Ranger at 16 months

[juliepoudrier]

This (rather long) video of Ranger was taken yesterday in our first work session. He's working the whole flock of wool sheep at Robin's. We're trying to impress upon him to give more room on his outrun and land a bit deeper behind as well. There is a strong draw behind me to the right, where a locust tree is dropping bean pods that are apparently sheep crack (which is why the sheep bear to their left as they come down the hill--they're heading straight for the goodies). I don't ask him to cover on the fetches--I'm letting him work on his own there. In the second half of the video, Robin works with him (Robin owns his sire, Zac).

 

I've played with whistles a little bit (a couple of months ago) and was pleased to see that he remembered his lie down and walk up whistles.

 

The sheep were rather heavy to drive up the hill (their feeding area, not to mention the yummy bean pods, is in the opposite direction, back by the barn), and you can see where Ranger was losing a bit of confidence as he got further from me, so I started walking with him. Later we shortened and sped up the drives a bit to also help with his confidence.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A24dE72Rkr0

 

J.

[C Crocker]

Julie

 

I think Ranger is looking good. I didnt have sound but it seemed as though he must have been listening to you by his actions. He runs out with purpose and seems to want to cover the pressure well. Not a dog trainer, but have watched alot of dogs being started by my trainer, and I would say Ranger is right on target for his age. Lovely field , too.

 

Good luck with him.

 

Carolyn

[Maja]

The thing I like about Ranger the most is that he is 4 months older than Bonnie and I can always kid myself that when she is his age she will be almost as advanced :lol: > I watched all of the vid, I am glad you posted it. Lovely area too.

 

We're trying to impress upon him to give more room on his outrun and land a bit deeper behind as well.

Did you think there was an improvement? What is the rough distance on the outrun?

 

I don't ask him to cover on the fetches--I'm letting him work on his own there.

I am sure there is something to learn here for me, so why?

 

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

Did you think there was an improvement? What is the rough distance on the outrun?

I'm very bad at estimating distances, so I'll have to ask Robin how far that is. He has certainly improved since we started working on his outrun, but it's clearly still a work in progress. At home he is better, but of course he needs to carry that over to other places, which is why we were we working on it here. He showed some improvement in later work sessions, and we were just experimenting with what works best for him. We worked him in close as well, using voice to call him in and push him out as he flanks around the group.

 

I am sure there is something to learn here for me, so why?

I try to let a dog learn to work as naturally as possible. I want to see him cover without being told to (vs. just following the sheep along without making an effort to turn them toward me), so I try to keep my mouth shut when he's doing what he should be doing (covering), even if he's not doing it perfectly. I think one of the hardest things for people to do when training a dog is to be quiet and let the dog work (and figure things out on its own).

 

J.

[Maja]

Thank you for your explanation.

Now I have no problem keeping my mouth shut, but the problem for is when I should when I shouldn't - when to show the dog we are in it together as a team and when to give her space to figure things out.

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

Maja,

Robin said the distance was 80-100 yards.

 

I think learning when to help and when not to comes with experience. I was talking to someone this weekend and noted that Ranger was certainly not my first dog. I've learned much from those that came before him, not to mention help and advice from generous friends who are also open handlers, clinics, etc.

 

J.

[Maja]

Yes, where would we be without our generous friends?

 

From the video I would have guessed it was at least 200 yrds. Ranger drives very nice, and I have much stronger motivation now to continue practicing driving with Bonnie - Ranger can set up sheep for himself to do an outrun, and that puts less mileage on me

 

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

There is a downside to setting up the sheep for an outrun, and that's that the dog may get the idea that s/he drives a certain distance and then turns around and comes back to you. So although we were working on a specific thing (his outrun) in the video, be careful not to always do so much repetition of that particular thing that the dog gets the idea that we only drive so far before going back to the handler and doing an outrun....

 

And Ranger took to driving very naturally. He's the first youngster I've trained who was a natural driving dog but whose (correct) outrun needs to be trained. A new challenge that is helping to stretch me as a trainer.

 

J.

[Maja]

Thank you I will remember it .

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

Oh, and on the outruns, when I sent him up to the trees it was probably a bit longer, maybe 150 yards.

 

J.

