Dog Community

Sheep sheep and more sheep!

Posted : 7/30/2008 8:22:19 AM

Neiko has been a butt head with his normal sheep herding trainer the past 2 weekends so I decided to take him some place new. New trainer, new sheep, new location - just to see how he would react. I'm so glad that I did this! It was an eye opener. I think that he is bored with the small pen and 3 sheep at our normal location. Last night he had 6 new sheep to work with and a larger pen. He was super excited all over again and didn't do any of his loss-of-focus antics such as peeing, sniffing, eating sheep poop. He was all about herding. I did warn the instructor that he is a sneaky little bugger though and can be stubborn when it comes to working his way. When we set him up for an out run, he will ignore the command until the trainer gets close enough to him then he'll charge. So, we put him on a long lead so that he would correct himself. It seemed to work. He worked for a solid 25 mins and still didn't want to stop. We had to drag him out of the pen. It was 85 degrees after all. He and the sheep were HOT.

I put Lily on sheep again too. She has a lot of instinct for it and is really well balanced. The problem with her is that she spooks really easily and doesn't do well with corrections. Every time the trainer would try to get her to change directions, she would give the trainer a very wary look. I'm so bummed. I really think that she'd be good if only we could get over her fear and general mistrust of people.

We also tested little Abbie on the sheep. To say that she had interest is a major understatement! We had her on a long lead so that she couldn't get herself in to trouble. She was moving those sheep, circling, etc and loving every minute of it. She was a maniac. The trainer says "yeah, I don't think you'll have any problems with this one!" ha. She is one of those dogs that want to work non-stop and will pace the fence trying to herd the sheep on the other side. We only let her work for a few minutes and she wanted so much more. Now I just need to wait another 5-6 months before we can really train her. I'm so excited!

Fun, fun fun.

Maxs Mom

Posted : 7/30/2008 9:01:38 AM

Go Julie's Aussies!!!

In my years of riding, while I adored my trainers having the opportunity to ride with other trainers was always educational. Perhaps your first trainer was just worried about stressing your dog by moving them too fast.

Have you tried them on any other animals yet (ducks, cattle etc)?

Jewlieee

Posted : 7/30/2008 9:25:00 AM

I let them loose on my obediance trainers farm to call them off ducks. They did go in to herding the ducks mode, but it wasn't official duck herding training or anything. It was more of a recall with distractions training.

I don't want to do cattle because cattle scare me haha

brookcove

Posted : 7/30/2008 10:06:21 AM

Yay! Sometimes it does take a new place and/or a new set of eyes. One time I was buying a ram from someone up in New England (back in the days of cheap gas) and on the way home stopped to visit a friend in Philly and go to her trainer in NJ. I did it basically to give my dogs a chance to stretch their legs and brains after the tedium of travel. But I learned a really important lesson that day about both those dogs, things I hadn't seen on our "home turf".

Good luck with the training!

Maxs Mom

Posted : 7/30/2008 11:05:03 AM

Jewlieee
I don't want to do cattle because cattle scare me haha

My friend who was possibly interested in Abbie, herds her aussies too. Last weekend she went to a herding clinic and she tried Rowena on cattle. She had said just two days before she wasn't sure she wanted to because they were so big. Rowena did get kicked by a cow, but she said it didn't phase her in the least. That dog is SO intense. She doesn't think she will do any more for fear of injury. She did not think Rowena even got one iota of respect for the cow out of the kick.

My agility trainer is doing herding with her Sheltie too.