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!

Floyd 2 years old!

On February 9th Floyd became 2 years old and that had to be celebrated, because every excuse is good for celebrating, isn't it? I had a few bananas that were overdue, so the decision was quickly made: banana pancakes! Well, the dogs didn't say no to that...

Floyd was happy with his treat...

Jai also...

Yoshi sure did want a second one!

 Suki enjoyed it so much, she ate with her eyes closed! You can see her think "mmmmm...."
 

And with a final picture of the Birthday Boy, we can conclude it was a great Birthday Party!

Lambing Time!

It's that time of the year again: lambs are appearing everywhere!
At the sheepfarm lambing has started also, and when we went to help moving some older ram lambs we took a sneak peek at the little ones...

 

 

Suki and Jessie were with me to help out, but before that Suki first got to see the little lambs with me. At first she was very suprised and even a bit scared of those little cheeky things that smelled like sheep but weren't afraid of her and came to sniff her out. But when she saw me touch them, she started to sniff their bottoms and a bit later even their noses! Soon she started to feel comfortable with the lambs around, as long as they didn't sneak up behind her, haha...

After that we moved the ram lambs with Suki on the lead behind them with me, Jessie guarding the flanks, and the farmer heading the little flock. It all went very smooth and quick, and the dogs did a really good job. I was very pleased and so was the farmer, it saved him a lot of work he said. And Jessie and I are always glad when we can do some real work, so everybody was happy!

There was also a very beautiful lamb looking like a Border Collie. The pretty smart thing probably thought it was a good disguise for later, so that the sheepdogs would think she was one of them!

To be continued...