a good session by asking her to do something I knew we were going to have trouble with.  I decided to try a smaller outrun so I would be closer and see if that made a difference.  The trouble we are having is with pace – Hannah simply brings the sheep far too quickly.  She gallops down the field with the sheep racing ahead of her.  By the time they get to me, they are so riled up there’s no stopping them for a nice turn or quiet drive.

When I tell Hannah to ‘take time’ she does one of two things: she ignores me and keeps galloping along, or (after I’ve hollered at her again) she lies down.  She clearly does not know what the term means.  I have been struggling for two years now to figure out how to teach her that ‘take time’ simply means slow down, not lie down.  Then, quite by accident, I figured out how to do so.

As Hannah blasted the sheep towards me, in frustration I yelled ‘take your time!!!’.  She hit the deck, which is not what I wanted.  I immediately told her to get up and walk.  She got up and galloped.  I told her to take time; she lay down.  I told her to get up and walk.  This time she did.  I soon figured out that if she lay down when said ‘take time’ I should instantly tell her to get up and walk.  Pretty soon she started equating ‘take time’ with walk.  HURRRAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

I should have thought of this sooner, and I think someone once actually told me to do this but I had forgotten, or perhaps didn’t understand what they were saying until I stumbled upon it by accident.  This is a tremendous breakthrough for us as a team, and for me as a trainer in general.

I did one more small outrun with her and called it quits.  I then trained Mira, who presented me with a different problem.  She started slicing in on her outruns, and hitting the sheep hard at the top, often coming right into the group and leaving some behind.  I don’t understand why she does this and when I tried to replicate it when we took our lesson with Kevin Evans, she didn’t do it (probably had something to do with him standing there with a whip).  When I have the whip she stays out as well, but I don’t like using the whip on a regular basis.

I tried a couple of little outruns, running up the field at her to try and push her out.  It failed every time.  Then I remembered seeing a video a couple of weeks ago about putting the pressure away from the dog.  The woman demonstrated how putting pressure on the dog caused it to dive in and grip the sheep.  But putting pressure away from the dog had the dog move out.  I don’t understand why this works, but I thought I’d try it with Mira and… Bingo.  Nice wide outruns at the top.  Amazing.

Kestrel is wearing nicely.  She’s still very pushy but I don’t mind that.  She has a fantastic lie down, and pops out of it instantly when asked. Nothing sticky about this dog.  I’m now working on putting her sides on, and also letting her do little gathers.  I can’t be more than about 50 feet away or she’ll just circle the sheep or drive them away to the fence and hold them there.  Another natural driving dog, go figure.

I trained each dog all three days and the progress was really wonderful.  They all loosened up, while also becoming sharper and more responsive to me.  I haven’t been back out all week as I had to work nearly every day (and worked each day on the weekend, making for 3-4 hours a day in my car!) and just didn’t have the energy.  I now have 4 days off in a row but the weather is horrible and I don’t feel like training just yet.  Still tired from all that work.  Today I just hiked the dogs in pairs and got soaked to the skin because my gortex jacket is no longer water-proof.  One more big ticket item that needs to be replaced, and soon.  Oh joy!  Thank goodness I finally have  a decent pay cheque coming in, even if it will only be for a few months.

Adventures in Farm Sitting

This weekend I have been farm sitting for the people who own the farm where I train.  I’m not actually “sitting” but rather checking in once a day, to make sure everything is in order and to feed the animals.  They have cows, sheep, ducks, dogs and a pony, so quite a menagerie to care for.   However for just a weekend, the cores are quite simple and the farm typically takes care of itself.

This weekend, however, has been a little more eventful than the last time I did this.  To begin, yesterday I discovered that their old ram was down.  I had been suspecting he was not long for this world for a couple of months now, so I wasn’t overly surprised.  But still, it’s not something I had counted on happening on my watch!

I liked this old ram. He was part of a group of rams and weathers (castrated male sheep) good for working young dogs as they were pretty quiet and didn’t run as much as the ewes.  He had been ornery with the dogs and given them a hard time when I first started training there, and would turn, stomp at and charge the dogs.  I soon figured out it was because he was feeling stiff and tired and wasn’t up to running.  So I made a point of always separating him out from the other sheep and putting him back in his pen where he could have the hay all to himself while I trained.  I hadn’t been using that group of sheep very often lately as all of my dogs are now onto the faster moving sheep.  But every now and then I’d have reason to use the rams for training.  I’d put them out in the training area, then put my hand on his shoulder and he’d walk calmly back to his pen with me.  He appeared older and frailer each time.

