Fun run and outrun

Last week at her herding lesson Kola and I worked on off-balance stuff and putting the sheep through a Y chute. The key was to have Kola flank outside the sheep's flight zone and then come in, or just hold them. We had one really beautiful time through the chute. Kola was right where I put her, slightly to the left of the chute. She held the sheep there and perfectly balanced my draw as I walked to the left side of the chute and led the sheep to the other side. With Kola where she was relative to me, the sheep went perfectly straight through the chute. The other thing that was pretty neat is, for the first time, I had Kola hold the sheep off the gate while I opened it. Then flanked her so the sheep could just start coming in the gate. I didn't take my eyes off Kola (and she eventually broke her "down") but Dave says the sheep marched in single file, which explains why it was so much easier to close the gate. Usually they mob the gate and you just can't close it until all the sheep are already through and voila, you've lost your gate sort. This time we got three in and kept two. I was intending to do the opposite but I wasn't fast enough with the gate and Kola broke out too soon so, that's how that goes.

Last weekend we went to the Agility Fun Run in Yamhill, sponsored by the Three Rivers Working Australian Shepard Club. TRWASA for short. I mistakenly thought that Kola had to jump 24" so I set the jumpers course up to 24". Jesse thought it was too high but I assured him she could do it.
As it turns out we were both right. Kola could make the jumps, but they were much more difficult than what she was used to so it was hard to get her to do more than a few at a time, let alone 13 in a row. (Later at our lesson Chris suggested that next time I try to make her jump 24" that Jesse beat me with a light stick. Point taken.) Turns out she should be jumping 20" (in ASCA 24" is always optional, AKC and USDAA would have her jump 20" as well.) We didn't get a chance to do the jumpers again but Jesse ran Kola in the regular agility practice ring at 16" and she did pretty well. She did a full competition-height A-frame without a problem and she went over the teeter totter without looking like she was trying to kill herself. She did have trouble with a tunnel entry. Not sure what that was about. She also got distracted and ran out of the ring to go sniff things. Very embarrassing.

She was good for her agility lesson. We had a problem with another tunnel because she found something fascinating inside it and often wouldn't come out until Jesse stopped and called her more forcefully. She isn't doing her 2o2o (two on, two off) on the contacts very well but she is getting the contacts so that's nice at least.

This weeks herding lesson we worked (unsuccessfully) at slowing her down. Because I had to "down" her a lot, she sheep were frequently running back to their favorite corner. That meant she did a lot of outruns. The outruns are starting to get really good! One time I just stood there and watched while she brought me the sheep. No running, no flailing with the stick, just sheep.

My new plan, which I've now cleared with Dave and with Jesse is to start saying "Easy" but having her lie down. That way, out in the field, when I say "easy" then she'll do that compromise slow slow almost ready to stop type of walk that I like. That's the idea anyway. We'll see how that works out in practice.

At some point I'd like to put together a chart of her commands and the minimum requirement and the ideal or maximum requirement.