SophieRose's Training Diary 8: BCs and sheep

It's a busy life for little SR. Today over at the pasture, she went with me and Spot to bring the sheep in. Basically, SR is just walking with me; she's not really pushing sheep at all, just hanging while we do chores. Dan came along and took the picture.

The other picture is of SR playing with Tess. Tess is 2 years old and a very nice girl. She grew up with a livestock guardian dog puppy so is not at all concerned about the way SR plays (I got Tess when she was a year old).

Kathy

SophieRose grandma

Here is SR's grandmama Zonnetje at home.

SophieRose's Training Diary 7: Water!

Another thing SophieRose has to learn is how to deal with water tanks. First she has to learn how to get in and out of them :). Then, later she has to learn that she gets to go to water when I say so (and my responsibility is to make sure that she doesn't get overheated and has access to water).

Now some stock people get real upset about dogs getting into water tanks. I've heard two reasons. The first is that the dog just doesn't get to decide when to go to water and the second is that dogs in stock tanks leads to dirty tanks that make more work for the human.

In my case, my "sheep partner" and I have decided that we will just clean tanks when needed and also that we would rather a dog go to water than not when it's hot so we have chosen not to make the water tanks severely off limits except when permission is granted. We'd rather have live dogs than some points at a trial and, when we're doing chores, you can also redo if the dog going to water causes a problem.

SophieRose's great-grandfather

Ch. Hosky, her great-grandfather, also with sheep, just for fun
He is now 14,5 years old and still doing well.
From Wim & Ria Boer

SophieRose Training Diary 6: Things SR needs to learn

One of the things that SR needs to learn is that restraint is just a fact of life and nothing to panic about. I frequently need to tie a dog out to make sure the dog stays out of trouble while I'm doing something else. Stock dogs get tied out rather frequently actually and it's just part of life. Case in point. I was out with the sheep with SR and needed to do something where both hands were necessary and I didn't want to let SR just run around.

So I tied her line to part of the car. Well SR was not happy and was lying at the end of the line with pressure on it (second picture--sorry they're in the wrong order and I can't figure out how to switch them!). She was not panicked, just unhappy. What I wanted was for her to figure out that (1) she had some control of the pressure; by moving forward and relaxing, the pull would go away and (2) that she could not simply make the "line/restraint' go away.

So, in the spirit of making the "wrong difficult" and the "right easy", I took the hunk of sheep wool SR had picked up earlier (a treasure!) and moved it in front of her, luring her to move up a bit. I just put it there and drew her attention to it; I didn't rev her up with tug of war or a lot of "prey movement with the wool." Then I moved back and let her figure things out.

In typical SR fashion, she thought for a minute, moved forward to get to the wool and discovered that life tied to the car wasn't so bad (first photo...elapsed time about 5 seconds!)

A side note. I don't tie my dogs out and leave them; it's always simply because I need freedom of movement and need to keep the dog safe at the same time.

SophieRose Training Diary 5: sheep and stuff

SophieRose went out to the pasture again with me today. A friend and I rent land and have about 50 some odd hair sheep (ewes and lambs right now) out there.

Spot the border collie and I moved some of the sheep into a 100 x 100 pen and pushed the others out into the 14 acre field to graze. Then I put Spot up and got SR to help me fill up water and just hang around sheep.

I want to be really careful not to let her get scared so I only have her out when i can pay pretty full attention to what she's doing.

Well,the sheep that had been put out in the larger area decided that they didn't like being separated from the other sheep and came back through a gate I hadn't thought I'd need to close.

SR was quite interested but tentative (she is only 12 weeks old!) so I picked her up and we pushed the incoming sheep out of the way. By that time, SR had regained some confidence and we were on the far side of the sheep about 10-15 feet off who were moving away from us so I put her down (she was on a line so not loose). She took a step toward the sheep and the sheep moved away and SR stopped and watched the ewes move away. We did this a couple of times to help SR figure out that moving toward sheep caused them to move away and to let her watch them move off (as opposed to chasing). No hysteria, no nothing but helping me move sheep a little bit. And thinking. This dog likes to consider the world and think rather than leaping before looking.

So then, we did a "here, that'll do" and she and I walked off to do something else. We also spent some time in another area with her pretty much being responsible for keeping up with me and keeping track of me.

