Trust

[Pippin's person]

Something Rebecca said in the "click" thread reminded me of a problem I have trusting Hamish at the moment.

 

As a younger dog, Hamish was very nice to the sheep; I trusted him pretty much completely to listen and he did. Then, last summer at a clinic one split off and he chased it all over the place. Since then, this has become much more common and I increasingly trust him less and less. This is bad and stressful for us both.

 

His bad behavior is almost always chasing after the (or worse, a) sheep as they (it) run to the draw. I get what's causing it--the sheep are getting away and he doesn't want to let them. He's nervous about them getting away and doesn't have the confidence to work calmly. His prey drive gets triggered.

 

I've been working on this fairly intensively since we realized that it was recurring, doing different kinds of things (and as I said in kelpiegirl's thread, having him understand that being one with the pressure isn't going to kill him may be one very important step and something I've really not worked on very carefully); however, reading what Rebecca was writing about trust made me realize that I really don't trust him at the moment and I'd like that to change.

 

What do y'all do to gain trust in a dog you don't totally trust (besides choose a different dog )?

 

p.s. i know the flip side is about him trusting me--but for the moment, i'm trying to focus on me trusting him again.

[Debbie Meier]

My expirence is limited, but I had big problem with Jake unleashing on the sheep, everything was great, then all of a sudden he would snap, run in, split hang, yadda yadda, I could not derail him from the game until he locked everything up. I found that when I was able get him to redirect on his outrun I was then also able to get him change his thinking when that snap would occur. This past weekend we were able to do some training runs after a small trial at a county fair, he was on three sheep and one ewe was insisting on doing her own thing, typically this would trigger a snap, I watched him close, and when I saw him start to amp I growled, he immediately changed his mind. Soon the situation repeated he started to amp, and just like that changed his mind on his own. So I guess, what I am saying it working on the problem closer at hand, the problem of not being able be a factor to the dog, gave me the tools to correct the incorrect behaivor at distance..

 

I hope I'm making sense.

 

Deb

[kelpiegirl]

Perhaps get him on some sheep that won't cause him to explode- for a while... One thing I have finally firmly learned is that there is soooo much more that we don't see that they do- he needs to build up his confidence in knowing that he can control, and you can't do that until he regularly has it.

[juliepoudrier]

I have a friend--who may speak up here--who has a dog she no longer trusts in tight situations. That's because the dog has/had a habit of taking sheep down in such situations. Not just chasing, but physically badly damaging sheep. As a result, they developed an antogonistic and nontrusting relationship with one another. One thing we have done to help with the trust issue is have someone else (me) work the dog in close quarters. I have no history with the dog and so no (bad) expectations. As a result, I don't get tense or stressed or anything like that when I take the dog out to work her. I think as her owner watches the dog work with me, she's slowly able to reset her own expectations and realize that the dog *can* be trusted. What she has to work on now is herself. As you know, dogs can read us like books, and the least bit of stress or tension in us can cause a dog to revert to default behavior (in this dog's case, trying to damage sheep). So by having someone else work the dog through the problem situation the dog is learning to trust that she can do calmly what used to make her go ballistic and her handler is relearning that trust in her dog by seeing that she can actually do the work without defaulting to the "bad" behavior. So I guess what I'm saying is that sometimes it helps to have someone else step in--someone without the history and expectations you have about the dog--and work the dog through the issue. As you see that the dog *can* do the work properly, you will also begin to gain more confidence in him. Of course, regaining trust in him may also mean simply taking him back to the very basics in a small, controlled area until you can work through the chasing, draw, etc. issues yourself. Sometimes just moving backward a few steps can help everyone regain lost trust. I think either option is a good one. If you no longer have situations with strong draws, then you can both relax and do some proper work and you'll start trusting him again. Eventually you'll have to move back to the harder stuff where the bad behavior happens, but if you spend some time reinforcing what's right in a more controlled situation, then you'll *know* he can do it right....

 

J.

