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Bonnie and Sheep


Maja

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Yes, I meant the tight flanks but also the fact that she lies down instead of stopping during wearing.

 

Here is the video form our fence work yesterday. I am very happy with Bonnie's work. At some point I received a telephone call and told her to lie down, which she did right between the fence and the sheep. In the movie, a couple of times she stops or lies down between the fence and the sheep.

 

The thing I am very unhappy about is me, because I lost track of time, and extended the session way too long; Bonnie started sort of falling apart, and I started losing patience. When later I was watching the movie from the first 20 minutes or so, I wanted to kick myself in the shin, because then she did very well the in my opinion, and I let it disintegrate like a pastorally challenged person that I am :rolleyes: .

 

Bonnie's wearing wearing and her weaving now and then: I noticed it during an earlier session that she started weaving again though not in the same manner as in the beginning. In this session, I had planned to correct the situation, but due to the circumstances above, I only made things worse. However, after I the session, I suddenly realized why she is doing it, I think. I think she is doing what she's doing because I managed to communicate to her not that I want her to keep distance, but that I don't like when she is there behind the sheep. So I will try to improve that situation next time. Sunday, we are going to get Bonnie in the larger pasture with Kelly's and my husband's back up.

 

I'm sorry that in the movie the fence work is a bit far away. I uploaded the movie with a higher resolution to help matters. Unfortunately, gate posts are notoriously poor cameramen :D .

 

 

And one more thing: I copied from Julie's video the idea of also waving the stick only rather than hitting the ground with it. Seems like t helped a great deal.

 

Maja

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Bonnie is weaving because she is too close to the sheep. She has no where to go, but side to side. Before you disagree with me, please know that this is the same behaviour I saw in my BC pup, at the same age, and once we got him to stay off the sheep, this behaviour stopped.

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Bonnie is weaving because she is too close to the sheep. She has no where to go, but side to side. Before you disagree with me, please know that this is the same behavior I saw in my BC pup, at the same age, and once we got him to stay off the sheep, this behaviour stopped.

I agree that it is definitely possible, and indeed it was the reason earlier, but later she stopped weaving and now she started again. It's still holds true about the distance in some cases, but not all in my opinion and that's why I wrote about it to see your opinions and see what I should try out. The reason why I think distance is not the reason now is because (1) she can walk perfectly straight at a smaller distance, (2) increasing distance does not seem help the weaving (3) increasing pressure from me seems to increase the weaving. That's what I think. I think that as soon as she gets to walk straight I have been trying to force her to increase the distance, so she rarely gets the chance to walk behind the sheep without pressure from me and hence she concluded that I don't like her there. But maybe I am wrong, so thank you for your input :rolleyes: .

 

Maja

P.S. It may not be apparent but in many cases Bonnie is actually repositioning herself (in my opinion that is) because of the round fence which is not very visible in the video.

P.P.S. I also had another thought: Once, a couple of sessions back, I got Bonnie to increase the distance for wearing, and you know what happened? The sheep stopped following me, and Bonnie had to decrease the distance in order to move them. So I've been thinking that perhaps because the training area is fairly small, it is more like close work in sheep pens and such where dogs must work in close distance in order to achieve anything. And if Bonnie has good sheep sense, she knows it. Which means that if I take her out on a larger area she should after a while with a little persuasion increase the distance.

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So a little update: Open area herding was a bit too early for Bonnie, the sheep were extremely skittish and Bonnie was very excited by the situation. We didn't accomplish much except that Bonnie got to run a lot. She did fine, all things considered, no major disaster, because she was so anxious to keep the together that I couldn't do much else with her.

 

So I did a couple of sessions with the assumptions I outlined above, mainly that Bonnie wants to do what I want, and that she thinks I don't want her behind the sheep, and so I had to back up a little what I had spoiled. So I tried to do it the following way:

 

1. I tried to take as much pressure off her (including looking away) as soon as she would walk behind the sheep, and I'd try not to force her to increase the distance from the sheep for the time being.

2. I tried to block her when she was weaving or wanting to go around but relatively gently.

3. If she was too close to the sheep or circling, I'd stop.

 

The movie vid starts shortly before she begins to catch on in my opinion. It's not ideal yet, but she is better I think.

 

One thing that worries me is that I think sometimes I correct her wrong - that she is in a right place and I tell her to change.

 

 

Bonnie is a little over 8 months now.

Maja

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Fwiw:

 

You are asking a lot of restraint out of an 8 month pup. You are moving very slowly, and always a straight line. The dog is going to either lose interest, or get sulky if you keep putting this sort of pressure on her. By pressure I mean you don't even have to say anything, just your body presence, your arms out stretched, and basically controlling all movement. When these dogs are young we want to nurture real keen-ness to do the work, and awaken the instincts. Control comes as the dog ages.

