It is not really a problem as in "I'm stuck" sort of problem. My 2.6 yo bitch Darine, has a bit of a problem taking the command on with off-balance and off-pressure flanks. She is a dog that wants to keep all her bases covered and used to be very hard to persuade to take flanks that leave e.g. the sheep opened towards a draw.
This is what I have been doing so far:
1. I started teaching her flanks first by naming nice flanks when they happened with the appropriate commands.
2. Then, I added actually giving commands for on-balance and on-pressure flanks (basically when I knew she wanted to do them).
3. Then (very soon after point 2, so that she would not get the idea that a flank command is always where she wants to go anyway), I would set her between 8-11 o'clock and encourage her to come to me with a gesture, and when she moved, I would add away. And the same for 1-4 o'clock and comebye.
4. At some point, the idea is to fade out the gesture and do off-balance, off-pressure flanks on command alone (I have no idea if other people do the same r not). Off-balance flanks are not too bad, but off-pressure flanks are more of a problem (which I understand as releasing the control of the sheep - I hope this is correct?).
So this is what we have been doing and we are not stuck or anything, Darine is progressing, but I thought I'd ask if we can make things better somehow, since the flank commands that are difficult for her to take are often crucial (well, ok, all flanks are important, I hope you know what I mean).
At the very end of this recent video is an example of the problem (soon after 3'19'' ) - excuse the music, the original purpose of the video was not to ask ask a question about flanks. But she takes one come-bye flank, and then she takes 'away; flank, instead of another come bye, I correct her and she goes on come bye.
