It stings me a little every time Chris points out that we need more control of Kola. It stings because in a lot of situations Kola is very in control. On leash with imminent cheese is not one of them. She becomes an obnoxious monster. She wont even hold a sit. Part of her problem is that any pressure on her collar at all and she thinks its time to go go go. Another part of her problem is that she thinks Chris is calling her (and arguably Chris is calling her) so she wants to bolt on over to the nice lady with the cheese. Mostly though, she's just hyped up by the cheese, and other dogs getting cheese/attention from the lady with the cheese.
I think we need to practice more obedience on leash than just walk by my side and don't pull me.
Also, "leave it" is getting better but there is still a long way to go. I'm thinking pinch collar time.
Chris is worried that Kola's lack of control will keep her from moving on to more advanced agility classes. We shall see what we can do about that.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Tough guy, eh?
We went to a new herding facility in Yamhill (capital city of Nowhere.) It was really beautiful and Kola was allowed to run around off-leash. The male bearded collie really wanted to mount Kola. Kola really wanted to run around and sniff and ignore him. It worked out well. He followed Kola around and she pretended he wasn't there. If Kola stopped for too long she had to do her classic my-eyes-are-over-here spin on her front end. Dave's kelpie also thought Kola was pretty cute.
The actual herding was good too. Dave was pleased with our progress in general. Out outruns still suck. Kola went out basically straight, I pushed her out far enough to get her on the sheep's shoulder and she wound up pushing the sheep the entire way around the pen and then some. Kola gave me this look, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth, as if to say, "Mom, this really isn't working." Finally she got out far enough to give the sheep an excuse to come to me. Kola was pretty amped up so she overflanked a lot. She calmed down eventually and did some pretty good work, albeit always pretty pushy. She held a down while I walked with the sheep all the way to the other end of the pen, but they still refused to lag behind me. Dave said the pen is too small for that.
The really exciting part was when the black sheep decided he'd had enough of Kola and turned to face her and refused to move. Kola was PERFECT! She didn't show a trace of fear, didn't get distracted or discouraged, she just stared that sheep right back in the eye with complete and perfect certainty that the sheep was going to move. "I am dog and you are sheep. You will move now." Is what her face said to me. The sheep tried this several times and always backed down from that placid stare.
I'm so proud of my girl.
The actual herding was good too. Dave was pleased with our progress in general. Out outruns still suck. Kola went out basically straight, I pushed her out far enough to get her on the sheep's shoulder and she wound up pushing the sheep the entire way around the pen and then some. Kola gave me this look, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth, as if to say, "Mom, this really isn't working." Finally she got out far enough to give the sheep an excuse to come to me. Kola was pretty amped up so she overflanked a lot. She calmed down eventually and did some pretty good work, albeit always pretty pushy. She held a down while I walked with the sheep all the way to the other end of the pen, but they still refused to lag behind me. Dave said the pen is too small for that.
The really exciting part was when the black sheep decided he'd had enough of Kola and turned to face her and refused to move. Kola was PERFECT! She didn't show a trace of fear, didn't get distracted or discouraged, she just stared that sheep right back in the eye with complete and perfect certainty that the sheep was going to move. "I am dog and you are sheep. You will move now." Is what her face said to me. The sheep tried this several times and always backed down from that placid stare.
I'm so proud of my girl.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Herding education and agility
The last few times I've tried to go out and herd during the week no one was around. This means we have to work on a leash. This means its really really difficult for us to get just a few sheep out at a time. The first time I tried this I had a really long line made of twine. This turns out to be really dangerous if you're not constantly vigilant, so that was stressful for me. The second time I used an extendable leash which is much safer, but a little shorter. Both times I really wound up stirring the sheep up something awful before finally getting a few separated. Furthermore Kola was pretty stirred up herself. The best things I can say about these sessions is that 1) I've really learned a lot more about how dog savvy sheep react to various stimuli, 2) I've learned that sheep are pretty good at figuring out my plan and are willing to put up with extra pressure from the dog or a fence to thwart my plan, and 3) Kola can calm down after being revved up and the sheep have been willing to calm down substantially.
