Controlling Her Enthusiasm
In our last blog entry, we talked about what’s necessary for a working dog: drive and structure.
When you have a dog with those, the next step is training.
(Of course, training the human partner is always the most difficult: dogs are supposed to have two left feet!) Obedience work is pretty basic -- dog and handler work as a team with the dog focused on the handler, ignoring distractions. In herding it’s different. Those sheep can be so distracting. = )
Beasil is learning the meaning of ‘get back’, since she naturally wants to get ‘up close and personal’. Being too close puts too much pressure on the sheep and they want to run, instead of staying with the handler. And the dog (who is used to staying close to the handler in obedience) wants to just... chase the sheep. Control is the whole idea.
Right now we are getting ready for our HT and then the PT. With the first trial coming up in a couple months, the HT is within our grasp. Beasil is learning to work a little wider so that the sheep are comfortable staying with the handler (me) and I’m getting a little better at being aware of 1) where the sheep are, 2) where Beasil is, 3) where I want the sheep to go and 4) where I want Beasil to go.
Everything changes in a matter of seconds and any hesitation on my part can have ‘unintended consequences’, to say the least. The photo below is a good example. We were approaching the fence (where I’m supposed to turn around) and I hesitated for a split second. That allowed Beasil to get a little too close and one of the sheep bolted. Beasil is quick to notice that the flock isn’t together and instantly moved to after the errant animal in order to ‘encourage’ it to rejoin the others.
Beasil shouldn’t have to ‘fix’ a problem that I created, but it’s nice that she knows when things aren’t right!
A better example of what we’re looking for is the photo below. We’ve made our turn, Beasil is working wide enough so that there is not too much pressure on the stock and I’m actually aware of where the sheep and the dog are.
Baby steps, Bret.
We’re looking forward to our “Herding Trial Clinic” on Sunday. We are the least experienced team there and it’s so encouraging to watch others being successful at higher levels and hearing them say that we’re coming along, as they did when they were the ‘newbies’.
What a great bunch of people & dogs.
Baby Steps
Monday, August 11, 2008
