Backing up

[Bill Fosher]

I don't usually use a flank command to send a dog on an outrun -- just a shuush. He gets his direction from how I set him up. If he's on my right, it's away; on my left, come bye.

 

Dogs certainly do need to be able to release pressure. I'd say it's one of the hardest things to teach a young dog, because he thinks the sheep are getting away. The back commands as you describe them might or might not work. Sometimes the best way to release pressure is to hold the dog still and let the sheep find their own comort zone (assuming it's not in the exhaust pen or the next county). You'll seldom settle sheep with a dog that's on the move, no matter how wide.

 

Now, if they're headed for the next county, obviously your dog does need to be moving, and needs to be moving wide. I'd argue that he shouldn't need a special command for that sort of situation: he should size up the scene and see what needs to be done.

 

Like Dixie_Girl, I'm command-challenged, so the fewer things I have to remember, the better. For me, training time that teaches the dog to read sheep is much better spent than training time teaching commands.

[Dixie_Girl]

When I go for the next lesson, we are moving back to the large pen. To the smaller one if neccesary. We will be working on sending him for the sheep and teaching him to get behind them, and stopping, them moving them towards me. Does this explain it right? Hope so. The reason for the pen is so we can do it in small steps. At a short distance he seems to do it right. However, at more than 20yrds or so, he tends to cut into them which caused the bolt I described in the other thread about his lesson. I think my trainers idea is to lengthen the outrun as he masters each length. Makes sense to me. He has passed me up as far as what he can do! But he is a steady dog and so far he has been predictable in that, if he is doing a certain "thing" he doesn't suddenly do something else. Did I explain that clearly? Anyway, the backing up command could be used in a variety of situations. Like walking in the woods and coming up on a snake! However I am not obsessing over it! I would much rather see him do a 40yrd outrun and lift!