Describing the original Border Collie - Help

[Lana]

I have noticed that after periods of demanding real work my dogs need some trial tuning. When moving hundreds of ewes with lambs across dry land graze without letting them onto the UN fenced alfalfa, or driving 500 cow calf pairs in range land, I expect the dogs to do much of the thinking with little in put from me. In those situations I usually just say the dog’s name, and they figure out what I need.

 

When I send the dogs on 3 head of sheep or cattle at a trial I can see them thinking “settle down lady this is 3 head I sure don’t need your help with this!” Even Kell who is much less bull headed than Blue needs to be drilled some before a trial. I am sure I often here Blue thinking “take that whistle and go sit in the truck, that down whistle is buggin me!”

 

Of course I am not suggesting good trial dogs don’t think, but they do need to listen and obey at a level that is much higher than most jobs. Real work can train a dog much better and faster than drills, but precision is still key to winning.

 

Real work makes the best dogs, the problem is the more real work you have the less time you have for trials.

 

Lana

[D Strickland]

Go to any AHBA, ASCA or AKC "herding" event, then go to the USBCHA national finals and let us know how you feel.

 

I started in USBCHA - my first Novice trial was under Glynn Jones . Later I was convinced to try AKC and was appalled at the garbage they call Border Collies ... I felt like an adult taking a Karate class with 6 year old kids and beating them up. ( yes .. that is a reference to a Seinfeld episode ). So I tried AHBA ... which was similar ... but at least it wasn't the AKC.

 

I went full circle and came back to the USBCHA and I'm not going anywhere. No need to go to the Nationals to see the difference.

[mjk05]

I have noticed that after periods of demanding real work my dogs need some trial tuning.

I find that, too. I don't ever seem to get around to doing that trial tuning, which is probably a contributing factor to my less than stellar trial results.

 

Quite a few triallers over here are retired farmers or small hobby farmers, keeping small numbers of sheep mostly for training dogs, and I think that makes it easier to work their dogs at home without undoing their trial training. But most of the time I work my dogs at home, we're in a rush and trying to get things done ASAP and often I tend to let my dogs get away with things I shouldn't. They really aren't more than semi-trained at best, and I'm a novice trainer, so we're developing all sorts of bad habits that we'll pay for on the trial ground. Of course there are advantages to doing lots of farm work in developing dogs, and some of our top dogs here are working farm dogs, and their handlers somehow manage to take them from farm work straight to trials with hardly any specific trial training. But even they say it's easier in many ways for people who don't have farms to run.