Fetching a closer group

[zenotri]

I was in a situation the other day where I was in a laneway & there were 2 groups of sheep, moving away from us & they were quite a distance apart. I sent her to fetch the closest lot. She went around them just fine, but then saw the next lot further up & headed off to fetch them as well. Since I only wanted the closest lot, I called "That'll Do" & then "walk up" as she came back to the original lot. She hesitated a bit, looked back, needed another command & then fetched the sheep I wanted. How should I have handled this? Am I confusing her? How would you train this? but still maintain the ability to gather a paddock in different groups?

 

It worked out fine, but honestly didn't occur to me until I saw her confusion. It's not a situation that I have thought about before & possibly won't happen often, but I would like to do it right...Any advice is appreciated.

[Sue R]

Now I am a novice but I think you did well. She was confused initially but responded to your commands and got the job done. When faced with something new or just unfamiliar, there can be a level of confusion and you have to let the dog think and guide her so that she understands the job at hand.

 

If you had wanted both groups, when she saw the second group, a "look back" and "away" or "come bye" would have sent her after the second group nicely, I think. It would have been a good opportunity to teach either just getting the one group you desired or doing a look back and gathering both if you'd wanted both.

 

Just my opinion. Best wishes!

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I face this situation a lot because my sheep spread out a lot during grazing. Sometimes it's to my advantage as I might only want a particular group - they tend to sort themselves as they graze and if I can just pick up the group I want, I don't have to do any sorting.

 

I'm a total dork at handling but I've found the dogs are quick to pick up on body language. If I want the group nearest me, I have a "Here!" command which calls the dog in and that usually focuses attention on "my" group. I try to catch the dog before he's really passed the first group as ideally you'll want him to turn in rather than "turn off" the sheep. But if it happens I use the recall just as you did, and the dogs dont seem to get too confused. If I have to do that a lot, as I did yesterday doing one particular chore, Cord starts thinking "That'l do" means shed off and hold the nearest sheep. Probably mea culpa.

 

On "Look back" I want my dog to pause and wait for the flank. His job is to scan for sheep and mine is to give the flank when he's looking in the right direction, if that makes sense. It actually works sometimes. Cord wants to zoom off in the direction of his choosing when I give the look back command so we are working on that one as it is not helpful when the sheep could be anywhere on sixty acres.

[Eileen Stein]

I think you did great. You used the vocabulary the two of you have already worked out to get across to her what you wanted. Now she understands that there are other possibilities than the one she originally thought of, and that you will help her figure out the one you want. Sounds like a good experience all around.

[zenotri]

Thank you all. It's nice when things just happen & you get the opportunity to try something new...but since I am such a Novice I always like to get ideas that I might not think of.

 

I think I will have lots of opportunities to practice this & the Look Back as the sheep we are working at the moment are different mobs put together, so they tend to hang out in groups. We haven't had much experience gathering very large paddocks yet, so I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to create problems when we start doing that, especially if the sheep are in different groups. Right now, going from the 6-20 sheep that she is used to working to 100-200 sheep is enough of a challenge for her, so we will just take it easy.