Bill Orr Posted August 19, 2009 Report Share Posted August 19, 2009 Hello Bob, I've added a male that is 2 1/2 years old, has been "started", but mainly with handler pressure instead of weaning to voice commands. Trainer does not trial and mostly works cattle in an arena. The dog has a good attitude, has a down, recall on and off stock, will gather, not a biter, not worried about fences, balances and covers well. Boone is his dad, so I don't have to tell you, I am very much in his corner. My goal is to get him to Pronovice as soon as possible. What do you think about starting with getting him on voice flanks one side at a time ala Julie Simpson and Bruce Fogt? Trying to extinguish his long dependence on pressure through repetition and correction. I'm mixing in a little of everything else he can do to keep us both interested. Other suggestions? Hi to Nancy - see you at finals. Bill Orr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMSBORDERCOLLIES Posted August 20, 2009 Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 Hello Bob, I've added a male that is 2 1/2 years old, has been "started", but mainly with handler pressure instead of weaning to voice commands. Trainer does not trial and mostly works cattle in an arena. The dog has a good attitude, has a down, recall on and off stock, will gather, not a biter, not worried about fences, balances and covers well. Boone is his dad, so I don't have to tell you, I am very much in his corner. My goal is to get him to Pronovice as soon as possible. What do you think about starting with getting him on voice flanks one side at a time ala Julie Simpson and Bruce Fogt? Trying to extinguish his long dependence on pressure through repetition and correction. I'm mixing in a little of everything else he can do to keep us both interested. Other suggestions? Hi to Nancy - see you at finals. Bill Orr Hi Bill. I don't know how long you've had the dog but in my opinion I would make sure that you two are bonded well before going into any serious degree of training. The bonding will probably take longer than the training but is just as important as the training. If he is well bonded to you and you have that good tight relationship now then go ahead and start getting his voice commands on him. I'm not sure that I would go to the extent of just training one side at a time. It just doesn't seem to be the right thing to do in my mind. I am not a driller and don't believe in it at all and this kind of smacks of drilling in a way. Not to question the validity of either Julie's or Bruce's books as they are very learned and accomplished handlers and trainers. I am not that familiar with Bruce's book but I have read Julie's and found it very interesting and informative. I have also talked to her about some of her training methods and found her to be very knowledgeable. I would concentrate on flanks and stops to be sure when first starting the dog under your tutelage. Your dog will learn his flanks by association very quickly if I am reading your info right. He has been handled on pressure only in the past and doesn't know his flank commands? He only knows to go one way or the other by body pressure. If that is the case then putting a flank command to this will work well and once you see that he is starting to catch on then you can start putting some very light off balance flanks on him. I find that there is a lot of mental stress on the dog in the beginning if he has been carried on too long with just body pressure as he only knows to move from that type of information so you need to be patient when putting the voice flanking commands on him and not use too harsh a correction when he doesn't go the right way. After you are SURE that he knows his commands quite well then you can put a little more pressure on him to do it right. I like your idea of mixing up your training because that is what keeps the dog sane and us too. If it's interesting to him he will learn faster. They are all different but if he is a son of Boone I would think that he would be a pretty good listener and like to do things right. I have found that lots of corner work or work on the fence puts pretty good nice quiet flanks on a dog as they have to learn to go quietly behind the sheep to bring them out and it also teaches the dog to cover as well. Some dogs will fight you here and sometimes not want to go behind the sheep and just hold them on the fence but, if you are determined enough, you can get him to go nice and quietly behind and pull them off the fence. I would also work a lot on stretching out his outrun and tuning that up as good as you can. After all the gather is half the points in a trial and a given if you have the dog trained well to bring them to you. You can also start to drive a little on the fence just pulling the dog to you by calling his name and then"here" which will eventually work into a flank command in a little while. I always start the dogs driving on the fence as they really learn to hold a line and also you only have to cover one side while starting the dog driving and you aren't bouncing around all over the place trying to call him from both sides. A little bit of everything is just a good way to go. I don't think that I have told you anything that you didn't already know Bill as you are a pretty accomplished handler and you have brought both your dogs along very well from what I have seen but another viewpoint is always helpful when building your dog into that champion you want to see down the road. Have fun and, hopefully, if Nancy gets well, we'll see you at the finals........Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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