All our on-leash work has been in the round pen, so one thing we worked on is me stopping and Kola just holding the sheep. Its not her favorite thing but she's getting more willing to do it. She'd rather push the sheep slightly to one side and then switch sides and push them the other way. No one else likes it when she does that. I guess and additional thing I can say about the leash work, at least with the extendable leash, is that when she breaks down and chases a sheep I can stop her dead in her tracks. I don't think that's actually much of a deterrent, but at least it helps keep the behavior from being excessively re-enforced.
I've swapped Jesse in for agility lessons and the two of them have been doing really well. I think they might be the best team in the class. (I'm totally unbiased in this assessment, of course.) The team that's also really good is the woman with the Cairn Terrier. She's an experienced agility handler though, so its to be expected that they'd be good. Kola I think has a higher drive than the terrier.
Kola's gotten a little calmer about waiting her turn on the equipment. She didn't lunge on her leash much at all.
Here is a little summary of her progress so far:
Jumps - with Jesse she's very good, with me she's pretty good, she generally clears her jumps but knocks them down with her tail when she goes to get her treat.
Tunnel - She has no fear of the tunnel but she also recognizes that its not necessarily the most efficient way to the treat. If you assure her that she's not getting the treat without the tunnel she blasts through it with gusto.
A-frame - no problem. She even holds her two on two off position relatively well, although sometimes she likes to rotate around. I'm not sure the two on two off is the way to go for her, she'd probably be happier just keeping four paws in the contact zone.
Teeter - she'll do it if she has to. She's not especially fearful of it, but you can tell its not her favorite thing.
Weave poles - I started her on a few weave poles on Tuesday. I set them up in a weave-a-matic style, with the poles tilted. I also set them just ever so slightly off center. She hasn't quite gotten the concept. I may change tactics and go with the channel strategy. We'll see how chris likes to do it on Monday.
All our on-leash work has been in the round pen, so one thing we worked on is me stopping and Kola just holding the sheep. Its not her favorite thing but she's getting more willing to do it. She'd rather push the sheep slightly to one side and then switch sides and push them the other way. No one else likes it when she does that. I guess and additional thing I can say about the leash work, at least with the extendable leash, is that when she breaks down and chases a sheep I can stop her dead in her tracks. I don't think that's actually much of a deterrent, but at least it helps keep the behavior from being excessively re-enforced.
I've swapped Jesse in for agility lessons and the two of them have been doing really well. I think they might be the best team in the class. (I'm totally unbiased in this assessment, of course.) The team that's also really good is the woman with the Cairn Terrier. She's an experienced agility handler though, so its to be expected that they'd be good. Kola I think has a higher drive than the terrier.
Kola's gotten a little calmer about waiting her turn on the equipment. She didn't lunge on her leash much at all.
Here is a little summary of her progress so far:
Jumps - with Jesse she's very good, with me she's pretty good, she generally clears her jumps but knocks them down with her tail when she goes to get her treat.
Tunnel - She has no fear of the tunnel but she also recognizes that its not necessarily the most efficient way to the treat. If you assure her that she's not getting the treat without the tunnel she blasts through it with gusto.
A-frame - no problem. She even holds her two on two off position relatively well, although sometimes she likes to rotate around. I'm not sure the two on two off is the way to go for her, she'd probably be happier just keeping four paws in the contact zone.
Teeter - she'll do it if she has to. She's not especially fearful of it, but you can tell its not her favorite thing.
Weave poles - I started her on a few weave poles on Tuesday. I set them up in a weave-a-matic style, with the poles tilted. I also set them just ever so slightly off center. She hasn't quite gotten the concept. I may change tactics and go with the channel strategy. We'll see how chris likes to do it on Monday.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
And now for something completely different
Agility!
I've been saying from day one that Jesse and Kola should do agility together. So I signed Kola up for agility class. At present I'm taking the class with Kola and Jesse is observing. I think I might phase myself out and phase Jesse in. The class is with Chris Primmer and its at Brigand's hideout. Last week we worked on "leave it" "touch" "spin right" "spin left." The "touch" command right now means, "eat the treat on the plastic disk." I'm thinking that the idea is to keep the dog from coming over to the handler for re-enforcement and instead going to a target for the reward. That way in the middle of a course you don't trip over your own dog coming to see you for treats. We also did a little bit of low jumping.
