Suki's first time of moving lambs

Last week, I got a call from the Sheep Farm, could we please come and help to move a flock of ewes with lambs? They tried it once before on their own, but the lambs scattered over the place and they were working for hours with a few people to move them 2 kilometers....

Of course we'd like to come and help! Jessie was used to it anyway from previous years with the former shepherd, and it would be an opportunity to take one of the youngsters with me for some "real work". I decided to take Suki, as I think she is the one who is the most cool in the head. A good choice, as it turned out.


The shepherdess setting up the portable fence at the new grazing area:

 Helping to put up the portable fences:

 Jessie and Suki inspecting the fences, wondering where the sheep were...

 After we had set up the fences for the new grazing area, we went a few kilometers further to collect the sheep. From there we were going to drove them to the new grazing area. Jessie run out to gather them all and brought them to us, and off we went...


Jessie and Suki having a look at their charges:

At first I had Suki on the long line, to keep her with me in the rear gard. I covered the left rear flank and Suki the right rear flank of the flock, as the shepherdess and her father covered the left front flank and Jessie the right front flank. Then there was the young son who drove his step up and down the left flank which was also the side where the cycling and footpath was. The dogs had to keep the lambs from wandering too far too the right into the shrubbery.

When we were halfway, I saw Suki understood her job and let go of the long line. She worked nicely alongside me, keeping behind the flock and keeping them from straying.
As we reached our destination a little group of lambs tried to escape into the shrubbery, but Suki proved again she had the job covered, and brought them back in a calm way.

All we had to do was push them into the new grazing area, that was no problem for the dogs:

 

After that we just had to close up the fences. The ewes were calling their lambs and the lambs were bleating for their mums, and after they all found each other again they started grazing, all happy with the new grass....

Moving ewes with lambs

Were we go training, the pregnant ewes were set apart from the training sheep. Somehow there were some ewes who got served by a few young rams that were removed from the flock a little too late, and so we found some ewes with lambs amongst the training sheep every week. No problem, Jessie would bring these mothers to the adjacent nursery field with the others. She did a great job, and twice per week for like at least 3 weeks in a row!
Fortunately, I thought of using my mobile one day. We moved one ewe with twins and two ewes with just the one lamb each.


The ewe with twins was rather complacent...

But the two ewes with one lamb were very, very reluctant to leave the field and go join the other mothers!

Jessie did a good job though, I was very pleased with her :)

When your dogs make you happy

There are days when you have a breakthrough, and suddenly your dog starts to work as a real team member and understands perfectly what you want him to do. I had a few training sessions like that with Jai, and it made me go home with a big smile on my face. Suddenly his outrun goes perfect, he gets his sides right, and he stops on the spot when told... that are the moments when you know it was worth it all. Of course there are also times when he behaves a bit naughty, or when he doesn't get it or doesn't want to get it what I'm trying to tell him, but he is no robot after all! I love this boy!

And I do love his mum, Jessie! No sheep will pass her, and she is always ready to help out. She can shed now, and she does it very determined. And of course we bring those sheep somewhere, ie. to a corner so I can inspect them closely, and to have a purpose for shedding sheep off makes a huge difference for a dog. When it makes sense what they have to do, they accept the command really more easily! Good girl, Jessie!

How nice to have keen dogs!

So went went training this afternoon: Jessie, Jai and Suki were eager to come along when they saw me in my "sheepworking"outfit. The others had to stay home, I can't work 5 dogs in a row.Yep, I'm getting old, I know...

Jessie and Suki trying to figure out where we were going:

Oops, a whole head through the window!

First Jessie, she had to separate a group of about 8 sheep from the others and drive them away. Then I made her look back to the other 20-something, go gather them and drive them to the shed to lock them away whilst we were training. The smart sheep didn't like to be separated, I had to work hard to create a gap. Fortunately, Jessie comes into smaller and smaller gaps these days and I think we finally mastered the shedding part of sheepwork, after more than 7 years...

Anyway, after putting the remaining sheep in the right spot, I called Jessie back and started with Suki. Boy, did I had to work hard again... In the latest sessions I really am putting a lot of pressure on her to take her lie down better, with the result she tries (and sometimes succeeds) to have a go at the sheep and pull some wool. I know it's stressing for her, but I scold her anyway and immediately when she made a good flank I also praised her. It seemed to work, she did her best and flanked nicer for me and so I praised her again and the she got more relaxed. When I saw she got mentally tired after a while and started to dive in again, I stopped our session on a good note when she fetched the sheep to me nicely. She came off the field with me without protesting, so that was a good recall too, great!

