Braden Posted October 10, 2021 Report Share Posted October 10, 2021 Hello, I’m not 100% sure if I am writing in the correct topic area so my apologies ahead of time if I am not. I recently started herding lessons with Judith Kelly at Asher Dell Farm. I’ve had about 4-5 lessons so far and have really enjoyed it. She has been building it up slowly which I appreciate. We noticed lately that Braden (my border collie) is interested in sheep and engages with them but stops himself after a few seconds everytime. When he does this, he glances at me almost to check if it was ok to keep going which we want him to do, but it takes coaxing to get him confident to engage with the sheep again. We also just realized he is much more confident when I am holding the line then when I drop it. In the waiting pen he is also completely fixated on the sheep so I know he has interest. She mentioned how obedient he is and how he looks at me for approval and that is holding him back, but now I feel like I may have hurt his potential to herd. Any thoughts on why he is apprehensive on continuing engagement with the sheep ? Do you have any tips on overcoming this? Judith seems confident that he will be good and said he just needs more exposure so he gets more comfortable but I want to make sure I’m not doing anything to prevent that and I also want to check if I could do anything to help him overcome it. Thanks for any advice! Additional information: He is 1.5 years old and comes from a herding line. We’ve only been going to lessons for the past month or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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