Last night he was down, lying on his side, and couldn’t get up.  When I came up to him, he tried to get up but couldn’t.  So I helped him.  I helped him up to his feet and held him there for a bit until he got stable.  Then I moved away, and he toppled over again.  At that point I thought to myself that he’s probably better off dying this weekend.  Winter is coming and would be hard on his old bones, and here he was in a nice soft bed of straw in the warm barn where he has lived out at least the last portion of his life (I don’t know how long they’ve had him).  Many farm animals get sent off to market when they get old, so he’s actually quite lucky to have lived out retirement and had the opportunity to die in a familiar setting.  I offered him some hay, which he ate greedily, held his head to a bucket of water, which he refused, gave him a scratch, and left him in peace.

Today he was dead.  I dragged his body out from the other sheep and put it in a pen at the far side of the barn.  His owners return tomorrow and will know what to do with it.

The death of the ram was not the only event that marked today’s farm visit.  When I pulled up to the farm, I was greeted by a worrisome sight: the pony grazing on the front lawn.  Oh, no!  I thought.  Did I leave a gate open? My mind whipped through the previous evening’s routine and I reassured myself that this was unlikely.  I called to the pony, who fortunately seemed to think I had treats, and easily got him back into the fenced fields.  Then I started looking for the hole.

It didn’t take long.  In fact, my first instinct proved correct that he had come out through the front door of the east barn.  Inside the barn is a huge hay storage area, separated by hard wood fencing from the part of the barn the animals can access from the barnyard.  The sheep had knocked down the fence and were eating the hay.  The pony had walked right past the hay and out the front door to the lawn.  Thank goodness he was the only one.  Thank goodness the llama hadn’t joined him!

Hannah held back the sheep while I put the fence back together.  The sheep knocked it down again as soon as I was out of the barn.  Beasts!  I noticed that some of the wood had split and come apart and that a whole panel of the fence would have to be rebuilt.  I took it down and found another panel in the west barn, dragged it over and set it in its place.  Then I noticed about half a dozen such panels about 10 feet away.  Oh well, I need the exercise.  I was worried the sheep would try to break the new panel now that they know the fence is fallible, so I used some of these other panels to make a second row of fencing around that area.  It is all supported against itself, and interlinked, so hopefully should withstand the pressure of 70 odd large pillows pushing against it.  I guess I’ll find out tomorrow!

Still Feeling Bruised

I was sick earlier this week, and while I am feeling much better now in terms of cold symptoms, I find myself very low energy tonight.  I worked this morning, requiring a 7:30 start from the house, and didn’t get home until 7:30pm.  At the risk of sounding like  a broken record, I HATE being away from home this much.  It definitely affects my dogs, and it sure affects me.  I have noted that the days I am away for long hours, Ross, Hannah and Mira all want to sleep with me.  After chewing through my duvet several months ago, Kess has been relegated to sleeping in a crate until she’s much older.  I don’t like the dogs to sleep on the bed with me, but when I’m gone all day, I miss them too and let them stay.

It’s probably because I’m overtired and not feeling 100%, but I’m still quite shaken after last week’s lesson.  I don’t know if I’m going to go back there to train again.  This trainer has a lot of valuable skills to teach me, but if it takes me days or weeks to recover from a lesson, I have to wonder if it’s worth it.  I have been having so much fun working the dogs, and feeling very positive about our accomplishments – even though I know we have a long, long way to go yet.  But to be told  in no uncertain terms that my handling is horrible, my timing worse, and that I’ve ruined my dog is hard to recover from.  More than ruined – apparently she’s running worse than she was a year ago.

I know this is not true.  We had a bad day, and my handling certainly was off, but when I am relaxed and not worrying about being picture perfect for fear of just the type of verbal lashing I received, I can get sheep around a field without totally embarrassing myself or my dog, at least much of the time.  I also know that there is much to learn, and and many holes in our training.  It would be nice to get help, but it looks like we are going to have to struggle along on our own for the time being.  I had scheduled a lesson with a really well-known trainer coming over from the UK, but my new job interferes with my ability to travel on that day, so I had to cancel.  Very unfortunate, but I have to work and I don’t have to train dogs, so work’s the priority.

I am going out to train again on Monday.  And I will be farm sitting (two different farms) the next two weekends in a row, so I’ll get plenty of time to train over the next couple of weeks.  I had thought about taking a break, but I think I need to stay in the saddle and work through this.

