Your working dog - strengths and weaknesses.

[Denise Wall]

I enjoyed reading what Becca and Melanie and others have said describing their working dogs. Every few years, I write up a description of my current dogs. Reading theirs reminded me to do it again. After I did one for Kate (which is long - sorry) I thought it might be neat to start a thread on it and ask people to describe what they consider their dogs' good and not so good working qualities. I put the thread here so maybe the non-working people would read it too and it would help them to understand some of the complexities involved.

 

 

Kate:

 

Kate was recently shown in a picture in another thread here moving a ewe lamb pair. This is her forte ? moving difficult sheep. She is brave and gritty and loves to get in there and make sheep ?do.? Unfortunately, she?s not as outstanding in all areas. She?s very fast and tends to fly off before fully realizing what it is she?s supposed to be doing. This has made it difficult to get her 100% consistent on her flanking directions. If she and the stock aren?t settled just right when I give her a flank command, she?s likely to either automatically flank to cover the stock pressure, or take the flank she anticipates I want because of something we?ve done in the past, i.e., a particular job. I don?t really believe she?s stupid, just overkeen. As long as we?re working at home doing jobs she knows, this isn?t a big problem. New job or new places, it is. She lacks some flexibility. My hope is that with more time and work, she?ll settle and become more thoughtful in her work.

 

Kate also does not always feel her sheep very well. She is very pushy, and making sure the sheep move is her highest priority. Her motto seems to be, when in doubt, go straight at the sheep. This does not always serve her well. One continuing problem we?ve had at trials is at the top of outruns, where people are holding sheep for her. She?s never had much experience with this and she?s one of those dogs who needs it. The set out person and dog change the pressure of the sheep and if she has trouble figuring out what to do, she runs tight at the top and straight at the sheep. She runs out pretty well at home though. She?ll run out to sheep as far as you can send her. You just might not like what she does when she gets there.

 

To the plus side, she has tons of heart, stamina and athletic ability. She?s actually the most obedient dog I think I?ve ever had. Her responses are quick both in reaction to the sheep and in response to my commands. As stupid as she can be about being too quick to do things without thinking, she is not too bad about getting herself out of a mess. Maybe from the practice Anyway, this ability to keep her head about her somewhat when things fall apart gives me hope that she?ll be okay eventually.

 

She has what I consider to be nice power. Like her mom, she walks straight onto sheep, both from behind and when they?re facing her, with a lot of confidence and appears to have no thoughts whatsoever that they won?t move for her. She probably fits more into the category of a ?line type? dog in working style, similar to her mom. She has more scope to her outrun and flanks than her mom but in general, I don?t consider her a better dog or even an equal dog to either parent. Maybe I will in the future when she finishes maturing into her work.

 

Kate is very exuberant and healthy and as I said, a tremendous athlete. She has some special things about her with regard to her working ability and she definitely has a lot of natural ability. I think her mind is her biggest problem. I find her lacking somewhat in scope for all the different types of work I need her for but she can do everything and most of it fairly well. Most of the right things seem to be in there somewhere, she just can?t always access them at the right time. She turned four this spring and I have no immediate plans to breed her. I may at some point but it will be very important for me to pick the right cross for her. I expect she'll make a decent Open trial dog but not the quality of Mick and Zeke.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

OK, I've said all there needs to be said about poor ol' Ben.

 

Bit more on Rick. When his brain is engaged, he reads stock like a dream - flanks perfectly, lifts almost just a wee bit TOO carefully (light stock make him hesitate, trying to get it JUST right - he's used to my silly stubborn sheep), and falls in on the fetch or drive both with this beautiful pace.

 

Now, if you don't watch out, he'll start getting a bit excited and take things into his own, uh, paws. The pace starts picking up and you have to remind him you're still there! The other bad thing about him is he is REALLY sensitive to the handler's emotions and will go into orbit pretty easily, working without thinking (I've heard some people call it "running hot").

