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"

Penning

I was super late to our herding lesson so we only had 20 minutes. I kept Kola home that morning rather than send her to her buddy Lucy to play. As a result she had a lot of energy. I like that because she has all that energy to run down the sheep as needed but she also has all that energy to flank flank flank flank flank and then flank some more.

I sent her for her outrun and I was super thrilled with the shape of it. Basically she was headed out on a circle around the sheep and outside their flight zone. I headed up with her to support her but I wasn't running and flailing like usual. Then, about half way around her circle she decided she'd done enough and turned straight for her sheep. Doh! So I told her to 'get out.' Apparently I used my overly mean mommy voice because she came over to me with her head low and apologetic. NOT what I wanted. So I'm flailing madly to keep her away and then finally said, "away" and that she understood. Went back out on her circle and it was beautiful again. The sheep came right towards me and I was pleased with her. Good Girl.

We went basically straight to the pen and I opened it up. Then I walked out with Kola to get the sheep lined up nicely towards the pen. All the over flanking made it difficult to get a straight line to the pen. We spent about ten minutes basically going around and around. A big part of the problem was that I gave Kola no direction. Dave was after me to ask her to stop and ask her to cover and I somehow just tuned him out. When I finally got tuned back in we had a lot better time.

One time we got the sheep most of the way in. I stopped Kola and thought, "Ok, I can shove them in with the gate, Kola can experience some success and yay, praise for Kola. Now, in a trial situation I cant shove sheep with a gate so Dave wasn't super pleased by this strategy. Plus, Kola broke her "stop" and shoved the sheep out of the pen.

The next time we got them lined up I led them most of the way into the pen. I stopped just short of the pen area itself and closed the gate from the inside. I scooted to the outside of the gate just before I closed it. Very calmly executed. Still, I didn't use the dog to get them into the pen so Dave was, again, not super pleased. He said he liked the one where I shoved the sheep in better except for the fact that I was shoving the sheep in rather than using my dog.

The take home lesson for me? Help Kola to help me get the pen. Watch the sheep and watch Kola and ask for what I need. Also, keep working on Kola's "stop."

Next we needed to get the sheep out of the pen. I hadn't anticipated any problems there. I sent Kola around to the other side of the pen and opened the gate. The sheep did not see me open the gate as they were too busy stamping at Kola. Kola was not sure what to do to move the sheep. She tried flanking left and right as usual but this only had the effect of convincing them that leaving the pen was a bad idea.

Since getting them to move with Kola outside the pen wasn't working I figured I'd send her into the pen. As is typical, Kola wanted to charge straight into the middle of the sheep, rather than go around them. So I was trying to guide her to the edges while the sheep tried to guide her to fuck off and leave them alone. Unfortunately, I finally got her to go round the side, but rather than move off, the sheep closest to her gave her a head butt right in the face. Kola whimpered and ran. Damn.

Until now Kola worked sheep in total ignorance of their potential danger to her person. Now she understood what they could do in close quarters and she wasn't interested in a repeat. I tried to encourage her to go back in but she just tucked her tail between her legs and gave me a super pitiful look.

With Dave's blessing I took her by the collar and guided her in. I kept myself between her and the sheep. The sheep moved but didn't leave the pen. They all circled up and stared at her. Kola wasn't super thrilled to be trapped in a pen with angry dangerous sheep. I dont really have a walk up command on her. To her "walk up" means to break her down and come towards me and the sheep. So I told her, "go get 'em" and she launched straight into the middle of the sheep, and the middle one ran and she chased it down. So, Okay that wasn't pretty but the sheep consented to leave the pen now that Kola was gone and one of their number had left.

Kola was pretty wild bossing the sheep around. I didn't get after her about it too much at first because I wanted her to feel in charge of the situation. We got some semi tolerable work and then quit for the day.

I'm anxious to see what effect this will have on her willingness to move a stubborn sheep in the open. I plan on doing some close in work with the brigand's sheep to remind her that most sheep will move off her even when basically trapped.

Long agility session, short herding session

Our agility class wasn't any longer than usual, but it sure felt that way. When we got there, only two other dogs were present so instead of being able to rest through the runs of 5+ dogs, and two jump height adjustments it was two dogs and one height adjustment. In the middle of the class we got one more dog who jumps the same height Kola does.
Notable events included Kolla being more worked up than usual about other dogs running her course; Kate, the terrier, coming over to tell Kola to shut up; Kola jumping on the teeter totter right on the fulcrum and then back off; Kola breaking early for the jump, having too much momentum to stop and executing a very apologetic/athletic leap over the triple jump right from the base.
Her weave poles have gotten better but we've still got a long ways to go. Homework for this week is weave poles and teaching Kola to lie down between Jesse's legs so that he can line her up for the jump more easily.

Herding:
I was pretty pleased, for the first few minutes of our practice session today the sheep were not pressed up against me, or past me, they were right where they belong between Kola and me. Then I thought to myself, "hey, look at this, I'm not wet yet." Shortly thereafter a bunch of wet sheep were pressed in tight on all sides.

Kola didn't do as good a job taking her "down" commands today. She seemed pretty tired though.

Weave videos

Here are a couple of videos of Kola's weaving lessons:
At brigands (admittedly after some home practice also:


At home:


One time she did a beautiful run at home where she was weaving in and out just like a pro. She got a lot of praise for that effort but it has yet to be repeated.