Moving towards pressure/corrections

[sandra s.]

In the Sports Collies thread, there was a brief discussion of obedience dogs' behaviour on sheep. Someone mentioned that they have a tendency to move into body pressure/towards corrections. This is interesting to me (in a theoretical way) because Kessie is one of those dogs.

 

Bit of background: I've no idea of her breeding, or if she's "all" BC at all. She was taken from her first owner because of the way he kept her, I have no idea if there was actual violence involved though. Being cautious seems to be quite normal for BCs after all. After that I adopted her at seven months, so she got the job of teaching me (well-meaning klutzy first timer) the finer points of communicating with a border collie. I have no idea what that kind of start has taught her about humans. Not sure if I even want to know . We've NOTHING to do with formal obedience btw *shudder*.

 

She's always moved towards corrections as long as I have known her. By now I've learned a lot and she doesn't come to me any more when I give her a voice correction, but she still moves towards body pressure.

We tried hobby herding for a while but it didn't work out (newbie human + newbie dog + inexperienced instructor + relatively flighty sheep). During those lessons I always had big trouble directing her, mainly because I am a hopeless klutz, but also because she doesn't move away from body pressure. The trainer never mentioned that (maybe because an elephant in the room doesn't really need pointing out?). I've thought about it sometimes because Kyla isn't like that, but I thought it was just something Kessie got into because it worked in the early days (stopped me coming on too rough before I figured out how little correction she actually needs). Now that I hear there are more of these dogs out there, I'm interested.

 

Any idea about why do they do it? And if you wanted to put one of these dogs on sheep (if you'd even bother...I've no idea how big a problem this behaviour is to a non-klutz), what would you do to convince them to stop that?

I'm not looking to change this behaviour or anything (it has never mattered off-sheep as far as I can remember, and I can't see any sheep opportunities coming our way at the moment) but I'm curious about what goes on in those little collie heads. That's why I'm posting it here (this is where new collie-head-insights usually come from for me). If it belongs in the general section, I'm sorry, and please move it!

[bcnewe2]

Make where I didn't want them to come into uncomfortable.

 

I notice ob trained dogs tend to look to the handler more often than not. Not exactly coming into pressure but looking for directions. I assume that's the way they are trained.

But I do know some really nice working dogs that do formal ob and I do mean really NICE working dogs and their ob always freaks me out casue they are so good at that too. They seem to be able to seprate the 2 things totally. These are working dogs, nothing else in their background.

 

Kristen

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

This also happens with dogs tat have been strictly companions pretty much their whole lives. A pet dog learns the safest, most rewarding place, is as close to mama as possible.

 

To improve this, you simply train her in exercises which reward her for doing things at a distance. And NOT to come to you when she's scared. A look is fine, but not body contact.

[Debbie Meier]

My expirence it that leaning onto or into pressure can be a learned trait, or it can be something that a dog is predisposed to and by allowing it early on making it worse as opposed to looking for it to happen and stopping it. We see it a lot in the "other breeds" and in pets. When we get a dog here that moves toward pressure he also typically leans on corrections, we send the owner home with homework, such as retraining the dog to walk on a leash by not allowing the dog to lean on the leash and making sure it gives to a small amount of pressure on the leash. Other things we suggest it to make sure he moves away from you when you walk through the house vs bumping into you and if he is lying in your path, don't step over him, if he is laying next to you push into him with your foot and demand that he moves off. Another way people promote it is when they give a command and hold the dog in the command rather then expecting the dog to hold it on his own. For example, if you ask for a sit stay, the handler that gives the command then backs off and away without having to reinforce the command often times has less of a problem then the handler that gives the command, holds the position and then has to reinforce from that position by leaning on the dog when he wants to get up, basically the dog is leaning on the second handler. If the second handler steps back the dog will often move toward the handler breaking the stay by following the pressure, this type of dog is hard to correct with pressure because he meets pressure with pressure as opposed to looking for change. If the second handler would just disallow the lean his dog would be more apt to stay put, but by allowing the lean just moving away from the dog will draw him out of the stay.

 

We don't bother taking the dog to sheep until we can get them to move off and yield to pressure, turned out with sheep they will just get drawn into the movement and end up chasing. Once you get them yeilding or moving off pressure you have an effective way to correct them, and they will often times responds differently to the pressure of the sheep. So we don't eliminate the dog from stock work if he leans, but we work to fixing it. Just a note, there are times we need the dog to lean so we don't want a dog that can't lean on pressure either, we just don't want him leaning on us.

 

Regarding trainers not mentioning it, some just don't worry about it, but it can be the difference between a dog that can work sheep right or just goes out and bulls in, many will avoid it by getting a good stop or down on their dog. Also, alot of folks can't do what it takes to reprogram the dog, it means that they have to reprogram themselves, look for places they allow the dog to lean and some dogs get quite angry when you try to convince them they need to move off pressure and stand out on their own four feet.

 

I hope I didn't make it too confusing, it's kinda tough to put into type. I'm sure others will look at the whole deal from a different perspective, just giving you my view.

 

Deb

[sandra s.]

I never thought of it in terms of “hiding behind me” or “looking too much to the handler” because that's very untypical for Kessie to do. She normally does her own thing when we roam around outside, occasionally “asking questions” (like checking my reaction to someone coming up the trail) but never crowding me, even when she's worried. With some perceived threats she offers me backup, with others she sees me more as part of the problem (i.e. the one who'll surely prevent her from hiding from the big bad noise). But that's a completely different sort of stress compared to corrections, so it's possible. I certainly can imagine that it's the cause for many dogs to do that.

 

Thank you for all the information! Even though I can't put the things I learn here to the test on sheep, they teach me lots of little bits and pieces that make it easier to communicate in all kinds of other situations (and by DoG, we humans need all the help we can get when it comes to communication!). Miss Noodle here would approve.