Tonight I have rented Wall-E and am going to curl up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and as many dogs and cats as can fit beside me.  Tomorrow morning it’s back to work again.  What kind of world do we live in where one has to go to work at 7:30am on a Sunday?

Finally a Day at Home

I continue to work too much.  This week I was also fighting a nasty bug of some sort, but I awoke this morning to find it had lifted and that I was feeling fairly energetic for the first time in days.  What a happy coincidence(?) that this occurred on my day off!

I had a lot of catching up to do around the house, still do in fact.  But I accomplished a fair amount, including 847 loads of laundry (or thereabouts) and finally canning the three 11 quart baskets peaches I bought ages ago and that were starting to mould and rot even in the fridge.  I didn’t get through all the peaches, but put up 7 quart jars (about two thirds of the peaches).  The remainder will probably only yield another 2-3 quarts.  I would really like to have closer to 20 put away for winter, but it may be past peach season at the market already.  I’ll know more tomorrow.  Ten is sufficient, if I ration them carefully. I will also put up pears and apples, and have a lot of stewed fruit and whole blueberries in the freezer already.

I also spent a lot of time with the dogs today, trying to make up the long hours they’ve been spending locked up in the house.  I first took Kestrel and Ross to the conservation area and hiked with them for a good hour.  They ran hard, but by the time we got back to the car, they were both just trotting and sniffing.  I take that as a sign that they’ve shaken out at least the most urgent of their beans.

Kess of course could keep going and going, being just a year old and still in that ‘ever-ready bunny’ stage.  Hannah was over that phase by 9 months of age, but Mira was in it until she was two.  Hopefully Kess will settle before that!  She’s a little too fidgety for my taste, although I know she’ll grow out of it.  That’s her chronic disease, which manifests as a need to expend energy even after she’s been run.  I have yet to find a homeopathic remedy that has any noticeable effect on her, other than the first remedy I gave which caused her to break out in a rash (typically a good sign in homeopathy, as it means inner imbalances have come to the surface).  Since that first remedy, nothing has affected her that I’ve been able to tell.  Mind you, there’s not much to “fix” in her – just being a bit too hyper and her propensity to eat my laundry or dig holes in the yard.  There are many remedies that have these two symptoms in them, but she doesn’t display enough other symptoms to really narrow things down further.  Perhaps they will surface with time.

After running Ross and Kestrel, I took Hannah and Mira to the beach and let them swim.  They are both really strong swimmers, and will nicely take turns retrieving the ball.  Today there was a bit of a chop, but nothing either the dogs or I were concerned about.  Mira started shivering after not too long, which tells me we won’t be able to swim for too much longer.  The lake must be cooling off already with the cool evenings (it is supposed to go down to just three degrees about freezing tonight), and the days are no longer warm enough to counteract that effect I’m sure.  Even mid-day I’m in long pants and a fleece or light jacket.

Mira did something annoying at the beach.  A woman walked by collecting shells.  The dogs ignored her, as they typically do strange people.  But then the woman stopped a few feet past us and bent down to pick up something out of the sand.  As she was bent over, facing away from us, Mira charged up behind her and alarm barked at her.  Actually she first looked strangely at the woman’s posterior and approached it like she didn’t know what it was.  Then she alarm barked.  I called her to me and apologized to the woman, who didn’t seemed phased at all.  Mira really only yapped once or twice, and then immediately came to me, so what happened was much more obvious to me than to the other person.

I suspect Mira simply didn’t recognize the woman’s butt to be human (she was quite a heavy set woman and had a large floppy hat on her head, further adding to the strange silhouette as she bent over), but it still irks me to have a dog of mine charge up to people and bark.  Mira used to do that a lot as a pup, but now rarely reacts to people.  It’s always good for me to be reminded that there’s still a spooky dog under the fairly normal appearance she typically puts forth these days.

Tonight I took the dogs to the farm to do some training.  I started with Hannah and found myself still very short tempered with her.  Last weekend’s lesson was so stressful and I still obviously haven’t let it all go.  I had been really angry with Hannah – displaced anger, stemming from my stress over her not performing well in front of our trainer and then me getting yelled at for our poor performance.  I get yelled at, then take it out on my dog – not fair to poor Hannah!  I was still short with her tonight, which is never good.  It makes me mad that I have allowed the criticism I received to harm my working relationship with my dog.  It’s going to take some time for me to feel good about working her again, which really sucks as we had really been having fun up to then.  I made a point tonight of just doing really elementary work with her so that we could be successful and I could keep my temper in check.  Mostly I put her in the round pen with a group of weathers and started teaching her her whistles.  After about 10 minutes (too long!) of giving a whistle, followed by the command, she still wasn’t responding to the whistles.  I stopped the lesson and we’ll continue on Monday.