 

He loves to work for my trainer, other clinicians - their calmness reassures him and they can put any kind of pressure on him - he thrives in the pressure cooker, as long as his handler stays calm. Well, my range of emotion working him goes from slightly rattley to hysterical (though not so much lately). Our early years together were disastrous, then improved to just nerve racking, and now I'm learning to trust him a bit myself. Working my young bitch has helped my confidence handling in the last year, however, so we're now getting to be a better team.

 

My young bitch Jen is the opposite. She could care less about what your state of mind is, as long as you stay out of her way! Her big bad thing is that she's has a serious my-way-or-the-highway attitude. Apparently her grandmother started the same way, though, and she went on to become my trainer's top trial dog. It's irritating though, nonetheless. It gives me real pause about breeding her, even if the rest of her apparent potential turned her into a top worker and competitor also. I don't know.

 

On the good side, she's going to make a HECK of a farm dog and the one I want in a pinch. Rick took four years to settle into his power and use it properly. Jen already can turn it on and off like a mature dog - the stock sense she's shown doing chores is unbelievable. She has taken a long time to start training because she reads EVERYTHING the sheep do and she wants to do something about it every time. It's taken a long time for her to start sorting out what was significant and what was irrelevant. Needless to say, the pressure reading princess has excellent flanks (but not as correct as Rick's), hits the pressure at the top and lifts sheep like a dream, and, unlike Rick, I know I can get her behind the sheep, turn around, and just walk. But I prefer to watch her work the sheep so I peek - she's teaching me a lot even on my own sheep!

 

Her eye is just a smidge on the strong side, but her training from the beginning has emphasized walking and standing to the point that, now that she's learning to drive, she doesn't want to lie down! Jen, in a word, is a CONTROL FREAK. She may never be bred, even if she "makes it," because I need many more years of experience and mentoring before I could be comfortable finding the right cross for her.

 

Case in point, I surmised the breeding of Jen's parents would produce a range of eye from moderately loose (the dam) to right in the middle (the sire). It's actually from moderately strong to strong, less of a range and not in the "desired" direction. My head threatens to explode when I try to figure it out based on this one sample, so I know I need to watch and listen to the masters for quite a while more.

 

Well, that was fun. I wonder what I'll write in another couple years? Dear diary, today I actually got around the Open course with my own dog. . .

[AK dog doc]

I wish I could even begin to reply to this, but I am still FAR too ignorant to say anything relevant, and Finn's barely started, so it would be premature even if I had the faintest clue what I'm doing. Sigh. I'll just settle for learning from all of you instead....

[Tassie]

Hey Doc ? the scary thing is that I?m starting to understand this ? shows how deep the addiction is getting. I can relate some of what these folks are saying to Kirra ? although she?s still very young in her work. I can see in her some of what Becca says about her Ben. The discussion is a great window into watching Kira and identifying strengths and weaknesses to work on.

[sea4th]

I too consider myself way too ignorant to hold my own in any significant dialogue on this matter.

But my 2 cents in this would be about Tam. I sent him back to his breeder when he was a little over a year old to put a foundation on him. This is a dog that's tested me since puppyhood. He has a really nice outrun, nice pace and covers his sheep nicely. A lie down though, has been a battle since day one and when given, it's grudgingly and not without a battle of wills. With Tam there is a hardheadedness that he'll test you every inch of the way---not just me---but those with some experience as well. I know he is way too much dog for someone with my limited experience. That being said, I love working with this dog because when it clicks, when it's come together, well, you all know what I'm talking about.

 

Vicki

[Smokjbc]

Hello-

 

This thread is a good idea . I always enjoy reading how other people view their dogs and sharing my own.