Jesse is much better at directing Kola over the jumps so I filmed him doing it instead of me.
This first video is the two jumps together to form a spread jump.
This second video is two jumps in a row with a treat in between.
Tomorrow we will learn weave poles. Should be fun.
I've been saying from day one that Jesse and Kola should do agility together. So I signed Kola up for agility class. At present I'm taking the class with Kola and Jesse is observing. I think I might phase myself out and phase Jesse in. The class is with Chris Primmer and its at Brigand's hideout. Last week we worked on "leave it" "touch" "spin right" "spin left." The "touch" command right now means, "eat the treat on the plastic disk." I'm thinking that the idea is to keep the dog from coming over to the handler for re-enforcement and instead going to a target for the reward. That way in the middle of a course you don't trip over your own dog coming to see you for treats. We also did a little bit of low jumping.
Jesse is much better at directing Kola over the jumps so I filmed him doing it instead of me.
This first video is the two jumps together to form a spread jump.
This second video is two jumps in a row with a treat in between.
Tomorrow we will learn weave poles. Should be fun.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
All by ourselves
So Dave is out of commission this month and that leaves his students to practice on our own. Kola and I worked some 2008-born sheep in the big field. I like these sheep. They are very small, and they think they're very hungry. They are just light enough that they'll stop and eat if Kola stops to sniff grass, or get drawn to the fence and their buddies if Kola is sufficiently out of position. They are not so light that Kola cant work her way up to the slowest one and sniff its butt. Sheep-butt sniffing is kindof Kola's reward for getting the sheep to trust her. Its not a policy of mine but thats just the way it worked out. When she's wild they skitter off before she can sniff them, and when she's calm she can sneak up to them without pushing them past me.
Something that really helped our training session today was replacing a generic "AH!" reprimand with "out!" correction. When she gets a generic reprimand she stops herding and comes over to seek my forgiveness. Thats not what I'm looking for. Since the thing she does wrong most frequently is cut in too close, "out!" plus pressure seems to be getting the message across. She doesn't quit working the sheep anyway. She doesn't always swing out very wide. Actually she never swings out very wide but often she'll get out a little and almost always she'll stop cutting in further. These are both valuable things, and things I think I can shape further into a proper "out."
Saying "out" really helped her swing all the way around to the balance point when she wanted to come in too early and push the sheep in a circle. The other thing that really helped her balance was that I started turning deliberately towards her so that her being off center was even more inconvenient. See, she likes to hang a little bit to one side (her left side I think.) If the sheep are between us this pushes the sheep into me and I often wind up turning to get away from the sheep. When I turn with the sheep she's automatically on balance and thus rewarded for being off balance in the first place. So today, since these were such little sheep, I just shoved my way past them turning about 60 to 90 degrees in Kola's direction, which threw her way further off balance than a comparable turn in the other direction. I did this so often she started anticipating this and moved more towards the center. Yay!
One little guy broke off from the group and I ran with Kola to go get it. (Kola tends to chase rather than herd in these situations.) I got her thoughts more towards herding and she brought the sheep back to me, O.K. Then she sprinted ahead of me and I couldn't figure out why. Duh! She was going back for the sheep we left behind. That wasn't my plan but she couldn't know that. On the one hand, her leaving caused me to lose the sheep we were fetching in the first place. On the other hand, I like the fact that she is seeing ALL of her sheep.
She was pretty tired today, and she tends to melt a little in the sun. It makes it easier for her to go "easy." All in all I was pleased.
Also, Jesse re-proposed to me in the middle of the field when we were done with our sheep and gave me the diamond ring that had (unbeknown to me) just come in the mail. That was nice too.
Finally, I'm looking forward to Monday the 22nd because we are signed up for our first agility lesson with Chris Primmer. Should be fun.
Something that really helped our training session today was replacing a generic "AH!" reprimand with "out!" correction. When she gets a generic reprimand she stops herding and comes over to seek my forgiveness. Thats not what I'm looking for. Since the thing she does wrong most frequently is cut in too close, "out!" plus pressure seems to be getting the message across. She doesn't quit working the sheep anyway. She doesn't always swing out very wide. Actually she never swings out very wide but often she'll get out a little and almost always she'll stop cutting in further. These are both valuable things, and things I think I can shape further into a proper "out."
