working style...

[SS Cressa]

OK this is a weird question...

 

But I love the border collie crouch and eye. I thinks its pretty and awesome to behold.

 

When playing Cressa and to an extent Troy both almost immediately drop into the crouch/eye and will creep up to each other.

 

With sheep she so far has never demonstrate that creep or crouch or eye. Is what I am seeing what her style is? Or will it change when she gets more confident? Or does it just depend?

 

She has been on sheep about 6-7x now I think.

[Smalahundur]

Depends on what you are seeing

Maybe it would help if you described how your dog behaves around sheep, so more experienced forummembers than I could give you their opinion.

[G. Festerling]

All I can tell you is that I have seen "style" change especially in older dogs that got good guidance on sheep later in life. In one case the dog had been started but not right.

I think the "true" style will show itself as the dog gains confidence.

[SS Cressa]

OK thanks. She still or they both are still getting use to this whole new venture.

 

She doesn't crouch much at all. Nor does she creep up on her sheep. She has a very calm and matter of factness to her. She does drop her head sometimes but never that border collie crouch.

 

It kind of surprise me since she is the one who does the border collie eye/creep/crouch the most often in play, agility, etc...

[G. Festerling]

She maybe a bit more of a loose eyed type dog. I have two. I like them. As long as they manage to stay hooked up.

[Carson Crazies]

It kind of surprise me since she is the one who does the border collie eye/creep/crouch the most often in play, agility, etc...

 

That's why it is said here, often, that how a dog reacts to toys and other dogs (and so on) has very little bearing on how the dog will react to stock. As a general rule how a dog "eyes" a ball is very little indication of working ability or style. This is also why we explain that you cannot assume that a dog has working ability just because it stalks other dogs! But sometimes it's hard to believe it until you've seen it with your own eyes.

 

That being said, in my experience though some dogs will develop some style as they progress, they most times don't wind up being profoundly all that different than they were when they started. My open dog doesn't have much eye, and while he is stylish to some degree he's still a somewhat plain worker at times. He started out about the same - though I'd say once he started driving he developed some eye and became more stylish. However, what he lacks in eye and style he makes up for in sensibility, biddability and keenness.

 

It's really hard to say at this point in the game. She may develop some more eye and style when she starts driving and as she develops more confidence. But how much? Don't know.

[SS Cressa]

Yes she is staying focused and connected to her *sheep* as long as I don't screw her up by trying to be too controlling.

 

This last time I had to be told mutiple times this isn't agility, your dogs have a better idea on what to do then you do so relax and trust them. And I could see when I was "over handling" both of my dogs would start loosing focus on the sheep and just watch me or they would start to worry and NOT think.

[Laurae]

I agree with Laura. I have one dog with a bit of eye, and she is very stylish on sheep--creeps up slowly, holds her crouch (often for longer than I'd like, incidentally). She shows exactly none of that style when she plays with my other dogs. Never crouches or uses her eye on them. In fact, she prefers to come right up to them at full bore to steal whatever they have and then run away from them in the hope that they will chase her.

 

However, Cressa may not have really developed her style just yet, as she is learning to work relatively late in her life and so may be exhibiting other (learned) behaviors before showing you what she really has.

[border_collie_crazy]

I dont have a lot of experience, as my girls have only been on sheep a few times, however I know what suprised me about Happy was that her style on stock was not the same at all to her reactions everywhere else..in day to day life she is very very "sticky" she has so much eye that she can hardly function, and that includes other animals(not dogs, but small animals) so I was super nervous about putting her on stock, I thought for sure she would cease to function lol, however she did not react that way at all, rather she took to it immedietly, responded extremly well, showed lots of style and no tendacy whatseover toward stickiness. its was very suprising to me, even though I knew that you could not judge a dog off stock, it never really "clicked" until I saw how big the difference was.

[alund]

My dog intensly eye's tennis balls and other dogs while playing and when we first started working stock he showed little style. As we have progressed in our training, especially after we started training the drive, he developed a lot more style. Also I have noticed depending on the stock we are working his style changes. We generally work on some pretty heavy dorper sheep but when we have gone to other places and worked lighter/flightier stock he uses way more eye and really drops his head down to control.

[Pam Wolf]

I've had a few that would be very upright when the work was easy such as bringing in school sheep or the flock when they are comming home from the east pasture, yet these same dogs would show a lot of style/crouch when they had difficult stock.