 

My Rhett, retired now- her strong points were always a willingness to listen and a very strong work ethic. She will gather anything you send her too- and is extremely strong at heading cattle. Cattle tend to trust her, but sheep tend to take advantage of her slow, quiet method. Weak points are stickiness to an extreme, she is a very poor driver (she prefers stock to stop, moving is optional to her) and tends to get sulky if she doesn't get her way. She has always run tight but she is very quiet and stock tends to let her get away with it. A lot of her problems were handler-inspired- she was my first decent dog and I let her run the show when she was younger. When I got smarter and tried to modify some of those bad habits- she would grudgingly improve but slip back easily if I wasn't enforcing it.

 

Nellie, at four, is my right hand little dog. She is extremely fast and very flexible and has never been tired in her life. She is the kind of dog that you can put where you need her and when she is there she will take responsibility and get the job done, if she can. Her outruns are getting better all the time, she started out very tight. She is not a very strong dog on cattle, she will heel but not head. She is fairly loose eyed although her eye gets stronger as she gets older- esp. if I can get her slowed down. Luckily because she has alot of presense and is so fast- cattle tend to move off her anyways and she does not get in many confrontations with them. Her main weakness is that she also runs hot under pressure- tends to fly off into "la la land" at times and is not the most sensitive dog when it comes to her stock. At the pen, I have to do alot of the work because she moves around so fast that it can unsettle the stock (thanks to the person who pointed that problem out for me!). Down/take time is a battle with her that is slowly improving. She loves shedding- too much- it gets a little wild when she does it. I am hoping when she's about ten or so she will slow down enough to look classy . She has won me a good chunk of change at cow dog trials though- she is alot of fun to handle- just so easy to get where you want her. She is a very useful dog to me- but at the same time alot of her strengths now are a result of training/biddability , she is a very keen dog but not a very natural dog, and so she is spayed.

 

 

Jane is the youngest, she will be two in September. She is a very stylish, natural dog, natural square flanks and pace. On sheep she seems to have alot of natural power and authority and has had that from a very young age. Its hard to tell right now if she is very good at handling pressure or if I'm putting less pressure on her because she tends to be right alot of the time. She is a dog that usually controls herself and doesn't need alot of handler input past where you want her to or what you want her to do. She has medium eye, is not sticky. She will take a flank easily when asked. Sheep rarely question her- my ewes w/ lambs might stamp a few times at Nellie but they rarely do so with Jane. Jane likes driving, which she is just learning, and is the best listening dog I have ever had. She will use her teeth if she needs to but rarely does. Her main problem now is more developmental- at a distance sometimes things fall apart, she gets a little insecure and splits her sheep. She is not super kind with lambs- and has taken inappropriate nips. That is improving all the time, I think its normal youngster stuff. She is lukewarm on cows, I haven't had the chance to get her out on them enough. She tends to run slow at times, although I'm not sure if she is too slow or if I'm just comparing her to super-turbo Nellie. I really enjoy working Jane, she never gets sulky and always accepts corrections and learns from them. I'm really looking forward to trialing her on sheep and if she never makes it on cows, I like her enough that I will still be happy to keep and work her. She also will be spayed soon, its too soon to tell really if she is breeding quality or not but I'm not planning on getting another dog for awhile and not going to breed unless its for myself first.

 

 

Jaime

smokinjbc@msn.com

[SoloRiver]

What would be interesting would be to get Becca's descriptions of my dogs. I know what I think I see, but what other people see always makes me think.

 

I have a very hard time being objective about Solo since we both started together when we knew nothing and we built bad habits together that I have a very hard time overcoming and that he doesn't display when other people work him. Solo is not an ideal novice dog, not only because he has such difficulty handling pressure but because he is naturally very pushy and difficult to control. He loves to fight sheep who don't want to move and is perfect in those situations; his favorite chores are things like keeping sheep off feeders and getting them through gates they don't want to go through. He has problems in situations where he is very worried the sheep will escape. He is extremely hard-headed and can be leaned on pretty hard without folding, and he's got one hell of a motor and could keep working all day.

