My Life As A Dog

Yesterday at Canines & Ewe I became a dog for a short while. We were working on shedding with a medium sized group and Jennifer was trying to demonstrate positioning to Nina Fox who was having a bit of trouble getting the shed easily with her Open Dog Jed. So I was enlisted to play the role of the dog and instructed to follow instructions precisely. The idea was to help both of us get a bit more of a read on how the sheep react and learn to set up the shed. I am glad Nina did not send me on any long outruns. And frankly the sheep did not respect me as much as an actual dog. But it was a very helpful exercise.

As is apparent from the above - one of the things we were working on yesterday was the shed. Initially Piper and I were having some trouble as I could not seem to get the sheep to settle. Then Jennifer demonstrated and instructed me to be a bit more aggressive with my step in - really more of a feint. The move is similar to the first false step in one direction in a football counter play where the back takes one false step to the left (or right) to freeze the defenders before going to the right (or left). The idea is to take a half step into the sheep's faces - right at the point of the ones you want to separate - just enough to make them hesitate and create a hole. Then get the dog into the hole and turn on the group you want. Once I got this idea Piper actually did very well and we had several successful sheds. The mixed group included some agile young lambs so they were a little tricky to hold off from the main group. Piper did a very nice job of understanding the job once I created the hole and called her through.

We also worked on a couple tricky outruns by placing the sheep in a corner of the field to the handler's right and sending on an angle. There was not a lot of room on the right and all of the dogs were a little tight on the top. Piper's first outrun to the left was way wide and deep but she came up on the sheep in proper position and the lift and fetch were good. Then we started to work on managing her outrun and bringing her in. First I did it with a stop - walk up - and come bye series of whistles. Then Jennifer suggested we needed a "come in" whistle because then we would not have to lose points for multiple whistles at a trial if we need the come in. We settled on a rapid trio "tweet-tweet-tweet" and I sent Piper again and waited for her to turn out wide and "tweet-tweet-tweet". Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles - she took the whistle for its proper meaning the first time and narrowed her outrun but was still properly wide and deep. I let her bring me sheep on a mostly silent fetch and she was even rating herself.

We also worked on driving and while it was mostly good Piper is still giving me a flank and bounce back if she has sheep she needs to be close to. This is mostly on the cross drive and it is very frustrating as it is hard to get out to her to give a correction since this is so quick. Basically if she is feeling pressure to one side and I flank her to that side she will take the flank but then immediately bounce back to where she wants to be. A couple "HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING"s and it got a little better but this is still a definite tendency and it is holding back her progress. She is not as bad with it as she has been in the past but we still need to get it cured.