 

I would move faster and change direction a LOT more, thus allowing her to cover her sheep and actually do something. If need be, mark the ground at different intervals and change direction, so the sheep don't see it coming and neither does your dog. She will naturally have to stay further off, and she will be much keener.

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Thank you, I agree about the walking and some other things :rolleyes: I will try it. Earlier I walked much faster, and it was better, and now I concentrated too much on getting her to do what I want, so i neglected to do what I needed.

Maja

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So I tried a few things, but I am not sure there is an improvement. But I am not sure there isn't, either. This Sunday, I am going to my trainer and we will be in a more open area, so we will see what happens. However, I have an impression that as long as I stay calm, Bonnie likes my guidance and correction, and she is very happy then. Concerning her keenness, her style is a bit loose (for lack for a better word) but she is very, very keen, perhaps it's not apparent in the movies. So I am not sure she is happier now, with a little less control than in the 6July video (the previous one). Obviously, there must be a balance between letting the dog think, and yet not letting the dog do just anything, and it is difficult to achieve.

 

In the video, I only tell Bonnie to lie down in a clear-cut balance situation. Her lying down off balance is a result, I think, of my bad timing: I don't notice that she is slowing down and keep putting pressure, so in the end she lies down rather than just stops. So where I wanted to achieve a stop a often got a clap. I did get a couple of nice stops though, I think. I know, I use the stick too much. We do also other things, but these are the ones I wanted to show you.

 

I tried to have Bonnie lie down on balance then move the sheep a little away, then remove myself away from the sheep, so that she would bring the sheep to me, but it didn't work. I tried and tired to intimidate the sheep so that they would not follow me, but they did. I hope I will be able to do that with the trainer's sheep - they are a little more sticky. I also label "away" and "come-by" behavior and praise her as a relaxing exercise - something easy for her to do and get praised for. I don't send her on these commands yet, just stick the word on top of what she is already doing.

 

 

All constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated, both negative and positive. Just try to remember that I am actually desperately trying to do things right :rolleyes:.

 

Maja

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Maja

 

The dog has matured a bit. I would allow her some fetching. Get a good down on her, walk away with the sheep, send her, and as she comes to balance walk backward while doing figure eights. She at times in the video is going off contact, because well, she needs to be challenged. You must stop looking at her every minute, and move in odd directions more, and perhaps get someone to hold sheep for you so you can do actual outruns. She really needs to start moving to the next level.

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kelpiegirl,

 

Thank you for your comments. Today I did one short session with the ornery white ewe in the flock, perhaps you remember her. Bonnie did well, I think; the ewe didn’t even try to attack her. Bonnie also went between the sheep and the fence with that ewe in the flock. Bonnie obviously enjoyed it, but she was very fast throughout the session, although she did show some instant lie downs on balance. I didn’t want to stomp on her too hard about her running around so much, since I wanted to encourage her to deal with the ewe and force the ewe to keep with the flock. Unfortunately I only have photographs from this session. I don’t plan to do that often, only once in a great while, because Showball is a pain in the neck.

 

As I said, Sunday we are going to our trainer’s, and I think it will be a good time to try new things, particularly that his sheep are easy. Then in two weeks we are going to a five day clinic, she will be 9 months old then, so it will be very good for her, I think.

 

 

jdarling,

Well, her parents are poor but honest :rolleyes:. Her father is a border collie, and her mother is a border collie. But joking aside I presented Bonnie’s parents earlier, I just have to find it this evening.

 

Maja

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kelpiegirl,

I showed in the movie the type of movement that I was talking about earlier – I don’t think it has anything to do with being too close. I think it has to do with the shape and the size of the training area, but I am not sure of course.

 

Maja

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I can't find the post I thought I wrote about Bonnie's parents.

 

P13501931.jpg

Bonnie's mother is our bitch Kelly, pedigree name DAY AFTER Excellens Vivarium (I know what a silly name, but it's not my fault :D) . She has no trial achievements for reasons I mentioned earlier - a comprehensive combination of a bad start, with wild sheep, rookie handlers, and two of them (!) and no trainer around. This resulted in a very strong, independent dog. She is indispensable on the farm, most of the time she can read my husband's mind, and her close work is really good, lots of power, control and precision, she has an indestructible herding instinct. She is very fast, very agile. These are traits also important for non-herding homes where most of her pups went. Kelly has in her pedigree the first Polish herding champion. Kelly inherited from her grand-father her protective attitude towards the lambs and she flock and the intensity.