 

I believe that in a working farm situation he is a dog who would get down and dirty and need very few commands to get tough jobs done, but he lacks the finesse necessary for upper-level trial work and I would imagine more delicate or complicated tasks. When he loses it he busts the sheep up and grips, but they're stupid grips, not "I'm going to kill this sheep" grips.

 

When experienced handlers work him, he looks like a different dog. My trainer had him doing 250-yard outruns and driving -- not real far, but driving -- the summer I was away. For me he is almost a round-pen dog. I have taken him to clinics with Jack Knox and Scott Glen and they both told me he was a nice dog and I would probably be trialing him in a couple of months. There is no way I personally could even get him around a novice course and because our bad habits together are so ingrained I don't see this situation changing anytime soon. We are constantly making steps forward and backward and sort of remain in stasis. His latest thing has been to revert all the way back to the very beginning of our working relationship and to basically refuse to go right for me, although he'll do it for others.

 

Every now and then, we get it just right and then it's beautiful. This is when we are getting a lot of practice. Solo is one of those dogs who needs daily work. Unfortunately, that's not what he gets.

 

I just managed to accidentally delete everything I'd written about Fly and lack the energy to retype it at the moment, so it'll have to wait until later.

[JenS]

I'm one to read more than write, but who can resist a chance to talk about their dog!

 

 

I descibe Woodrow as Mr. Laid Back. He always is cool and easy to work. He has a loose eye and moves very easy. You can put him anywhere. I used to worry that he didn't has enough grit to move some of the nasty range sheep we trial on. I would watch good teams either have difficulty moving the stock, or getting called off when a fight ensued. These situations rarely occur wth Woody. He just doesn't bring out the fight. When faced with sheep who just don't want to move, he usually has a trick or two to get them started and they relax and just move off. On the rare occasion when he is directly challenged, he will come right in and get a nose. He is very respectful of his stock, and expects the same. If he feel they are being silly or stupid I can see him start to get irritated. If he is really pissed, he'll buzz them a bit.

 

He is a thinking dog. I have had people tell me this, but it didn't make an impression until I got another dog. Woody thinks about everything. I think this is why he doesn't rattle his stock. He is almost creepy smart.

 

He has holes. I still would like to see a bit more power to him. He hates shedding. The traits that make him a great driving dog are not appropiate to coming in strong on the shed. He does "turn tail" for a second on occasion. I believe that is part due to my novice training, part to his genes.

 

A better handler would have had more succes on the trial field. He is very biddable. In learning to train him I think I made him a bit mechanical. On the other hand I can turn my back on him and trust him to do the right thing and get the sheep where they need to go. He learns chores well and would be one of those farm dogs you only have to show once and he'd take care of it. A real easy dog and an excellent first dog.

 

My other dog, Flash, is just a year and only starting. It is going to be a long road with him and we'll see where we end up. So far his good points are reading balance, keeping everyone together, speed, keeness, and possibly bravery. Weaknesses include a tendency for too much eye, overflanking, not listening (puppy!) grippy (puppy) and just plain old immaturity! I like what shows though for split seconds though. We'll work on it.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Now remember, Melanie, you asked me! Anyway, I always have to put a good word in for Solo when Melanie trashes him. Just kidding!

 

I think some of the things that make me fond of Solo is that he combines some of the most obvious traits of all my dogs. Some good, some not so good. When I work with him, it's like working an old friend, or several of them.

 

There's no middle ground with him. He's at the very other end of the "eye" scale - as free flanking as my Ben but more correct. When he's thinking, he thinks very hard like my Jen, but when he's not thinking, he's in orbit like Rick.

 

Then there's other things. Solo doesn't like you stepping in on his space, but freedom kind of scares him. He knows he's wrong when he's tight, but he doesn't want to fix it himself. THAT'S the only thing that would discourage me about him - but I don't see it as unfixable - at least it didn't seem that way last time I saw him.