Suki, still wanting to keep an eye on the sheep:

Then I got Jai out of the car, who was ready to work some sheep! I really love that little guy, he is such a delight to train. He seems to know what I'm going to ask before I ask it. I started him on whistles today, he picked them up as if he already knew them, really weird is that. But hey, I'm happy with it! Next time I'll be testing if he still knows them :)

And Jai seems to learn fast now, and wants to please and work with me most of all the dogs now. Yes, I am very happy with him.

Despair and excitement, all in one day

I went to the sheep with Jessie, Jai and Yoshi today. It was a nice day: dry and sunny, though very chilly. The dogs were keen to work sheep, and I had to work hard to keep them in line.

 
Jessie and Yoshi are a lot alike and I'm beginning to remember my despair from Jessie's early training days when I was just a beginner. With Yoshi I feel just so inadequate again, but I also know now I have to be patient and consistent and maybe one day she will be as strong as her mum. For now I just try to keep her off the sheep and to teach her to flank wider and not to come in to have a bite of wool. She is a very determined bitch though, just like her mum, and she needs to calm down and be sensible before I can proceed with her training. So repeating the lesson until she gets it seems the way to go for now. We'll have to keep working on it, I guess...

 

Now when I work with Jai I always end our session with a feeling of excitement. He is very sensitive and needs to gain more confidence, and although he has power he doesn't seem to realize it himself. Fortunately for me he stops when I tell him, well most of the time anyway and that's not bad. Especially when I have to be very careful not to put too much pressure on him because then he will hold himself back and runs very wide around instead of lie down. But Jai is a dog that is willing to learn, and he is starting to get it that stopping just means he gets to work again almost immediately. He is also getting it when I want him to widen more, and so I ended today's session after 10-12 minutes on a very good note at a moment when I was very pleased with him. I hope he will remember today's lesson.

Spring has finally come!

April was a funny month, with lots of rain and soooo cold... but it seems the days are getting warmer now. We have been training on sheep twice a week, or sometimes more, and the youngsters are changing. Suki is still hard to calm down, and is kind of having a somewhat rebellion thing going on. She now thinks she knows best and I'm there to help her. Hellooo! It's the other way around, silly girl!

Yoshi is still quick, but at least she will take the stops I give her. So we seem to progress more as she listens to what I tell her. Jai is getting more and more confident, he takes his sides, fetches nicely and is learning to drive now. He is a peculiar one, and I'm finding the fine balance I need to train him properly. He is so keen to work, that it doesn't matter anymore when I correct him, he keeps on working. He listens, he thinks and then he acts and I'm enjoying training with him.

Floyd is still a mystery to me: one day he'll do everything I ask, another day he is like I'm not there and he is acting like a crazy dog. When I'm training at a friend's place, he works with her like a professional. But I can't seem to get connection with him, and it's making me desperate sometimes. Still, if I see what he can do, I know it's worth trying to find that connection. So I won't give up!

Jessie is actually benefiting from my work with the youngsters. I'm handling her better these days, and we are getting a better team. I'm working on fine tuning her on trial work. We have a couple of trials coming up, so I 'll be able to see if it works for us this way.

For the time being, we are now enjoying the sun. It is still chilly, but at least it is keeping dry!

All six of them in one picture!

Just some fun training with Jessie

I just realised that maybe you would like to see Jessie on sheep, and since my mother came along a few weeks ago to test her new camera on my dogs I finally have a recent video of Jessie on sheep. Just a little fun training though, these days she usually helps out on the sheep farm more than she does trialling. But she loves to go with me as I go training with the youngsters, so she can have a go too ;-)

Here comes Jessie!!

Floyd's first encounter with lambs...

It seemed to me that Floyd is a bit anxious around sheep, and that might be the reason he dives in when we're training flanks. So I was thinking of taking him to the sheep farm where me and Jessie help out, so that he could be around sheep in a relaxed way without working them. Since they have a baby boom of lambs, it was also an opportunity for him to learn to know the difference between sheep and lambs.

I took him into the barn where the lambs are taken after they leave their mothers, so they are not the new borns from the previous post. They roam free in and out the sheep pens, and they're very curious and know no fear at all yet. Floyd on the other hand didn't quite know what these little white creatures were, smelling like sheep and not entirely being sheep... And especially because they had no fear or respect for him! So he was a bit uncomfortable at the start, but after a while he got used to them. I put him back in the car for half an hour, while Jessie helped me moving some sheep. Later I got Floyd back out, and the second time he was more relaxed with the lambs. He even started to sniff their noses, and then their bottoms. Actually, he even licked their bottoms! He's such a weirdo sometimes...

