Delphi is going herding!

Cool1  Not being into herding, I had to Google the name.  Is he still in Knowlton Township?  If you're going to him, that's up near me.

I think so....Blairestown/Hainesburg?

Good luck and let us now how it goes!

 Thanks :)  Fingers are crossed.

Xeph

I think so....Blairestown/Hainesburg?

 

That's the same general area.  Blairstown is just up the road from Knowlton Twp.  So, how'd it go?

Absolutely nothing....I am feeling SO discouraged about this bitch...

Xeph

Absolutely nothing....I am feeling SO discouraged about this bitch...

 Nothing??? I was so hoping to hear that she showed at least some working instinct on sheep...

She didn't give a whit....was happy to sniff the ground and pee.  If the sheep moved, she'd look for less than a second, and go back to marking....

Xeph

She didn't give a whit....was happy to sniff the ground and pee.  If the sheep moved, she'd look for less than a second, and go back to marking....

 Ugh! How disappointing!

Tell me about it.  So far she doesn't want to do anything, and I'm so annoyed/discouraged/disappointed

How old is she? We don't really care about anything our dogs do or don't do on the sheep until they are a year or even more. If mom and dad had the stuff I was looking for (and grandads and mums), then I'll just give Pup the benefit of the doubt and assume the pieces are just slow to come together. Sometimes the pieces of the puzzle can war against each other. A dog that shows no interest may actually have a great deal of stock sense and sensitivity for pressure (from the stock). Until other pieces have kicked in (team spirit and prey drive are just a couple examples), the dog can be overwhelmed by what her senses are saying and will exhibit avoidance behavior like sheep poop eating. Now, some dogs may not have the rest of the tools in their toolbox, latent or otherwise. But it takes several exposures to figure that out. And even then you only know that your dog is weak in small spaces on a few sheep. The first time Lynn worked was on fifty some sheep in an open field, helping move them from an open graze to the night pasture. As you know, this is in line with the original type of work done by Continental type dogs (Lynn is a Dutch shepherd mix). The use of the round pen in testing evolved from breeds where the round pen is useful in simplifying what THEY do best. Ie, gathering and holding lines. Okay, I'm jumping off my soapbox! Well, it's a little hard getting down with this cast - can someone lend me a hand?

Aw Jackie, don't beat yourself up, k? I don't know much about Delphi other than you got her very recently and she was previously basically a kennel dog with not much done with her, no?  Just a good example of what happens to a dog when the foundation work (*any* type of foundation work) is not done.  So much harder to train, and even more importantly...motivate!  I have similar problems with my bitch, not that she was kenneled, but she was more of a house pet type dog, so she has such excellent house manners that it actually gets in the way of trying to motivate and train her to do things that should be more instinctual for a GSD.  I truly believe that if the right foundation work is not done, there are certain aspects of a dog's temperament and drive that you just can't get back later on, so I have to find different ways of training and motivation and recognize our limits.  She actually did show a lot of interest in sheep and the judge said she could do well, but her main problem was lacking a bit of confidence (the judge's sheep were so used to dogs they were not easily moved) and us having too short of an umbilical cord, meaning all the family/pet type training and obedience we'd done makes her follow my lead and keep her drive in check rather than go into drive and work out ahead of me more comfortably.  Like Becca says, when she first got in the ring the judge asked me to platz her and she was munching on poop, avoiding the sheep's gaze, but one we made it clear it's *OK* to run like crazy and even bite at sheep, she turned on.

She turned 3 this past Monday, brookcove.

Due to current (serious and urgent) family issues, lots of things are on hold.  I'm trying to get Delphi to a safe and temporary place.  So far it is not going well.

The good news?  She loves Kongs...