Gripping!

In the stock dog world appropriate and deliberate gripping is a much coveted thing. To further add, a natural inclination to hit low on the heels or at the nose of the stock is a thing of beauty to watch. The timing, body posture, and speed is impressive. I have the good fortune of knowing a dog that does both well (among other things :)) and because of this I have at time been disappointed in Diva through no real fault of her own. 


Diva did not come with a natural inclination to bite. Even as a young dog she has always been very kind to her stock and I can't ever remember needing to correct her for taking a cheap shot. Given that she is my first stock dog this was probably a blessing but now that we are farther along in our training and working cows I find that there are times when I want her to bite. So where I find myself is in a position of having to train in what wasn't bred in. Can I do this? I think so. Diva is biddable and she likes to work her stock. I doubt that her bite will ever be as natural looking as a dog doing it purely from instinct but I will feel better knowing that she has it if she gets in somewhere tight and needs more than just her bark. 


So how does one go about training a dog to bite appropriately? I am sure there are many techniques and if I had my own stock to work with it would probably go a lot faster ;). Not to many people are willing to volunteer their sheep for bite training purposes because of obvious reasons! No one wants to sour a nice sheep and if it's a sheep that has some fight you probably don't want to put your green dog in there until they are more comfortable. Big dilemma. I started my game plan by doing an initial assessment of Diva's strengths and weaknesses and when I put it all together I decided that Diva lacked confidence in holding pressure and therefore she was never going to go in and bite. I made up some dry exercises for at home to try and condition a bite response to "get a hold" and I also worked on getting a  solid "watch it". For on stock work I visited a friends farm where we used her experienced dog and a chute to give Diva and idea. I have to admit those first sessions were a mess and I was pretty dishearten. Diva could not stand and look at the stock while they were stuffed in a corner. She would fidget, she would whine (loudly), and she would break her stay and try to avoid. This was not how I had imagined it in my dreams. Patience and hard work do pay off though and Diva eventually made some progress in learning to hold pressure. I learned that sometimes the greatest lessons about stock control have nothing to do with motion at all. I continued to work on pressure exercises and Diva continued to improve. She still doesn't hold pressure really well on cattle, instead preferring to bark for power, but on sheep she has made progress. 


2 weeks ago while working on the free standing pen in the large field Diva made me tears come to my eyes. I know it sounds silly but from a training perspective it was one of my proudest moments. I had her pen the sheep and then I sent her in the pen to get around them. Out of the blue one of the ewes put her head down and stomped and Diva locked eyes with her. I said nothing just waiting to see where it would go and low and behold Diva bit the ewe on the nose, turned her, and pushed the sheep out of the pen! She has since hit one other time on the same in ewe in the same pen. It's not much to some people but for me it is 6 months of work and a milestone that I won't soon forget.


It's no big secret that I have been on the hunt for my next puppy. Diva needs a playmate and my plans for her are coming together. She turned 4 at the end of January and I have my eye on MVA 2013. It would be nice to have an up and coming young dog but I have to say that although I enjoyed that sense of accomplishment with Diva I will be looking for a pup that comes with a natural inclination to hit heads and heels.