Wouldn't wear through snow

[Pipedream Farm]

How many of you had to teach your dogs to cross different terrain while working sheep? Jody would wear sheep up to a large patch of snow then try to run around it. She was also Ving her flanks as she approached the snow. I had to teach Jody to cross the patch of snow, instead of going around it. We did work through it till she was wearing and fetching the sheep straight across the snow. I'll test it again later and also look for it with patches of tall grass.

 

It kind of surprised me since she has never shown any adversion to going on the snow when off stock.

 

Mark

[blackacre]

All of them.

There are two issues here of course:

Deep snow, high grass, wet spots etc require a dog to push to get the stock to go through, so it's a good exercise for the dogs--one that seems to be the limit of our training opportunities up here in the frozen North at the moment I might add.

As to whether the dog herself will go through in order to be where she needs to be? In my experience, most dogs are inclined to take the path of least resistance, so training them to go through high grass, across deep snow, through brush lines, up hills, across, rather than along, ruts etc is essential training. Witness the outrun problems at the Nationals in Lebanon.

Andrea

[Pipedream Farm]

Andrea,

 

I guess what surpised me was that while she loves playing in and on the snow she wasn't comfortable making the transition from grass to snow in order to be where she should.

 

Mark

[Denise Wall]

Mark, it could be that she doesn't want to be bogged down anywhere she feels she might lose control of the sheep.

 

Early on, Mick had this problem with following sheep across dams. His second Open trial, Seclusival, several years ago had an outrun across a dam to sheep on the other side of a small pond. Lots of dogs wouldn't look for sheep across the dam, determined to stay in the field they were in. Mick ran across the dam on the outrun but when the sheep started running across the dam on the fetch, he must've felt they were getting away. He ran down a very steep embankment and came back up in front of them to stop them. I don't ever remember him ringing sheep on a fetch except that time.

 

I decided I needed to practice this in other non trial situations and while we worked through it, I could tell he just does not like to lose control of their direction (heads) like that. I've seen the same thing from him in other rough terrain situations. At Nancy Shreeder's trial there are some pretty wicked ditches and creeks the sheep and dogs have to cross several times over the course of the run. On the driveaway is a fairly easy path to cross the creek. However, the sheep sometimes were taking advantage of the dog's temporary in-access to them by cutting sharply back to outside of the course while the dog was crossing and couldn't cover; sometimes they would jump the trial field fence and that would be the end of the run. When they tried this with Mick, he ran along the creek bed until he was in front of their heads and then tried to climb the bank to get to them, which was at that point very steep and lined with overhanging roots making it very difficult to get over. Fortunately, he did finally scramble his way up the bank and because he was in the sheep's foiled escape path, they didn't get away.

 

I relayed these two stories to show how this type of thing can both hurt and help you, and also to show they aren't always doing it to take the path of least resistance. Some dogs are very aware of when the sheep might know they are at a disadvantage because of terrain. I found making extra sure things were REALLY calm right before any situation like this helps the dog not to feel as if it might lose control if it stays directly behind the sheep and also makes the sheep less likely to break and do exactly what the dog is fearing will happen.

[cgt]

I think Denise is on to something there.

 

In my limited experience, my dogs will get a little weird when they get into a situation where they don't think they can cover properly. Deep snow and tall grass, in particular. But with time they seem to settle down some.

 

charlie torre

[blackacre]

Yes I agree Denise, but only in the situation where the difficult patch that the sheep must be pushed through is succeeded by an area that gives the sheep a wide range of options to escape the dog. You've given two excellent examples, the causeway at Seclusival and crossing a stream which is either quite deep or has steep banks. The dog feels the sheep accelerating into escape mode while she is still having to negotiate the obstactle.

A.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I see this on a small scale on my farm all the time. I have lots of obstacles where the sheep can beat the dog and the dog can absolutely feel it. It took me years to figure out what was going on and try to avoid those situations unless I could set it up to where I could help. Rick had terrible trouble with tall grass and snow because we had trust issues. Oddly, we never had trouble with tall grass at trials - I guess he knew the sheep weren't going to get away in that situation.

 

It takes a while to convince even the best dog to trust that if they listen, the sheep will NOT get away, because it sure feels like it could happen. This is a lot of what Random and I are doing right now. The nice thing is that Random already trusts me (and I him) to a much greater extent than Rick did.

 

I also like to leave some leeway for the dog to figure out a better way to do things, too. Random occaisionally surprises me in that department - at random moments.

 

It's been interesting because this is the first dog I've ever had that didn't grow up knowing the ins and outs of this place. Random came as a more or less finished dog with pretty solid skills and plenty of talent (and that never say die attitude), so I've been working with a blank slate to teach the foibles of working on this ridiculously difficult operation. As opposed to working with a dog spoiled by my attempts at training.

 

Ironically, over the next year we'll be changing the setup from "good for people without dogs" to "good for dogs", finally, after eight years.