Puppy tune ups!!

Bea's little monsters, they will be 8 weeks old this Saturday (July 4th)

Since Bea had her overheating issue Lilly has taken over as Mother Superior

Dora is learning how to take a hit and roll


We have not named this little guy yet, but he's getting a lesson on how to get
dropped by simply taking a front leg


Lilly finally has Cecil (Rough Coat) and Dora in submission, can you say "Uncle"?

Here are today's training updates:

Willie: We went out and worked out in the square pasture today. Priority with Willie is to get her flanking freely and not stopping at the first pressure change she runs across. She has a tendency to just end up driving stock away from me if it is too difficult for her to flank around to point that would allow her to drive the stock toward me or across the lot. I have to be real careful with her, her owner has allowed her to use as he calls “short cuts” jumping through gates to get to a place she finds more to her liking. This little habit is a bit an annoyance, when you ask for a flank if she thinks it’s to high of a requirement over and out the gate she goes. I just patiently call her back. The first few times she did this she would go bombing off around the yard looking for an easier job. Now, I can get her called back within a few feet of the gate. I am taking extra care to set myself in a position that does not prevent her from taking that option but that allows me to put pressure in that area making it the not so easy route. Basically giving her the chance to decide that taking her flank command and staying with her stock is the easiest. I spoke to her owner today and told him that this little ritual of annoyance is going to be his biggest obstacle with her, I can’t change it in a month it will need many more months of patience, understanding and diligence on his part when she gets home to get her give it up.

Jake: For the most part Wayne has taken over Jake, but I did tweak him today. Wayne has run him in a total of 5 classes over the last three weeks and has managed to lose Jake’s proper lift. He is back to going from and outrun to a full power drive again, this surprises the sheep, when the sheep startle Jake gets excited and will ring them or bust through them in an effort to stop them. So, back to short out runs and demanding that he stops and waits for the sheep to lift, followed by stop and give the chance for the sheep to lift, followed by the end all be all, hesitate giving the sheep a chance followed by telling them to move off. We won’t be on the trial field again until mid July, hopefully by then I will be able to get Wayne to figure out how to maintain/correct Jake himself. I used Jake to sort and shed off sheep for Weasel. I noticed that when he gets unsure of what he should do he rolls out and tries to gather everything back up. I worked on watching close for the overload point and then waiting and giving him a little more time. That little change brought about big change in Jake, he went from, “but I can’t” to “ok, you want this?”

JJ: I just let JJ relax and move some sheep around giving him the opportunity to make some mistakes, He really didn’t make any until near the end where he found himself with 3 small groups and uncertain if he could let go of the one he had to go back and gather the others back up. Finally he gave, and did a pretty little look back. I finished up with some nice 150 foot drives where he kept the sheep on a really nice clean line while working off ahead of me. Oh I wish this boy would hurry up and grow up some.

Jill: Every time I take Jill out I have to wonder, will today be the day. Well, I don’t think today was, though she did stay hooked to her sheep a lot longer and was a lot less brash when she was hooked. I’ll just keep offering her the opportunity here and there to work sheep, maybe one day the switch will just flip. Until then, she’s just my little sweetie that would prefer being sacked out on the recliner then to worry about whether or not the sheep are going to escape.
Weasel: I had a good day with little Weasel today. I did some pressure work with her again, brought the sheep to the fence and let her decide what she wanted to do about the pressure, she made one incorrect decision (diving in) which I was able to make real hard followed by many right decisions, a nice pressure release with adjustment to hold the line, then another wrong, followed by many more right. This allowed me to be able to trust her a little more. She still blew everything up at one point, but we ended on a really nice note with her driving nicely with me beside her and then on past me followed by a stop and then a nice flank back around to balance. She is not real keen on balancing the sheep to me, she is more apt to try to fence hold them, I think the sooner that I can get her to realize that she can balance them on her own the better. I fear that if I teach her to balance on me it will be 10 times harder to get her back off of me then it was to get her to stop holding them to the fence.