[Debbie Meier]

I just had another thought after Julie's post, I did not realize that my pitched changed when I wanted to correct the dog at distance, I got shreaky and he learned to just blow me off. I found that calling my commands and corrections through my cupped hands helped keep things on a more even keel, and reminded me to command not yell. Also, when I took Jake to cattle it was easier to see, but when he is in his split chase mode I had to wait until he was ready to hear me, because things slow down on cows I was able to watch for his body to change, as soon as I saw it I would growl, it was like I shocked him. If I growled before his body language changed he did not hear me. Now that I have recognized it on cattle I can see it on sheep and on the ducks, since the first time I took advantage of that moment he has gotten softer and more willing to listen. I've also found that his issue with getting way out and camping in the draw he substantially reduced, I think the reason that has reduced is because I can trust him closer in and now let him find that "Sweet Spot" around the sheep. Gosh it all seems to work together.

 

Deb

[1sheepdoggal]

Yes Jule I will pipe up here, however all of what you already said, pretty much describes/sums up what had been going on and what is happening now to correct the problem. Which might I add has had tremendous positive effects on said dog judging by last weekends work! But too, putting the dog in the right frame of mind, as Becca stated before actually working the sheep has also had a positive effect, and gets her mind ready to "work" instead of in the mind set to just go in and revert back to old habits and behaviors. Trust is coming, slowly but surely, its a long hard road,( for both dog and myself) and I still catch myself trying to avoid situations where this type of behavior might occur, but each time we work her, I see that she is making improvements and right decisions and am finding that I am becoming less concerned about her taking a sheep down, and more trusting in putting her in those situations. ( being able to stand back and see this when Julie works her has helped tremendously, as Im not so close to the situation handling her myself) The more I trust her and relax my expectations, the more the dog relaxes and the better the outcome. Its a lovely thing to see, as I had almost given up hope that this dog as much as she loves to work, and as nice a dog as she can be in other working situations ( IE no close work) would ever be one that I could trust even just a little bit.

[hsnrs]

Back to the round pen for us too tomorrow. Moving backward a few steps will be good for us also. Thanks for posting these questions everyone; helps us newbies too. You folks are great! Narita

[KathyF]

Back to the round pen for us too tomorrow. Moving backward a few steps will be good for us also. Thanks for posting these questions everyone; helps us newbies too. You folks are great! Narita

 

 

Never think of it as going backwards by going to the round pen or a small pen. You go out to the big field to see what you need to work on in the smaller pen. Because if you don't have it in the pen/round pen, you won't have it in the field. I have heard plenty of top trainers say that they do a lot of their work in the smaller areas.

 

Kathy

[NancyO]

I've gone thro this recently with a dog I am starting. Short story is dog had a fall as a puppy, cracked his shoulder, miss diagnosed, eventually had surgery, crated for almost a year.

 

Said dog began training at about 20 months. Big strong dog who has been crated most of his life. Dog was a dirty nasty gripper, grabbing a hind leg for no discernable reason, on dog broke sheep.

 

Couldn't take him anywhere because of the gripping. Talked to alot of trainers, they all told me he must be afraid of sheep. So put him in a small area about 8 x 10. He was lovely. No gripping, nice and steady, no fear getting them off the sides. Hmm.......

 

So worked him in the round pen on the dog broke sheep for over 2 months, yes it took that long to even think about moving him out of the round pen, and eventually took these same sheep into the larger field, he was fine. BUT I didn't think he was learning anything.

 

So back to the round pen, where I started adding wilder sheep to the mix. I think he didn't know how to control sheep. So in the round pen I could get on him if needed, this is a dog that would grab the hind leg, take the sheep down and would not let go.

 

Believe me there was no trust. But I had to let him attempt to make his mistakes and correct him when he first thought of going in for a grip.

 

Five months later he is out in the large field with any type of sheep, doing short outruns, driving nicely. I keep upping the ante for him, putting a bit more pressure on him, sheep that will split, lambs etc. I've even taken him to a good friend's field (read, if he was really bad, I knew she would understand) and worked him and he did fine.

 

I am still on the alert, but I've had to temper my own fear and do what Jack Knox says about not making the dog right, but correcting the wrong.

