Fall is in full effect now and for those people, like myself, who wilt during the summer heat this is a welcome change. It makes me want to get outside and do some training. This is obviously a good thing since our trial schedule (both agility and herding) is about to get a major bump up in November. Diva did me a favor (sort of ;-)) by graciously deciding to come into heat this past week. This will have her just out of heat before the ASCA agility trial November 3/4 but it does complicate our ability to go out and train. See what I mean, a double edged sword ;-). Fortunately Hog Dog allows BIH to train on the agility equipment so we will be getting in several practice sessions on our own.
Speaking of Hog Dog, this past Friday Kelly and I met there to work sheep and have a little girl time. I am really looking to tune up her go by outrun and inside flanks before the November AHBA trial. I want her thinking more round and listening when she hits the top instead of just kicking into auto pilot and stopping at balance as she is prone to do. It was pretty obvious after working the group of 4 ewes I sorted off that the HD sheep have been seeing a lot more work. They are still heavy but now a couple of them have learned a few "tricks" which they previously never tried. In a way this is great news and more than once Diva had to fix the mess she made by not truly watching the sheep. During our first training session I took the 4 ewes out into the large pasture and had her drive them up the field so we could practice that go by outrun. The sheep cheated her a little bit by turning well before she was able to make the full outrun and this caused her to cheat me and slice in at the top. Of course we can't have that so I set it up a few more times and pushed her off until it was more to my liking. Then we worked on driving around the pasture off the fences which Diva does very well. Just for fun I set it up so that Diva was doing the free standing pen without my help. I was trying to stay about 60-80 feet away minimum from the pen with the gate open and let her cover everything on her own. There was one ewe that was just savvy enough to brush by the gate if the dog wasn't out wide enough and fast enough on the flank and this caused Diva to really have to work on it to make it happen. It was a tough love moment as I stood back there and just kept sending her around until she figured it out but it also made me proud that she got it done. Once the sheep were in I had her hold the opening for a few minutes and then go in and get them back out. She still likes to watch me alot and I am not sure that I will ever "fix" this. Perhaps because I talk to much ;-).
For our second group I added 2 more ewes and we worked in the small field on shorter go by out runs and then reminders that we aren't always driving, sometimes you need to fetch :-). I wanted to try the free standing pen exercise again with the added sheep so we took our group back into the pasture and set things up. Once again Diva had to really work and be correct because now there were two ewes who figured out how to skim the gate and go around. Where we seemed to run into trouble was when I had to flank her around the pen to bring the evaders back to the opening Diva was cutting in a little to close and not catching their eyes fast enough to turn them into the opening. It was a matter of being off my a few feet and a couple of seconds. Once she finally had them all in there I asked her to hold them before we moved on. I have to say that i love this exercise and it is something I will revisit the next time we are out (hopefully with the video camera). I think that by changing the position of the gate I can effectively tweak the degree of difficulty enough to provide a variety of learning experiences for Diva. During our two tries this time the gate was open so that it was completely straight with the one side panel.
Yep, that's right I am officially an Aunt to my cousin's new Aussie puppy, Myst. Myst joined the family about a month ago having hailed from Solstice Aussies in Virginia. Myst is Jessica's first Aussie and therefore Diva and I are taking an active role to make sure that they get off to the best possible start. Truth be told it has helped my horrendous case of puppy fever. Besides, there is much to be said for getting all the puppy kisses you want without having to do any of the house breaking ;-). I hope that Jessica will start her own blog about raising Myst but for now she will be making appearances in Diva's blog when it's appropriate. One such blog worthy event came last weekend when Myst got her first chance to meet sheep!
My own experiences with Diva and now having watched my friends start a few puppies has proven that the more exposure a pup has to stock the better. Now before anyone has a fit when I say exposure that doesn't mean any hard core training or pressure. What we want is for the pup to have fun, show some interest, watch the older dogs working, and learn to relax around stock and take it for granted. The premise being that when it comes time to start letting them really work you won't have a dog that is so hyped up they aren't thinking. What this boils down to for Myst's future is having the her go in the round pen with the sheep once a month or so just for few minutes to see how she reacts. No yelling, no force, and no serious expectations. We will do this on leash and off leash (if she is calm enough). Myst will also be spending time on leash in the pen with Jessica watching Diva and I work sheep and when Jessica can't come along she will learn to watch from the fence. Do I expect this to make everything all peaches and cream when we begin work? No, but I do believe that it will lay a good foundation that she will quickly build from.
When Jessica and I decided to take Myst out to see sheep it was really just for fun. No one puts to much weight on a what a 10 week old puppy does or doesn't do their first time seeing stock ;-). I had sorted off 3 yearling ewes and put them in the round pen. Hog Dog sheep are usually very fetchy and don't challenge. Jessica brought Myst in on leash while I had Diva move the sheep around and once it was clear she wasn't afraid the leash came off. There was one ewe that kept turning to face Myst (I think because she was so small) but she didn't get scared and I would have Diva come in beside her and move the ewe off. Jess caught Myst up and we went out to sit in the shade for a bit to let her "think" on what she had experienced. The next time we went in I decide Diva should stay out and I would let Jessica just walk around with Myst and the sheep. Clearly the first impression was a good one because Myst went straight to the sheep and did her best to get to balance. I was giving direction from the sidelines about where Jessica should go and the result was a very engaged puppy that showed a nice sense of group and sustained interest. She only made a couple of little messes and immediately covered the one that broke away. After just a couple of minutes Jess picked her up and that was that. We were both happy with the outcome :-). I think that Myst has a lot in there to work with and Jessica was bitten by the herding "bug". Till next time, enjoy!
