Teaching pace?

[Guest Tri]

How do I teach my 2 y.o. how to pace correctly? She will fetch and balances nicely, but will bring the sheep to me so fast they run right by me. I feel like I need to be at a run just to wear. How can I get her to slow down and hold the sheep to me at the pace I'm walking? I've seen two different ways to train this, one letting the dog "feel" it and the other lying them down all the time. I'd rather teach the former, but don't know how.

 

Thanks,

Trina

 

<small>[ June 21, 2004, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Tri ]</small>

[Guest aurdank]

I use a combination of both of the methods you mention, except that I use a "stand" rather than a lie-down. The dog needs to remain on its feet, especially for pacing, and lying down simply breaks the action too radically. In the context of simple walk-abouts, when the dog starts pushing too hard, I say "stand". Then when it takes the command, I say in a slow, soft voice (or soft drawn out whistle version of the walk-up) "waalllkkk upp". This encourages the dog to start slowly. When it does, I follow up by saying "take-time" or "steady", so it begins to associate starting slowly the command with take-time or slow down. My whistle version is a variation on the "stand" command: I start to give the dog the stand whistle but then turn the end note up: the dog hears the stand coming and begins to stop, but when it hears the end note, it continues forward but slowly, sort of falling forward as it realizes that it isn't after all being asked to stop. So really what you're doing is teaching the "steady" command. And once the dog masters this command, every time it begins to push too hard, you can give the command and expect the dog to take it.

 

Now the dog may not start slowly when you command it softly. If it doesn't, stop it again with a stand and repeat the exercise until it gets the idea. Generally dogs are keener on the fetch and so it's harder to get them to slow down if they're inclined to be pushy. But if they have learned the steady command they should be able to respond to it on the fetch when given. If they don't, then stop the dog on the fetch and give it a soft walk up followed by a steady command. In other words apply a correction. But you must do this absolutely consistently when the dog doesn't listen, or else you will lose the command altogether.

 

Dogs that feel their stock more sensitively, will tend to respond more quickly to the soft encouragement to start and continue slowly, and will learn to pace. Dogs that don't, you'll have to stop more. Some dogs never adjust to the steady or take-time, because they are just too pushy. In this case, you might need to simply use a "stand" whenever the dog is applying too much pressure on the stock, and you might therefore have to work the dog in a stop-go staccato type fashion. This is less desireable than having it pace from a stylistic point of view, but if it gets the job done, especially in a trial context, then that is all that matters.

 

Yours,

 

Albion