I'm letting SR's reactions guide what we do. I could not have done this, for instance, with Pearl, the border collie, when she was this age. My goal with SR is to make having sheep around (and later ducks) normal and to reinforce the kind of behavior I want while not letting behavior I don't want happen.

It's not that SR is being "trained" in a formal sense; she's just getting used to how sheep behave in a safe context. And all of this took maybe 10 minutes, including a fair amount of walking.

Kathy

SophieRose's Mama

Kathy,

Here are pix of Lark at home.

Sunny

SophieRose Training Dairy 4: Letting dogs think

Just got to thinking about what I wrote before and I think it applies to dogs like my Zach (bouvier) as well as SophieRose. They are actually rather sensitive in a good sense and learn very fast. You want to avoid scaring them or making them uneasy about things... and they need some time to think about things and to figure out that the "safe" and "best" way is the one you're promoting (as in coming to you). I especially noticed this with SR and the crate. She likes her crate but I sort of "startled" her once when I was in a hurry picking her up to put her in it and that was enough to make her "not so happy about the crate". So have gone back to being a bit more aware of how SR is seeing the world and helping her learn to go into a crate as a nice (if inevitable) place to go..... her favorite treats are these dehydrated rabbit ears I buy ... hair and all... the dogs love them. She is doing well on a line but gets sort of startled when she realizes that something is "grabbing" her. If I just stand there or walk toward her and ask her to come to me and give her a second or so to think, she's fine. This made me really aware of how bright and sensitive (in a good sense, not in an overreactive or fearful sense) she is. She likes to "understand" how the world works so that she can feel secure is all. Zach is like that too. Most dogs are but SR (and Zach) seem to be particularly aware of their surroundings and to want to please people.

Kathy

SophieRose Training Dairy 3: Thinking time and sheep

5/08/07

Just thought I'd let you know how nice she continues to be (we call her the 'anti Pearl' who has always been 'difficult').SR was out with me today at the pasture and I had her on a line which she accepts fine.... you just have to give her some time to think out her options and things work fine.About 10 some odd ewes and lambs were in a pen and they came over to inspect SR (were very curious). I was watching SR carefully--didn't want her scared-- but she stood right there and touched noses with the one ewe through the fence. No panic, no lunging (fear), no backing up, and of course I was right there and I sort of shooed the ewe off with my hat above SR's eye level). We, of course, quit right there and SR and I went back to the water tub....she loves water and has already learned how to pull herself into the sheep water tub and paddle around and pull herself out. Kathy

SophieRose Training Diary 2: Getting out, Lark, sheep

4/29/07

Thought you'd like to know that SophieRose (SR) is doing well. She is getting more "rambunctious" as she feels more comfortable here and she is getting more ambitious about exploring. The bitter apple has been useful (she loves computer cords).She went over to sheep with me yesterday and walked part of the front pasture with the border collies...and discovered the delights of sheep poop!Today she helped me with water for the sheep--she loves water--and then there was a small local trial that I took Tess the border collie to for one run and just to see people. SR came with me of course and met lots of people + spending about an hour over lunch up at the house making friends with lots of people and one kid. The general consensus is that she is "adorable" and very stable and sensible.And, my friend Tracey actually competed with her Aussie against Lark at the ASCA cattle ranch dog trial and lost to Lark by 1 point. Tracey told me that she was really impressed with how Lark worked and that (besides Kaz of course), that Lark was the only bouvier she'd ever seen that she'd want for stock work!Thought you'd like to know that! Kathy

SophieRose Training Diary 1 : Names, dog pack and sheep

4/23/07


She's doing fine. And I think her name may actually be Meg :). Abby didn't work... I was starting to call her things like Abby-babby (not cool!). We thought about Sophie but I knew a hyper mini Schnauzer named Sophie and couldn't get that out of my head.Then, this morning when I was getting her out of the crate in the car over at the pasture (where the sheep are), I just called her Meg (Ok, actually I called her Meggie :) ) so we'll see. She is doing fine. Slept most of the night in a crate and went out twice to pee with no problem. Discovered that Dan (husband) will cuddle with dogs on the bed while watching TV and is gradually getting used being the "puppy" in a pack of adult dogs. Pepper (border collie) told her to definitely keep her distance and she is. She has not yet met Pearl (border collie) and won't directly for a while and maybe never. Went out and helped Tess (border collie) and me move sheep (I was carrying her) and then went out in another field with the border collies and me and is now home and napping!She is very sweet and very bright... a nice pup! Kathy