Moving Tough Sheep

[Deb Mickey]

I have a young dog (some of you know who ! ) that has 2 methods of handling sheep that are hard to move. One, she clamps down and looks at them; or two, she busts into them.

 

If she clamps down, the look on her face is "what do I do now?" and if she busts into them the look is "YYYEEEHHHAAAA !!!!".

 

Obviously, either way she doesn't know how to properly handle these sheep. What can I do from a training aspect to help her?

 

Thanks all!

[Shoofly]

Put a command on busting into the sheep. Give it to her but right before she gets there, give her a hard down so the sheep are startled off but she doesn't get into them. You might also want to put a really fast walk up on her, one that'll walk her right into the middle of the sheep, if she'll do it.

 

It's a tough problem to solve and one that's hard to give much advice on without seeing the dog and sheep. Is she pretty much trained, or is she just starting to drive or something like that? What are the sheep like? If she's not really pretty much trained, i'd really hustle into things myself and help her push to give her lots of confidence and maybe pick out a command or noise to associate with getting on in there and making things move even if it's sloppy. There are lots of things to try. Can you give more info?

[Deb Mickey]

Thanks, Wobin,

 

This is Annie, I'm running her in PN, and we've been struggling with driving for some time. The problem with driving is she wants to head the sheep rather than stay in the back to push them. This is slowing being resolved, but still an issue.

 

The example I'll give is from last weekend's trial. The sheep were tough on all the dogs, at all levels, and the exhaust was midway down the fetch line so, of course, the pressure was immense. What happened on day one is Annie drove them thru the drive panels and turned them to head for the pen. The sheep stopped and faced her (exhaust pressure) and she stood her ground for some time then dove in to them spliting them. The next day she had the same issue on the fetch. The sheep stopped and faced her, she held her ground, then dove in spliting them. She did this twice (before we were excused :eek: ). She doesn't grip but does chase and bump.

 

She really likes the cutting horse game of holding sheep (single or a group) off the pressure - holding her ground but not flying in and she has always convinced our sheep to move. These sheep were tougher than ours - 2 flocks put together the night before for the trial.

 

I need to teach her some finese on handling this kind of situation. Any handling tips are welcomed too!

 

thanks!

[Shoofly]

Hmm, i can think of a few handling things but it's hard to say without seeing it. Is she giving the sheep the chance to "escape" or is she putting too much pressure on so they don't feel like they can turn away from her? You could try some little flanks if she won't move straight up on the sheep, or even instead of - sometimes that puts too much pressure on them and they'll be even more stuck in place. You'll just have to try to figure out what the sheep are thinking and decide how to handle from there.

 

Training - if she's shedding, you could do a shed and make sure to encourage her to turn the shed sheep and not just to come through. Get the shed ones looking at her, then ask her up and if you need to, step in there and help her until she feels confident enough to do it herself. Just have her turn them, then stop or slow her so she gets used to letting them move away and doesn't take the opportunity to just push on them, putting more pressure on them. You can ask her to move up once they start moving away from her. You want her thinking she can turn them, then she should learn to ease off a bit so the sheep can relax and move away from her, in effect getting "rewarded" by the dog for doing what she wanted. Does that make sense?

[Deb Mickey]

It sure does make sense and I never thought about it could be her putting too much pressure on the sheep so they wouldn't feel comfortable about moving away. I was just seeing it as a battle of wills between her and the sheep ("We want to go to the exhaust." "Too bad," says Annie).

 

I did try to flank her the 2nd day when things got stuck, but I think she's a little too pressure sensitive and was too close to the sheep to take them.

 

I'll work on the shedding tip. She does like to come in!