 

Don't know how he will turn out, but for now I'm willing to continue working with him and see where he goes.

 

Nancy O

[DTrain]

I bought my best dog. He came from a top breeder from top stock and was very well trained. Somewhere along the line the dog ended up in a feedlot. His job became crashing and banging stock into trucks. He was also allowed to do his job without much input and at that point he was not handled by anyone who had much experience. I have a very different life in mind for him so I had him checked out by a top trainer. He worked well and was easy to handle EXCEPT, almost every time I allowed him in close to stock he would go back to his crash and bang days. The dog is perfectly capable of working with stock so we quickly came to the conclusion the problem was me. He likes to work at a fast pace and when I first got him there was a period where I had trouble reading him. When I noticed that he was in tight I would become stressed and everything about me would change. At this point the dog did not know me well so I assume he thought he was doing his job. I hooked up with a trainer and both me and my dog went back to basic training. He also worked with the dog often and of course accomplished things I could not. We did not work a round pen but we did work a two acre field virtually every day with clam sheep and open field once or twice per week. We kept up our training for months and it took us all that time to click together. He could do just about anything so I need to work on controlling him. In fact this dog was more advanced than I was. I learned what my dog could do and he learned what I expect of him. We work very well together and I rarely have a problem with him that I do not create although if I am not on the ball he will go back to feedlot work. It is a very good idea to have someone else work with your dog while you are there and there is no problem with going back to training. I still do it as often as I can. I find it very rewarding and I feel confident. I also work this dog on geese in public places so I need to trust him and he needs to be completely in control at all times.

[juliepoudrier]

I should add that at least in some situations, especially where the dog gets tense and behaves badly in tight situations, you don't have to have a round pen or other small pen, although it helps. With Darci's dog, I can take her out in a larger area and just have her pull sheep off a fence or out of a corner--that is, I can make a small space even in a large space....

 

J.

[Pippin's person]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Yesterday was the first day in several months that we had a work session together that didn't include a single bad behavior and he was really only a little bit tight once (not so tight as to be truly bad, though). We essentially did what Julie just described--created a small space out of big one. I asked Hamish to pull the sheep off the fence and out of corners and also to lie down in some heavy pressure and just feel it.

 

He did well and overall seemed very calm and controlled (except on the very first come bye, where he was a little tight--but we set that back up and had him do it a few times until he was quite relaxed). As he remained calm and steady, we started practicing some inside flanks and inside flank work--asking him to go all the way around after scooping them off the fence and stop off balance, for instance.

 

I started really, really close to the sheep and only moved out away from them little by little. We weren't doing anything longer than probably 50 yards, but that was fine with me because he was relaxed and I was relaxed, which made him more relaxed and responsive, which made me trust him a little bit more. Yay.

 

Our trainer said that, of course, we could probably easily set up something that would entice him into bad behavior (e.g. it's not fixed) and I'm sure that's true and eventually we'll need to do that so that he can have the opportunity to make his choice--but for the next few sessions, I'm delighted to keep doing the kinds of things we did last night and let him feel what it's like to be right most of the time.

 

It really did feel good to relax just a little while working him and he was clearly so much more "in the zone".

[hsnrs]

Interesting topic for us too. Didn't mean back to the round pen was necessarily a step backward. In fact I feel more comfortable there. It was just our wild sheep and getting them in there from the pasture area which is fenced but not closeby. Today we got them in with not too much trouble with our dog. Then worked the newbie dog on the wild sheep and she did better. We still have a long ways to go. Been reading the top trainers book again and they talk about starting in the round pen too. Really, really love the book. I recommend it to everyone who wants to try different methods of training used by some of the top people. Hope they write another book with different trainers. I'm sure it is probably very expensive though. Sorry to get so wordy but we are alsoo hooked on this stuff. N

[KathyF]

I didn't think that you meant that going back to the round pen was/is necessarily a step backwards. But some who would read this might start thinking that. There are a lot of things to work on in a smaller pen. I will be doing tune up exercises with my open dog tomorrow before our trial this weekend in the training pen.

 

Kathy