Saying "out" really helped her swing all the way around to the balance point when she wanted to come in too early and push the sheep in a circle. The other thing that really helped her balance was that I started turning deliberately towards her so that her being off center was even more inconvenient. See, she likes to hang a little bit to one side (her left side I think.) If the sheep are between us this pushes the sheep into me and I often wind up turning to get away from the sheep. When I turn with the sheep she's automatically on balance and thus rewarded for being off balance in the first place. So today, since these were such little sheep, I just shoved my way past them turning about 60 to 90 degrees in Kola's direction, which threw her way further off balance than a comparable turn in the other direction. I did this so often she started anticipating this and moved more towards the center. Yay!
One little guy broke off from the group and I ran with Kola to go get it. (Kola tends to chase rather than herd in these situations.) I got her thoughts more towards herding and she brought the sheep back to me, O.K. Then she sprinted ahead of me and I couldn't figure out why. Duh! She was going back for the sheep we left behind. That wasn't my plan but she couldn't know that. On the one hand, her leaving caused me to lose the sheep we were fetching in the first place. On the other hand, I like the fact that she is seeing ALL of her sheep.
She was pretty tired today, and she tends to melt a little in the sun. It makes it easier for her to go "easy." All in all I was pleased.
Also, Jesse re-proposed to me in the middle of the field when we were done with our sheep and gave me the diamond ring that had (unbeknown to me) just come in the mail. That was nice too.
Finally, I'm looking forward to Monday the 22nd because we are signed up for our first agility lesson with Chris Primmer. Should be fun.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Junior Herd Dog
I thought I had posted about this already but apparently not. Kola got her Junior Herd Dog title on valentines day. She also got a whoppin' huge green qualifying ribbon to go with it.
The first day she was really really good. The second day she was out of her fuzzy little mind, but still got the job done. What a good dog!
 |
| From The Kola Nut |
The first day she was really really good. The second day she was out of her fuzzy little mind, but still got the job done. What a good dog!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Fetch!
Today we had our lesson with Dave. He is pleased with how she's coming along holding her distance out from the sheep. So today we worked on fetching.
Kola has a much easier time going out on the Away-to-me (counter clockwise, or anti-clockwise to help you remember.) I think it might be because she's trained to walk on the right side and I've been adding the flanking commands to our walks so away-to-me I push her around the corner, rather than come-bye where she follows me around the corner.
I dont think she quite knows why she's supposed to stay out so far but I have hope that she'll figure it out. Her fetches ran the gambit from, "oh wow, my dog did that?" to "uhg, I cant believe my dog did that, again" and everything in between. She is pretty consistently slowing down at the top of her outrun, which pleases me. She really wants to cut in on her sheep though. This tends to send them into an unstable orbit around me rather than straight to me.
Dave suggests that we can work on our stops along the fenceline, that way the sheep are still between us when I ask for the down. I also picked up some tubing to throw in case Kola needs a little reminder of how it works. Its clear tubing and I am considering ways to decorate it. Right now it has rolled up pieces of paper that say things like "knock it off" in big letters. I thought it was cute. We'll see if anyone agrees.
Kola has a much easier time going out on the Away-to-me (counter clockwise, or anti-clockwise to help you remember.) I think it might be because she's trained to walk on the right side and I've been adding the flanking commands to our walks so away-to-me I push her around the corner, rather than come-bye where she follows me around the corner.
I dont think she quite knows why she's supposed to stay out so far but I have hope that she'll figure it out. Her fetches ran the gambit from, "oh wow, my dog did that?" to "uhg, I cant believe my dog did that, again" and everything in between. She is pretty consistently slowing down at the top of her outrun, which pleases me. She really wants to cut in on her sheep though. This tends to send them into an unstable orbit around me rather than straight to me.
Dave suggests that we can work on our stops along the fenceline, that way the sheep are still between us when I ask for the down. I also picked up some tubing to throw in case Kola needs a little reminder of how it works. Its clear tubing and I am considering ways to decorate it. Right now it has rolled up pieces of paper that say things like "knock it off" in big letters. I thought it was cute. We'll see if anyone agrees.
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