Anyhow, I managed to film it with my mobile so I made a video of Floyd and the Lambs :)

Suki in training

Suki is a bit of a handfull... she is very keen and very natural, but also a little rocket and hard to stop. So last week I decided to work on her stops and her pacing, and also the start of a little outrun since she kind of does it natural herself already. She is actual easy to train, because she wants to work with me, but sometimes she's so focused that she can't hear me.

Regarding her stops: I don't want her to lie down specifically. She may, stand, sit or lie down, as long as she pauses herself. And I think she improved her stop from 2 seconds to 5 seconds now, ha ha...
Anyway, this session I used a bag on a stick for the first time, since she isn't much impressed by an upturned crook or stick by itself. The bag didn't impress her much either, so I got rid of it after a few minutes. I just have to remind myself to be patient and let her learn by herself and try to guide her as good as I can.

The flanks are good, I think, and I like how she gathers her sheep very natural. I try to make her gather both sides, so she doesn't get the habit of always taking the one side. I'm not trying to get her much wider yet, as this tends to come with age. What I also like is that she goes between the sheep and the fence easily, and did this from an early age on. She is not an anxious one, very brave of heart and has authority. But she seems more gentle than her mother Jessie, something I really like in her. Is it obvious I like her a lot?

So bear with me as I am a novice handler, and enjoy watching this youngster!

Floyd's Herding Training

Floyd is a bit of a new learning project for me, he's totally different of Jessie who is my first Border Collie. For a start: Floyd likes to herd the sheep in a direction, weather it's to me or away from me, he likes that. However, sometimes he gets it in his head that he must head the sheep and then it's hard to get him behind them.

Another thing I couldn't understand when I started him, was that he totally didn't knew how to flank sheep. He just charged right in and scattered them around, and I had to teach him how to flank sheep. He still finds flanking very exciting, and sometimes he does well and sometimes I can see him getting all overexcited again. Most of the time that happens when I'm putting too much pressure on him, so I know now I have to stay very calm and patient when I'm training with him.

He seems to pay a lot of attention to my body language, though I never see him looking at me. He must watch me from the corner of his eye, even when it seems his eyes are glued onto the sheep. I notice that when he turns away from the direction I'm looking at, much like described in the video of Derek Scrimgeour. That technique never seemed to work for me before, but it sure works when I'm training Floyd! So now I'm learning to use it when I'm working with Floyd, and that's new and thus not easy for me...

Here I have a video from last week, but he works a bit messy here. It must be because my bitches are in heat and the boys are very excited. So their training was more excited too that day. However, if it wasn't for my mum who came along and filmed it, I would have nothing and so I'm grateful!

I also have another video I made with my cell phone 3 months ago when I was at my friend's place and she helped me with Floyd. Here it shows how we were showing him how to pace himself while driving sheep.

Floyd is a very nice dog, and I do my best to learn how to handle him. I hope it turns out well!

Jai's training

When I started herding training with Jai, something strange happened to me. I couldn't communicate with this dog: from the moment I opened my mouth he was running away. He would go and lie down at a relative distance and watch the sheep, and he wouldn't come back. Well, not very easy or very soon anyway. I suppose he had a combination of a lot of "eye" and being very easily "impressed".

So for months I just walked around with very quiet sheep without speaking, and Jai started to lose his aloofness, though he is often still cautious in what he does around the sheep. But he is keen, and that pulled him through. He just can't resist herding sheep, and while it's been a challenge at the start when I somethimes despared if he ever was going to be any good, I now enjoy training with him very much!

Jai stays a lot more on his feet now, and I know we have a long way to go still. But now I have hope we will get there!

Training with Suki

Today I asked a friend to take some pictures while I was training Suki, I realised I didn't have much pictures of her on sheep. She is a little rocket, but she's calming down and still tries her best to work with me. I do love training Suki: she is so eager to please and yet so focused on the sheep! She is so well balanced, I like to go on walkabout on the large field with her and she keeps on wearing the sheep to me whatever turn I take. She has a natural outrun, didn't have to teach her that: she does it by herself and just gathers the sheep and brings them to me. Driving away from me is still a bit difficult, but today she showed me she is finally getting it and it's okay to do a little driving, because after that I let her gather and bring them again. I'm so happy I can show some pictures of my lovely girl!

walking, wearing and balancing:

A little outrun...

... and bringing the sheep!

A bit of driving with me walking behind her

And on walkabout again...

Jai in training

Jai is coming on nicely, I keep it slow and let him gain confidence. He likes going to sheep and is so keen to work them, and because he is very receptive to corrections he's also easy to train.
He might become a good one!!