Jewlieee
Posted : 8/7/2008 2:54:27 PM
Ok giving this more thought....
I'll start with Neiko because he's the most mature of the 3. From your descriptions I would say that he's a worrier and a team player.
You might be thinking, "What the heck does this have to do with being
able to stop my dog from posturing at other dogs?" This builds a
relationship where the dog trusts your correction and actually enjoys
it, having long associations with "work."
I can see this in him. I do so much with him - frisbee, herding, agility, take him to work with me, etc - that we have build a very good relationship. I know that he trusts my corrections and that is why I think he can handle me working him on sheep, while he can't handle working with the trainer.
In the round pen, you'll never ask this kind of dog to circle, circle,
circle - rather you'll want to get this dog doing figure eights, taking
sheep off the fence, downing/stopping when asked, etc.
We just changed our training method with him to exactly this at the advice of woman who works her aussies (our normal trainer is more of a BC person)
This dog may
seem very disobedient and keen but then take you by surprise when you
open your mouth to correct something they do, and they shut down
completely! This is the dog that wavers between eating sheep for lunch
and looking for the exit.
It's amazing that you said this because it describes what was happening with Neiko to a T with the trainer. Now that I've stepped in to train him, he is actually working nicely because we have that trust.
With Lily otoh doesn't have quite the same level of trust with me. I have only had her since Feb. of this year and I have not done near the same amount of training with her than I've done with Neiko. This is why I wanted to do some other activities with her so she learns to understand me better and doesn't worry about my directions and corrections.
Worriers notice everything and their fear comes from the expectation
that they are supposed to do something about it. Worriers are just a
step below fear aggression, and a worrier pup can become that quite
easily.
How you deal with this type of dog is easy to explain
but will take a lot of thought and honest self-evaluation to
implement. Very simply, a worrier needs things to be very clear. The
boundaries need to be clear, what you are asking needs to be extremely
straightforward, and it helps to have a point to a task, rather than
being training for training's sake. A correction blows up their world
- most of the time it's too much information, at the wrong time.
You hit the nail on the head. She freaks out when I'm upset. I'm not talking serious corrections either. Just a stiffening of my body posture or tensing of my voice sets Lily in to a tailspin of worry. You can see it written all over her face and she will slink off and watch me from a distance. I am working very hard to get her to learn to trust that corrections/redirections are not the end of the world.
I have started to make her sit/down stay every day when I get home from work. That is her most anxious time of the day, of course, because she gets so excited that I'm home. She will jump on me, which makes me say off or ignore her, which makes her anxious and so on. It's a vicious circle in her mind. So, now I give her a task to occupy her mind while I do my get-home-from-work rituals.
I'll continue to do things like this to help build our relationship and alleviate some of her anxiety.
Abbie - where to begin lol She has other issues that I haven't posted about yet. Dog-dog aggression/resource gaurding being one of them but that's another thread. She's more of an independent do it my way dog from what I see so far. But she's young so it's hard to tell. I need to get her in to a behavior class asap.
Anyway, you really helped me put two and two together with your post. You definiately know your herding dogs. Thank you so much.