Today I am going to blog about herding! Amazing huh! I originally had intentions of blogging about Reena's herding progress here (hence the name, that never fit the topic). However, I had a lesson with Lynn Leach yesterday so today I have something herding to drone on about. It may be boring as it's mostly ideas for me to remember in the future as there is always something to forget in herding. But perhaps it will remind others too, so its a blog.
Lesson 1, first we worked on getting square flanks. Instead of trying to push Reena out
every time I sent her (which ultimately leaves the
responsibility on me to make her do it), we just stopped her
every time she started the flank with her eyes on the sheep.
Beginning dogs will keep their eye on the sheep the entire time as they go out and around which puts pressure on the sheep from the
beginning and makes the sheep move before the dog gets to the correct spot where you want them to start pushing. We wanted Reena to go out and around the sheep while looking away from the sheep, until she is where I want her to be (the top if it's an outrun) and then to turn into the sheep to start working them. Just the idea of where she is looking changes her movements entirely. When she would turn her head away from the sheep at the start, she automatically turned her body sideways to the sheep and she automatically hugged the fence line until she was behind the sheep. It was night and day.
The neat thing about it was how we got her to understand this.
Every time I sent her and she looked at the sheep, I blocked her, said no, and stopped her. After stopping her, I would send her again. It is important to stop her so she knows it is a second try at what I want, not just a correction on the first command. The message is 'No you are wrong, try again'. She knows the command and the direction and is trying to figure out why I am stopping her. So she has to try something different until she finds something that she does that works,
ie., I let her continue. Eventually she takes the command with her eyes
averted from the sheep and I let her continue and get the sheep. The wide outrun comes naturally if she is looking away. This way she learns '
OK, this is what works and it's this way or nothing', instead of 'I go in and my mom pushes me out until she is happy with it'.
Lesson 2. We worked on off balance and inside flanks. Lynn said it is important that the dog learns this before starting to drive. The most important idea here is that she realizes, 'Oh! "go bye" and "away" are just directions, not
solely a direction to go when fetching the sheep'. Then when the dog starts to learn driving they will trust that you can tell them where they are taking the sheep. If they don't understand this concept yet, the only direction they know is a fetch to you. So when they are asked to drive the sheep away from you, they don't believe you can tell them where to take the sheep and they feel they have no control where the sheep are going.
To get the off balance and inside flanks is hard to explain without a diagram and droning on some more. And I'm pretty droned out by now. But I'll try tomorrow or something. Gotta go mow the lawn and enjoy the beautiful Sat. Hope you all are too.
Posts
