Re-Visiting The Basics

   The weather finally gave us enough of a break to get out and work on some of the things I talked about in my last post. Kelly was able to come down and spend a good part of the day with me at Hog Dog where both of us were working on fixing some of the "holes in our training" as Kelly likes to call them.


   For Diva and I Hog Dog is like home base. It's where we got our start and where we have done most of our training. The sheep are familiar to me and it is a great place to work on things because of that level of comfort. I was happy to note when I pulled in today that all the sheep were back over in the big pasture which made it easy to sort the working groups we needed to fit the dogs. It's been a while since Diva has done the big blind outrun and with the ram mixed in the flock I erred on the side of caution and walked up with her before sending to gather. Diva did a nice job putting everyone together and we got started on our beginner work. Normally I would have had her drive the flock down to the smaller fields to sort but today we went into fetch mode and what a great thing it was! I made sure to reinforce her distance and kept pushing her back out when she was rushing. By about the halfway point across the field she was rating herself much better. Once I we had everyone in the smallest field I started sorting at the gate. This is not one of our strong points as Diva gets things done through motion and isn't strong on the stop and straight walk up. To compound the problem Mr. Ram is always the first at the gate to go through even when I don't want him there and he isn't easily deterred. I have to remain vigilant to how I position Diva in relation to him because he will butt a dog. Despite the challenges I sorted off a group of 3 very broke older ewes to put in the round pen for the baby dog and then sorted off another group with 2 lighter ewes and 3 of this years lambs. This group was lighter and the lambs are very pressure sensitive. 


To start I had Diva work the lamb group in the medium field fetching and then holding them to the fence and working on flanks and staying out of the flight zone. She really had to watch the heads and pay attention which was my intent. I can't say I was 100% happy with her because the lambs squirted out quite a few times but it was very good for her to have to go out and cover. We then took a break while Kelly worked her puppy and Raven. On our second go I had sorted out another group of ewes who I knew were broke but didn't expect them to be as heavy as they were. In the end it presented it's own challenges and gave me good opportunity to continue fetching and working on nice square flanks with a good "out". I have video from this session that I will share in all of it's un-edited glory, lol! It's nothing special but it shows us working all of the above and how some of it goes right and some of it goes wrong ;-). 

   Shortly after this video I went and got Sally's girl Paiva to take in the round pen for some sheep time. It has been a LONG time since I have done anything with Paiva but because Sally was at Hog Dog for an agility seminar I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. Paiva has been a big challenge for me in the few times I have tried to work her. She is seemingly uninterested until she gets within about 10 feet and then she just explodes. She doesn't try and hurt the sheep but she will grip and split. The odd thing is just as quick as it happens she moves away and won't re-engage unless you force her to. Today was pretty much the same thing and so Kelly suggested bringing Diva in to work with Paiva. This was a great idea and actually what was supposed to be for Paiva's benefit ended up be fun for Diva as well and just what we both needed. Diva came in and immediately got around the sheep while I kept trying to get Paiva to tag along. She did better following Diva for a little bit but it was still clear she wasn't comfortable. Meanwhile I was so focused on watching Paiva that Diva was able to take control and just enjoy the sheep. She moved in balance no matter where I went and she had a great time putting back together any messes that were made :-). My fetching dog was back and she had a big smile on her face! In the end Kelly caught up a sheep and we decided to just let Paiva sniff it. You can imagine my surprise when it became obvious that Paiva was scared of the sheep. All along I had assumed she was gripping and just being intense but she was reluctant to smell the sheep and kept turning her head to avoid. I don't know what will come of this discovery but at least I now know why she is reacting as she does and there is a plan to fix it if Sally would like to continue. 


   The final work session of the day came with another group of sheep where we practiced mostly fetching. At the very end I had Diva drive the sheep down the fence line in each direction and then we called it a day. I was happy with her driving and I think that getting out to Hog Dog today was a great choice. Hopefully next week we will get some time on cows!