In review

I haven't posted for a very long time, but I think it would be nice to give a little review of Kola's activities.

Herding: no trialing lately because I'm pregnant and not feeling up to running her down if the need arises. Also because I'm pregnant my trainer insists we do nothing but driving. I'm pleased with this and Kola is starting to get the idea. In general she's become a much softer dog. More thoughtful but also slower to action. I guess that is the trade off.

Ducks: Kola mostly ignores them. If a drake bites her tail she nips at him and puts him back in his place. Sometimes she gives them a little chase just for fun but not much. When they are older we will start working them through obstacles and see if she perks up.

Agility: haven't done much there. We took the jumps down for the winter and they never went back up. :(

Horses: Kola has been coming with me on trail rides with the horses. She Looooooooooves it. Also it really tires her out.

Ducklings

For a little while the ducklings are going to take over this blog. They are, after all, for Kola. Here they are:

This picture was taken today. They were born Wednesday the 23rd of February.

HRD I

Whew, I haven't updated this in a while. I keep thinking I'll wait until I've got pictures but maybe a better plan is to post and then go back and add pictures later.

Item number 1 is that we are now proud owners of a Herding-Ranch-Dog-I-titled dog! The key was letting Kola know that I could and would stop her any time I wanted. That put her in the mindset of stopping when she was told. That in turn led to slowing down and maybe even a little thinking.

Item number 2 is that Dave and I had a really good talk about reading Kola's intentions. They are not always honorable. The critical thing I haven't been doing is watching her eyes. She likes to keep working the stock with her eyes even after I've gotten her still and away from her sheep. So in essence she's not really yielding the sheep to me. This may be part of her attitude problem.

Item number 3 is that we didn't get our HTAD title like we wanted. We did learn a lot. I probably learned the most but I think Kola learned that even at a trial acting like a wild animal will get your sheep taken away and quickly. Better luck this spring.

Casting wide

I arrived late for our lesson today so we didn't have much time with Dave, but we did practice on our own a little too.

With Dave we worked on Kola moving the sheep calmly while in tight spaces. The key was to use my stock stick to put pressure on the sheep, not on the dog directly. The difference was amazing. We went around and around, changing directions occasionally, and most of the time she just calmly rounded her sheep and didn't dive for them when they scooted to the other side of the aisle. Plus, after a while they settled down and didn't run as far or as fast.

On my own we just worked on bringing me the sheep and holding them on me. Plus, bringing them off the fence.

It turned into outrun 101. Lots of chasing the dog off the sheep. The problem was that every time she turned for the sheep and didn't take the "get out" then I had to run after her. That meant that to be right she needed to cast out even wider for longer. Basically Kola, the sheep, and I all ran in circles. Kola following the sheep slightly to the outside, me trying to push Kola further to the outside, the sheep just doing what Kola was inadvertently directing them to do. Namely, run in a big circle around me. It was a frustrating exercise for all involved. Still, I'm thinking Kola probably learned something from the whole thing.

We also practiced a little bit of flanking along the fence. She was OK. She likes to step into me after I tell her to stop but before she actually stops. I'm thinking about teaching her a "back up" command. Probably wouldn't use it for trialing but it might be a nice training tool.

In other news, Kola is doing six weave poles with about 70% accuracy. The speed is pretty variable, but when she does it both right and fast she gets lots of treats and praise. I think she needs better poles that are straight up and down, and uniform in their spacing. I see a lot of pvc and T fittings in my future.

Herding Ranch Dog I

I've got my sights set on the HRDI title for Kola. The trial is October 30th and 31st. I'm skipping Friday's informal trial because of logistical concerns and because if we qualified the first two tries then we'd have to move up and we're not ready to move up so it would be a waste. The course is above.
The stylish way to leave the round pen would be to have Kola hold the sheep off the gate by flanking her off balance so that she's to the left of the gate. Covering the draw but still holding them close. We've done something like this before. Then I flank her to the come bye side just a little bit and the sheep file out in an orderly fashion. Then Kola gets upset because the sheep are leaving. She might keep her head about it if we practice a little.

If we have her left of the gate when the sheep come through I'm hoping that they'll want to head out away from Kola and take a left as they're leaving. That would set us up for the tricky part. Getting the sheep into pen I without anyone getting upset. If I walk to my sheep and then call Kola to hold them to me, I can walk everyone to the next gate. Again the stylish thing to do is have Kola hold the sheep just off the gate this time on my right as I face the sheep. Open the gate, let the sheep slip through by giving Kola just a little Away to me flank. I will move through the gate and straight into pen I. The hope is that the sheep move with me and then I call Kola to come along. All the gates will be open so its up to Kola to act as the closed gate. Then there is the narrow alleyway. I'm predicting the sheep will bolt down the alley to the draw of the grass and the open field and away from the nutty dog. If they don't run then its pretty straightforward. If they bolt I need to set Kola up to fetch them back to me by stopping her, moving towards the sheep a little, and then sending her for them. If she holds them to me again, then its back to being pretty easy. I get to walk through the panels and all the way to the pumpkin. Then its just a matter of calling Kola off and setting her up for the outrun/lift/fetch. Back through the panels and then into field three.

There is some risk the sheep will want to run to the alley. If they do then I need to bring Kola around the outside and see if we can push them back. If not we'll go to pen I and then J and push them through again and it will be slow. We've only got ten minutes. Hopefully there will be too much pressure in the alley and they'll prefer to go through to field three. Just in case, I'll try to have Kola cover the alley entrance a little bit while pushing the sheep into field three.

Along the fence all the way to the re-pen shouldn't be too much trouble. Kola will want to be too close but she'll still get the job done. If I'm proactive keeping her at her proper distance it shouldn't be too ugly.

In other news, Kola is starting to get the hang of the weave poles. We're doing six poles now and probably wont move up to twelve until she can run through six. That will take a while. She still has trouble getting all her poles if I don't walk along with her. If I'm in front of her she watches me too much. My timing with the clicker is terrible but good enough to be helpful I think.

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.

Think ahead

On Tuesday Chris was not around so Jim taught the lesson. One big difference between their teaching styles is that Jim likes to put us through courses that are a technical challenge for the handler. They're not necessarily the most physically demanding for the dog. Its a little mystifying watching the dog and the handler and trying to figure out what made the dog do what she did. Were the handler's shoulders out of place? Said the command too soon, too late? Front cross, rear cross, push, pull, here, out. Jim urged Jesse to think at least one jump ahead, if not more. And he made Jesse describe his handling plan ahead of time. This meant Jesse had to actually have a handling plan ahead of time. Lots of technical exercise. We barely did any practice in the intervening time but I swear when we get our new house and our new yard I'm going to train Kola to do her weave poles using the 2x2 method. It will be hard for me to have patience to do this but I think its the best way for Kola to really get the idea of the weave poles.
Somehow we will get her to slow down on the teeter totter. At practice the first run through she jumped off right after she passed the fulcrum. Very impressive jump, but still a big "no, no"