Passing On The Love For Herding

   It was a beautiful Sunday and I can't think of a better way to spend it than working dogs. The icing on the cake was that Jessica was able to meet me at Hog Dog so I could work Myst on sheep. Between us moving, Scott's medical emergency, Jess getting married, and her now expecting a baby things have not been working in our favor as far as Myst's stock training goes. I hate to admit it but, up until today it has been nearly a year since she was on sheep! If you remember in some of my earlier blog posts I shared pictures and videos of a VERY keen red tri puppy. She had a lot of enthusiasm to work with, a desire to get around them, and a decent down even with excitement. What she lacked was maturity, a desire to "see" the human in the picture at times, and she was difficult to get to change directions(orbiting). Today I knew that she would be excited but I wasn't sure what else I would find. Diva had done the gathering and sorting so we had 4 ewes and 2 lambs in the round pen. The lambs were a wild card, but ultimately it's good for Myst to not just have "knee knocker" sheep.

   When Jess handed her leash to me by the cars Myst was already gunning for the sheep, so we took a few seconds to introduce the rattle paddle and establish which one of us goes first when walking ;-). Myst pays great attention to noise so the paddle backs her off and widens her out great. I must remind myself to not over use it though so it doesn't lose it's impact and to be quicker with verbally rewarding when she responds by widening out. Inside the round pen we started just walking on lead around the sheep and staying respectful of a loose lead. She was really being very good so it wasn't long and I let her go as she stepped out to move around them. The result was very nicely to balance and fetching them to me albeit a little fast and pushy. For my part I tried to keep changing direction and push her out on her flanks. She squares much better to the go bye side but unlike the last time I worked her she was much easier going both directions and reading my position fluidly. Jess took some videos so I will let them speak for themselves.

    These first two video clips are from her first trip in the round pen. She is very fast but giving a pretty decent amount of space and taking the correction from the paddle well. Towards the end I almost took a tumble but caught myself on another sheep. Pushy dogs makes for very pushy sheep!

This last video is from the second session. It's a bit longer and you can see she is getting hot and tired but more importantly she keeps on working. We had a couple of interesting mishaps when the two lambs decided they no longer wanted to play and went under the gate (through no fault of Myst's). You see Taylor standing in the round pen because she is blocking the gate. Myst is a smart cookie and when she watched those lambs escape under the gate she walked over, took a look, and slid under herself to go after them. While I appreciate her tenacity the "shelter pen" held a group with several lambs and she is no where near ready to be in those kind of close quarters with a bunch of very light lambs. Thankfully while I was busy trying to get the gate open she fetched the sheep to me and then downed and held it until I could come in and get a hold of her. Lot's of praise for NOT making a big mess!

    It's always fun to bring along a new dog but yesterday I got to start sharing my passion and knowledge with a different kind of youngster, my daughter Taylor. Taylor has been wanting to "work" Diva for a while and with the end of the school year near it's a good time to start. Diva will work for Kelly to a degree so I am hoping that with time she will see the fun in working with Taylor. I would love for them to do juniors together! We started yesterday with both Taylor and I walking and working together. I was able to explain why we did certain things and Taylor practiced learning the correct flank commands. It was rather amusing to watch Diva as she sat facing Taylor waiting for a command. Taylor would tell her something, with me standing behind her, and Diva would move just her neck and head to look around her as if to ask me if that was what I really wanted, lol. I had to back up a few commands to get her to go but I hope once I feel comfortable staying outside the pen this will change and she will really listen to Taylor. For yesterday we did a lot of walking around and learning that you can tell what your dog is doing by watching you sheep, learning the flanks, and learning to steady up or down your dog if the sheep get to pushy. Taylor loved it and she talked the entire trip home about how she wants to "work dogs".