 

I'll end with his strongest points. He's very free flanking as I said. He's got great balance and loves to push - but he'll listen to a crrection and dig out a bit of pace for you if you insist. He's proof that loose eye does not equate to lack of stock sense. I think his blowups are a response to overthinking the pressure, unlike my Ben, whose blowups are an avoidance of contact. Like Ben, though, his niche on the farm would be jobs he had to figure out for himself.

 

I only worked Fly once right after she got here and was in that, "WHAT kind of accent is THAT?" stage. Her combination of keenness and biddability are delightful. If you hesitate on a command, she doesn't INSTANTLY take charge - she allows you time to think. Hey, what a concept.

 

On the down side, it seems like she was "broken" (started) by someone who took some of the natural out of her, so she hesitates to push on recalcitrant sheep, but Melanie and her trainer are getting her back up to speed quite nicely. For some reason I can't remember anything about her flanks other than they must have been pretty much correct. In spite of being quite stylish she seems pretty enthusiastic about flanking. Her pace is dreamy, of course. Oh, I do remember she loves to take a line - I'd feel fully confident working my sheep down the road with her behind them. Fly is like Mary Poppins - Practically Perfect - but that's kind of boring and Solo is still my favorite.

[juliepoudrier]

I'll add my thoughts on my dogs.

 

Twist is now two and a half. She started to work very young and very easily (a dream for a novice handler to start). She has always been a natural outrunner and is a delight in that I can send her and usually not have to say another word until the sheep are at my feet at the post (and we will get full or nearly full points on the gather). It's fortunate that she is a natural gatherer though because she hates to be "overcommanded." I have found that if I can leave her alone on the outwork then she will be much happier about taking commands on the drive when I am trying to achieve more precision. As a youngster she was a bit slow, but with maturity and encouragement she has gained speed and no longer runs out of time on the longer courses.

 

She has naturally square flanks, which at times bother me, even though I have had top handlers tell me on more than one occasion that I will be happy for those square flanks (on such occasions as at the pen and when shedding, and she is very natural at both tasks).

 

She has a bit too much eye and likes to work the lead sheep. It took me a while to get used to her working off to the side of the sheep so that she could control the lead. Unfortunately this way of working, combined with a bit much eye, means that she can also cause sheep to turn on her and challenge her. Sheep challenging her isn't a problem for her as she is very happy to get "up close and personal," but in a trial situation it can be problematic and time consuming to finesse her so that the sheep don't get drawn into her because of her eye. Because of her eye, I never asked her to lie down as a youngster. To this day, she doesn't have a great lie down because it was never really asked of her (interestingly if I ask her to stand, she will usually lie down; ask for a ie down and she stops and stands--no doubt brought on by my training abilities--or lack thereof--but a source of amusment for folks anyway).

 

When I go to the farm to work my dogs, Twist is always my choice for gathering the flock (she won't leave any behind) and sorting, etc. She just makes things easy. Her sense of balance is awesome, and she will come into the group of sheep wherever I ask her--hole or not. She is a good shedding dog, although I have to work a bit on getting her to come off the balance to give the sheep an opportunity to string out a bit, but the converse of that is if the sheep are inclined to run she will hold them to me without a word from me (a blessing since sometimes the action is fast and she can react way faster than I can).

 

I have learned to work around her faults. I use the field to my advantage to help contain the wide outrun (which I don't want to remove as it makes her excellent for gathering big fields). I have given her a call-in command so that when she flanks square and wide I can call her back in closer. I try to handle her smarter so that if the sheep are inclined to stop and fight I will keep her back behind them more rather than off to the side where she prefers to be (so she won't as easily catch the lead sheep's eye and get into a confrontation).

 

She will work sheep, goats, and cattle, but poultry don't exist for her (probably because she was raised to leave my chickens alone).

 

We have run in pro-novice all year and will be moving up tp open at the start of the next trial season this August. I will write about Kat later as I now have to take Twist to the vet....

 

J.