I gave the same lesson to Mira, and within 2 minutes she started correctly responding to whistles.  I wonder why she is getting it, and Hannah is not.  I suspect it has something to do with me, but for Mira to pick things up far more quickly than Hannah is telling that something is amiss.  I’ll have to put some thought into it and see if I can find a better way to help Hannah learn.

I worked Kess in the round pen only tonight.  I was going to do more, but noted that one of the ewes that I had been working with had a sore on her udder and I didn’t want to have the puppy chase her around, especially with the thistles that are growing in the field.  There wasn’t enough time to switch up groups (we were almost out of light) so I just worked on her sides in the round pen and called it quits.

Before leaving I took all four dogs for a short walk in the big hay field off the side of the barn.  It has recently been cut and bailed so now we can walk it.  I like letting the dogs decompress after working, and it also ensure that they are empty with well stretched legs before the 45 minute drive home.

On our way back to the car, just as we approached the edge of the field, I noticed a large white object in our way.  Was it a tank of some sort?  A small shed?  I couldn’t remember passing anything at that spot.  Then I realized what it was.  So did the dogs.  It was a cow.  Where did she come from?  Obviously she’d gotten through the fence somewhere, and was now in this open pasture enjoying the clover.  Before I could call back the dogs, they were off like a shot after the poor beast.  Four border collies went charging forth, and one cow went bolting back to the barn.  Fortunately the dogs all did call off after they’d gone a short distance, and the cow stood in the courtyard by the barn gate, waiting to be let back in.  It was a bit of an eventful end to our evening, but all’s well that ends well, or so they say!

Finding Balance

Argh!  Another crazy busy week.  I started my new job this week, which is great and I think I am really going to enjoy it.  But I am still wrapping up my other part-time job, and I also am doing research for my dissertation.  Oh, and it’s harvest time and I’m trying to put food by for the winter.  Where does that leave the dogs?  Bored and full of beans!

Today I took Kestrel for a nice long walk at the conservation area.  I am not spending enough time with her alone, so decided to take just her with me today.  Plus the dogs get a little too wild to take to public places when they haven’t run in a few days.  Now that Labour Day is past, the beach is abandoned once again and I’ll be taking the others down there for a swim in a few minutes.  The water is calm and still warm, even though the air is getting quite cool and the leaves are starting to turn.

I haven’t done any training with the dogs since the weekend.  I tracked down the contact information for the agility person I hope to start training with.  Her prices are very reasonable, and now that I am working again, I will be able to afford to come out and train one evening a week.  I would like to get Hannah trialing this fall, but I also want to do a class with Kestrel for bonding purposes.  Mira I can train on my own for now.

The dogs are all getting much better at hanging out in the yard without me.  When I first moved here they would all hover around the door, wondering why they were locked out.  They were not used to having a yard and really didn’t know what to do with it.  Except for Kess, that is, who I expect spent a lot of time on her own prior to coming here.  Now all three girls will happily stay out for a couple of hours at a time, although I like to sit out there with them as much as possible.  I think the sun and fresh air is good for them.  There’s shade but not much shelter from rain, so as the weather gets wetter they’ll stay in more.  For now, I have them out as much as possible.

I had a really great chat with Kestrel’s breeder on Sunday, which was a nice pick-me-up after the beating my self-esteem took on Saturday.  Kess’s breeder is a very cheerful, positive person and was very encouraging of my efforts with my dogs.  She commented that she rarely sees dogs in such good condition, and especially with as much training on stock as mine have, coming from a city home.  At the risk of patting myself on the back and giving myself a swelled head, I do have to admit that I put a lot of work into them.  I always feel like I could do more, much more.  But I know few people who live in the city and travel and and train as consistently as I do in herding.

That said, I hate spending as much time away from home and away from the dogs as I have over the last few weeks.  Now that I have a longer term contract, I am going to be able to set up a regular schedule and be home much of the time.  Yesterday I was offered more work, but I turned it down (which was really tough because I could really use the money!!) in order to preserve what little time I have for the dogs.  As it stands, I will be away from home for two 8 hour days a week, and the rest of the time I will work from home.  That should allow me to train three evenings a week, two in herding and one in agility.

Time to bring the girls to the beach before people get home from work…