 

 

P14908411.jpg

Bonnie's father is GLAD WITH YOU Gasko Prim (Czech breeder, but a Polish owner), he has not participated in trials either but is a good farm dog, with some very unusual herding solutions. He is very biddable, which was important for me, and he has produced excellent herding off-spring (e.g. Roj and Skip whose videos I showed here) . There is one more puppy from the litter being trained for herding and he shows good aptitude.

 

(Of course, one has to understand the herding situation in Poland. The first competition ever was organized in 2004. So the whole herding business is very young. the most experienced handler has been herding for 8 years. Now people slowly are bringing in working-lines BCs but so far it is very apparent that the handling matters a great deal. So there is not much hope for poor Bonnie :rolleyes: .

 

maja

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Here is our last movie. Seems like I am on the way to straighten out the problem with wearing, and indeed it seems like Bonnie just thought I didn't want her behind the sheep. Her lie down crumbled a bit, because I had lost patience with her earlier (foolish me :rolleyes: ), so in the movie Bonnie breaks out of lie down a couple of times.

 

 

Maja

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Starting today I am going to follow V. Holland's exercises for pressure sensitive dogs. Bonnie seems to fit the description well except that she is working on me. She will bring the sheep to me at all cost. A couple of days ago we were going out of the training area, and she looked back as though she was thinking "hey, boss, we kinda forgot something" and she slipped away and ran back to the sheep. The sheep were then firmly plastered against the fence on the far side of the training area, and Bonnie ran and squeezed in between the fence and the sheep (I could hear the fence squeaking from where I was standing) and peeled them off and brought them to me awful proud of herself :rolleyes: .

 

Maja

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We are on the second day of balancing Bonnie. Has anyone ever tried what V. Holland suggests?

 

If anyone is interested in what is looks like when we do it, i can put in a fragment, but it is rather boring to watch.

 

Bonnie of course is very clever, so i had a bit of trouble with the fact that she realized that I lead the sheep in a very predictable way, so she managed to stop the sheep a couple of times by going slightly on away and out (her non-preferred side is on come-by), and then she'd lie down just as I was turning with the sheep so that the alignment was dog--me-sheep. Whereupon the sheep stopped dead, and the little puppy was lying down very happy. But I don't think Mr. Vergil Holland had that in mind :rolleyes:. Of course I was soon ready for the little rascal and had that stopped.

 

Maja

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We are now after four days of doing V. Holland's balancing exercise. The fist time was really hard on me and Bonnie. But I persevered, though I thought they'd have to carry me off the field :rolleyes: , there was a lot of what looked like total chaos. But I didn't give up and went in the next day. There was much less chaos, and I was able to walk slower, but no signs of kicking out. The third day Bonnie began to fall into calm work, and even though she kicked out only sometimes, she slowed down a lot, and worked with more precision, and I think it shows in the video that she stared to pace herself better.

 

In the video, I included some work on balancing but also some wearing in a straight line, although it is still early for her. I did it in one case because I had to show something to my friend, and also I find it very hard to bring the sheep to the gate to end the session by going round in circles. In reality, wearing in a straight line constituted only a very tiny portion of our training, and we did it only on day three and four. We did none on day one and two, and on day one bonnie never had the lie down command until she was very, very tired, the second day was the same. The same thing applies to lie-downs -there is probably 80% of all lie dwons in the video form the four days of practice.

And please note, if you decide to watch the video, that we did loads and loads of walking in circles, but I put in only tiny portion of it in the video.

 

There is still a lot of work here, and we are going to continue in this direction, but my observations so far are that Bonnie, in spite of working very hard and for relatively extended periods of time, enjoys this immensely, and her keenness has increased and she is very happy.

 

And one more thing: I am making smaller circles, I think than recommended, but every time I broaden out, Bonnie tries to come from the other side.

 

 

maja

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  • 2 weeks later...

To close this monologue of mine: we went to a herding clinic for 5 days, and one thing is clear - Bonnie has a good sense of balance, and that's why she went where she did in the circle. In the large area at the herding clinic going on a flank never came up, but in all pressure areas she went off the straight line securing the pressure point.

Maja

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I have a move from day two. It's Bonnie's very first time taking the sheep out of the pen so it is quite chaotic in the beginning.

 

 

If anybody wants to watch it, later on in the move we move towards an area with a pressure point - at the back there is a gate (criss-crossed boards) that leads to the sheep's home. And here it is very clear when Bonnie shifts from a straight line "off balance" and towards the pressure point.

 

More information later :rolleyes:

maja

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So some of the things I learned:

 

1. Bonnie does not have a problem with weaving.

2. She has an excellent sense of balance and pressure points.

3. She has no fear of going into tight places such as peeling the sheep off the fence or going between the fence and the sheep in a 'corridor'. In fact, it is a self rewarding behavior for her and it causes problems while doing certain exercises such us doing distance by placing the sheep in a corner.

