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Hello Bev, I could use some input on my little guy.

 

Chesney will be 3 in February. He has been training mostly over the Summer and winter months when I am home from school (Chesney goes to school with me). He can outrun (although he tends to be tight, but widens up when he starts to get tired later in training), then we run into the problems with the fetch. Rather fetching in general. He has a hard time balancing sheep to me without a lot of wearing or without 'forgetting' a few of them. Tonight was the first night I tried him on a bigger group thinking he would keep them together better, but he just ended up splitting them and continuing on his marry way fetching sheep to me without even giving a second thought to the other group! Its driving me crazy because I know what is happening, or atleast I think I know. He's coming in too fast and I think relying on me WAY more than he should be to keep the sheep together. He tries to do everything as fast as he can get it done. I can see though that he will slow down and think, and when he does, he is a nice little dog to work with. But that doesn't happen a whole lot yet.

 

Chesney when I turn to check on everything behind me, we have half the sheep we started with and Chesney is walking directly behind me looking at me (not his sheep) and the only sheep that are walking with us are off to the side kind of not even paying attention to us. Grrr. If I flank him to cover his sheep he will keep everyone nice and tight together, if I don't well we lose our sheep. This only seems to be the case on the fetch. When Chesney is driving he seems like he takes the reins more and is more responsible when it comes to keeping the group together (still not 100% but way better than on the fetch).

 

After going to Jack's clinic he had me touching the sheep and making the sheep fun and interesting, which works really well to get his gaze off me when he is circling. This though after a few times seems to speed him up into a frenzy of circling and/or if we are fetching just makes him interested in the group infront of him. I don't return his gaze when he looks at me. I will keep doing what Jack had me doing but I would love to hear what others have as well hoping that something will work.

 

On a side note, Chesney is really good in close quarters doing chores and I know he will never be the next nation champion but I would atleast like to one day run him in P/N or even Open... :rolleyes:

 

 

Thanks

 

Danielle

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Well... hmmm... Seems like you have two things going on here. One is the looking at you. Since this was the primary thing that Jack told you to work on I suspect this must be a bit of a problem or at least appeared to Jack to be the primary problem. Keep this in mind when you read the rest of this. I haven't seen your dog. Jack has and Jack was concerned about the turning away from the sheep issue so I think you should be as well.

 

It sounds to me like Chesney doesn't really understand the basic principle of what he is doing here. He is supposed to be keeping the sheep under control. From his point of view this should mean in a group and balanced to you.

 

I would do some wearing with him. When he fails to do the above (keep the sheep grouped and balanced) I would correct him. This also means watching the shape of his flanks as he moves around the group to keep them grouped and balanced. If he slices, over flanks, fails to cover a sheep etc... I would correct him.

 

"WHAT are you DOING????" sort of correction. Nothing violent but also not too instructive. Don't tell him where to go to fix the problem tell him he has made a mistake. You are trying to get him to learn a fairly complex theory here not a command.

 

I would use my body to help him figure out what the correction was for. If he is tight on his flank I would say "GET OUT OF THAT" and step into him to force him back a bit. If he fails to cover some sheep "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" and move so he moves to balance better.

 

Don't let him run all over like an idiot while you are doing this. He needs to work under control, his own self control and when he doesn't another correction. Work him close to you and under control so he relaxes and thinks about what he is supposed to be doing. When this all looks good to you send him 30 feet for his sheep on one of his flanks. He should do this in a ho hum another day at the office sort of way. If he doesn't more wearing until he does.

 

Now having said all of this I am concerned about the looking at you thing. Many times looking at the handler, eating poop, snapping at grass are efforts on the part of the dog to release tension he feels in working the stock. It is a break in his concentration on the sheep and a kind of avoidance of the work. You want to keep a very close eye on this as you apply more pressure if you see any escalation in his avoidance behavior you need to reevaluate what you are doing (and I am suggesting)..

 

Beverly

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Bev. Thank you. I will try these today when we go out to work.

 

I was concerned as well and it was one of the troubles I was going to ask Jack about if he didn't say anything about it, but since he did, now here I am. This problem I've noticed has been happening for a few months now. But like I said thats only since I've noticed it.

 

Danielle

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