[Shoofly]

I've been told (and done) both things about driving with a young dog -- never send them around to fetch the sheep off of a drive and also never call them straight back to me from a drive away. Obviously, you can satisfy both of those! So, i watch the particular dog and decide based on what i'm seeing them doing. Alot of times, i'll do a short drive away, flank and do a tiny bit of crossdrving, and then call the dog back for another outrun, especially if it's a dog that's driving out a short way and then hesitating to keep going because he'd like me to call him home for another outrun.

 

I really like for sheep to be moving away from us when i send a dog on an outrun if at all possible. It teaches the dog to bend and also to give some room at the top in a very natural way.

[Maja]

Thank you, I will remember that. Now I "only" have to teach Bonnie to cross-drive.

 

Sorry for the OT, but if I am doing driving just to do driving because I want the sheep to be over there, then if I call her back and say 'that'll do' and we go home (as part of the chores for instance), is that ok, or can this also cause problems?

 

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

Maja,

I don't think that would cause problems. At some point, they all have to stop working. It's the *repetition* that's the issue. If you vary things, as Robin suggested, then your dog won't get the idea that it should always drive a certain distance and then turn around and come back. At home yesterday, I was doing more of the push them out somewhere and then call Ranger back for an outrun, but in among those exercises, I also asked him to circle sheep on the fetch, or to come partway around on the fetch and cross drive them somewhere. Or, thanks to a strong draw on my field, just fetch them and then call off to me and then as the sheep took off for the draw I could send him around to catch them.

 

As Robin said, you'll be told never do this or that when it comes to driving, and I actually do some of both (for example, if I have a youngster driving away and it's wanting to drift around to the heads in one direction, then I will often flank it the other way and let it go around and fetch the sheep back to me--in this case trying to teach the dog to be a bit flexible and obedient, while also learning to drive), just not to the point where the dog gets the idea that it knows what to do and when, if you know what I mean.

 

J.

[Shoofly]

Yes, it all comes down to reading your dog and deciding what is best for her, and continuing to always read her as what is best now might not be tomorrow. Try to see problems as they are starting and change what you're doing before bad stuff gets to be habit.

[Maja]

Thank you, I think I understand the idea. You are both fortunate to live in NC, I visited the state once, and I fell in love with it. My husband's very good friend lives there. And now with a foot of snow I had to shovel from the driveway, I think I will sit and just watch that Ranger video again .

Maja

[Maja]

More questions:

1. In the first outrun - you lie Ranger down half way, why?

 

2. In 4'35" Ranger is doing shedding right?

 

3. At 8'45" ranger goes on an outrun where he appears to be pushed out by "stay out" a few times, he goes in fairly close, but then sort of overshoots. i though he was covering a draw, but the he goes to the away side. So is he covering a draw or did he do it because it took him sometime to process the "stay out"?

 

And the last is not a question : How different is the dynamics of a large flock from a small one!

 

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

I'm working on a freelance project, so the questions that require me to go back and look at the video will have to wait till later, but I thought I'd go ahead and answer your first question real quick.

 

In teaching Ranger to give more ground on his outrun, I started by lying him down when he was tight, then using my body pressure to ask him to give as I resent him from where I stopped him. So now, he's got the idea that if I stop him on the outrun it's because he's wrong. In that first instance, he had kicked out around the little pond, and I was hoping he'd maintain that trajectory on around, but instead he cut in, so I stopped him ("you're wrong") and then resent him. He was still a bit tight at the top, but he did give ground when I resent him, and that's what I wanted to see.

 

I'm guessing that the shedding you're asking about was indeed shedding. Both Robin and I called him through the sheep at various times. We aren't looking for perfect sheds or anything at this point--just getting him used to coming through when the opportunity presents itself.

 

I'll review the video and answer your other question later, though I can say that Ranger does tend to overflank at the top. I'd rather have that than stopping short, but I'll need to see what the sheep were doing to give you an explanation for what he did at that point in the video.

 

Oh,and if your husband has a good friend in NC, then you really must plan a visit (with Bonnie, of course!).

 

J.

[NorthfieldNick]

I learned the hard way about calling a dog off of a drive too many times. When he's driving at a distance from me, and either he just thinks he's done or he starts to lose contact because the sheep bolt, Nick will quit and come back to me. I know I created this by calling him off of a drive when we'd put sheep in a new paddock. The sheep will almost always bolt through the gate for new grass, the job is done, so I called the dog off. Now I have dog who quits on the drive. So, now, I pretty much never call him off a drive. He's getting better, but still quits sometimes.