4. I rile her up with my body language. If I am calm, she is calm. It is something I have to work on, because very often, I do not see that I am doing it when I am doing it.

5. While herding I tend to see only mistakes, I don't see the good things she is doing.

 

So these are the main things.

 

Bonnie also introduced some variety to herding :rolleyes: . On the first day I was supposed to be inside a small enclosure with the sheep and she outside. Looking at the fence I told the instructor that she will jump it, but he said we'd see what happens. I was wrong, Bonnie Bonnie dashed this way a that for a moment with an apparent zero interest in the sheep and then zoomed inside under the fence withing 30 seconds. Also later on in the paddock, while taking the sheep out of the pen she figured it was silly to run around the pen when it was closed, since she could be just as well inside it. After that the pen was shot, and at home I will have to make the pen with good fencing so that she can't get in. So she is so doggorne keen, sometimes I wish she was a bit less keen.

 

6. and I have to teach her a stop.

Maja

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Who gave the clinic?

I don't think the name would mean anything to you. It's one of the two instructors that exist in Poland.

 

Did they work Bonnie at all?

Do you mean if she worked with someone else rather than me? She worked once with the instructor. Other than that she worked with me only. We worked twice a day about 20-30 minutes each time.

We concentrated on me learning to control my body language and on me sending Bonnie clear signals, on the correct intonation of the commands, the right movement in relation to the flock and the dog, etc. For Bonnie the main task was to improve her lie down and increase her distance. It took a while to figure out what makes her increase the distance because the standard things had the opposite effect on her. Because Bonnie has not figured out yet the "off" command (or "get out" ) we did not do anything like outruns, but we are starting to figure it out, and today at home, Bonnie kicked out on her own a couple of times so I think we are getting somewhere (on the vid in the second half it shows how her distance improved).

 

We had once a bunch of young rams who did not want to follow me at all, and Bonnie did well making the little guys stick to me, but she had to work hard at it. Another time, we had an 'obstacle course' to complete, but with the previous dog two of the ewes escaped to the nearby paddock, and we forgot about them and didn't bring them back. When started and got to the area where you can see the paddock they reappeared and created a very strong pull for our sheep. But Bonnie managed to keep our ewes from bolting, and we completed the course. It wasn't very elegant, but I was proud of her, because she really was on top of things and the ewes pressed hard to get away.

 

This is just a collection of things Bonnie did on various occasions (please note that I am using the folded leash just to make a slapping noise, nothing else). Some were not intended by me. At the end I am doing the figure eight letting her do as she pleases to relax her a bit since she had been working very hard.

 

 

We had a bit of bad luck taking the sheep out of the pen. The second time, we had the sheep that wouldn't get out nohow, even the assisting dog took them out with difficulty. So the next time I set things up to help matters, but the sheep basically dashed out of the pen and escaped. And then Bonnie figured that she could easily get into the pen even when it was closed, so that was a problem too.

 

maja

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  • 2 weeks later...

A little movie from our herding at home. It became all too clear at the herding clinic that the training area must be abandoned. So this is one of our first few herding sessions in the larger pastures. Of course the sheep escaped a few times. A particularly vulnerable moment is when I go over to Bonnie, because the sheep apparently are doing nothing and then off they go. Then off Bonnie goes, and then off I go :rolleyes: . The pasture is with quite a lot of tree which is an additional challenge but also a natural obstacle course that makes things more interesting.

 

At 1'15" there is one of our "driving moments" a short stretch with almost driving.

At about 2'45" I am beginning to get across to Bonnie what "out" means. It is also noticeable that as soon as I start using my arms, she speed up and tightens in.

 

Throughout I am trying to teach walking away from the sheep with a good attitude. I found that when on a leash Bonnie sees it as an obstacle to overcome, and that she is more willing to oblige me than to give in to something external like the leash. Without a leash is a bit more risky, because of the sheep's weaselly escapist natures, but overall I think it works much better.

 

Bonnie's stop has improved but the pacing is still so-so. Bonnie is 9 months now.

 

 

 

Maja

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For all the quiet folks who come and visit this topic :rolleyes: here is a movie from today. There is a very clear "out" which I think I have finally managed to communicate to Bonnie. The rest is just normal stuff. I like the way she is working now, very calm and nice, she is not afraid to lie down and think, when she does not know what I mean.

Maja

P.S. I misedited the last seconds of the movie, I'm sorry I didn't mean to show Bonnie peeing after working sheep :D , but I didn't notice it until the movie was uploaded.

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