Giving Back

    When you get a 46 degree day with sun in January it's best to go make the most of it. I have been trying to get together with Doug for a couple of weeks now so that we could do a training session with Buddy. Buddy is 11 months old now so it's time to start laying the foundation for him to be a useful farm dog. Doug has been very gracious in offering me free use of his sheep whenever I want and it is my intent to give him something back in return by helping him start his dog and using Diva to make tasks that are normally a headache less stressful. Eventually I expect that Doug and Buddy will no longer need our help but for now this mutually beneficial relationship is working out great. Diva and I have set about really dog breaking the one group of 6 sheep so that they are easier to put a young and very enthusiastic Buddy on. The Icelandics have proven to be wonderful sheep to work with and in the group we are using there is a badger faced ewe that is what the Icelandic farmers refer to as a "leader sheep". She is head of the flock, incredibly smart, and I love working with her and watching her figure it out. She has already sorted out that if she comes to me and stays close that is the place I want her to be but she is not at all heavy so as soon as the dog gets to pushy she goes on by. I believe she has her last year's ewe lamb by her side, an all black ewe, and she too is picking up on the fact that the dog isn't a threat if you just move where they ask you too. Doug has told me that these 6 will be alone for the next two weeks at which time he is going to bring the rest of the ewes back together and sort off the rams to their own field again. He also told me that shearing day will most likely be the 2nd weekend in April so we need to have the flock working nicely with the dogs and practice sorting them.

    Diva didn't have to do much work at all to get the sheep into the small pen so that we could work Buddy. She went out and fished them out from the section of trees in the barnyard field but when it came time to push them into the chute she lost them because she didn't wait and apply a steady pressure. The lead ewe had stopped and turned to face Diva and instead of waiting a few seconds and doing a nice walk up she blew in at her and caused the stock to split. A quick verbal correction from me and we set things up again at the mouth of the chute and the sheep went right in. I wasn't really mad at Diva for getting after the ewe because I could see that there was some exchange going on between the two of them as they were starring each other down but I was disappointed that she stirred the pot and chose to breach the bubble. What I hope Diva will learn from these sheep is to make better choices under pressure and to watch all of her stock as opposed to getting caught up in the moment when some action goes down. Anyway, once we had the sheep in there it was time to really get a feel for what Buddy would do. I asked Doug if it was ok if I took him (on leash) around the stock a few times so I could watch his response. Buddy is everything an un-schooled young Aussie can be...he is strong, rushing, pulling, and completely zoned in on the heads. My stick ment absolutely nothing until I hit the ground in front of him once really hard and then I got the, "fine, if I can't play my way I don't want to plat at all!" attitude. He wants to pursue, split, and really pull some wool and he has no stop. I tried letting the line go to see if he would eventually get around but for now he is just intent on making them move. So what does this mean? It means I am going to be come a better trainer (Yay!!) and Doug has a lot of homework to do, lol. I gave Buddy back to Doug and then Diva and I showed him what fetching was supposed to look like. I explained to him about the basics of directional commands, walk up, and how when he was guiding Buddy around the stock how to tell if Buddy was truly releasing pressure or still leaning on the sheep. We talked about loose eyed working dogs and I explained that he need to get a good stop on Buddy. Buddy needs to start going out to "work" daily and even though it might be frustrating using a young dog that turns 20 minutes of chores into an hour, if you don't use him he will never learn what he needs to do and be able to do it. As we stood around talking dogs and sheep Buddy noticeably relaxed which is what I was hoping for. I then had Doug take him on leash and just move the stock around the pen, changing direction periodically and practicing downs when he had them held in the corners. It was much better (more productive) and it gave us a good place to call it quits. 

    So until I get out there next week I hope that Doug finds some time to work on his homework with Buddy and perhaps just getting more exposure will help him settle down. If we find that having just a few sheep gives him to much of chance to focus on one or two then we can look forward to having 30 ewes together and seeing if working the flock as a whole changes his approach. This is what I love the most about working livestock with a dog and particularly about starting young dogs. You need to figure out what works, develop that teamwork, and it doesn't always just come easy.