[juliepoudrier]

More questions:

2. In 4'35" Ranger is doing shedding right?

 

Yes, and you'll note that although he came through nicely, he didn't turn on the group he was to take away, but instead continued around to try to head them, while at the same time trying to take a cheap shot before I got him flanked back around behind them and pushing them away as he should.

 

3. At 8'45" ranger goes on an outrun where he appears to be pushed out by "stay out" a few times, he goes in fairly close, but then sort of overshoots. i though he was covering a draw, but the he goes to the away side. So is he covering a draw or did he do it because it took him sometime to process the "stay out"?

 

On rewatching it, it looks to me like he comes in at a good point to lift at the top (though a bit tight) and then anticipates the usual dash toward the locust tree, so flanks hard left, but then the sheep reach Robin--who was walking toward them--and slow down, and she starts walking to her right, which causes Ranger to flank back over to his right to be in balance with her (since the sheep are no longer making a break for the locust tree). Does that make sense?

 

And the last is not a question : How different is the dynamics of a large flock from a small one!

 

Oh yes, and at home I try to mix things up as much as possible, changing the size (and composition) of the group I use each time I train (it's easy for me to do because I have a few puppy-suitable hair sheep; some well broke karakuls; and some lightly dogged karakuls, tunis and mules of various types (and each breed behaves slightly differently). In later sessions that same day, we used only about half the flock, which gave yet a different dynamic.

 

J.

[juliepoudrier]

Ben,

I had a problem of a different sort, but related, with Lark. One winter I used her so much for pushing sheep off the feed bunks, which simply required her to drive them away and hold them and then flank around to let them come back, that when I took her into the field through the gate near the feed bunks, I couldn't get her to do an outrun to save me. She was convinced that she was to walk straight into the sheep from there. Now, when I use a dog for chores, I make sure to counterbalance that in our regular training, or even do some actual training in the middle of chores to try to avoid that sort of problem. They do get used to a routine if you let them!

 

J.

[MyTDogs]

 

As Robin said, you'll be told never do this or that when it comes to driving, and I actually do some of both (for example, if I have a youngster driving away and it's wanting to drift around to the heads in one direction, then I will often flank it the other way and let it go around and fetch the sheep back to me--in this case trying to teach the dog to be a bit flexible and obedient, while also learning to drive), just not to the point where the dog gets the idea that it knows what to do and when, if you know what I mean.

 

J.

 

I hope this doesn't go too far off topic- I have been told that at this stage in our training (ready to move up to PN for the first time- but nervous about our driving) I should walk my dog up & then put in a stop (lie down, stand, etc..) before I give a flank command. Otherwise it will blur the lines & my dog will not drive nice straight lines.

 

Is this a good idea?

 

 

ETA: Ranger looks great! I am jealous that he is so good & so young

[juliepoudrier]

I find that for novice handlers (and young dogs) it is helpful to stop and then flank. The stop works like the clutch on a manual-shift car--allows the dog to disengage from the immediate activity at hand (driving), which in turn enables him to be more responsive to the handler's commands and take a flank command cleanly.

 

J.

[Maja]

On rewatching it, it looks to me like he comes in at a good point to lift at the top (though a bit tight) and then anticipates the usual dash toward the locust tree, so flanks hard left, but then the sheep reach Robin--who was walking toward them--and slow down, and she starts walking to her right, which causes Ranger to flank back over to his right to be in balance with her (since the sheep are no longer making a break for the locust tree). Does that make sense?

 

That's what I thought, but I also wondered, because when he flanks left he also seems to kick out quite a bit. Bonnie sometimes takes time to process things, and she did something similar once when I was forceful in pushing her out before the lift, but there was no draw. The most dramatic delays in processing are when I try to accomplish something and seem to fail, and then the second time she does what I had asked before I even say anything.

 

Maja

[juliepoudrier]

I think he's kicking out because it's a big(ish) group and he needed to get out to be able to put himself in a position to influence those few lead sheep that run the hardest toward the trees. This is the same phenomenon Robin mentioned when she talked about sending a young dog after sheep that are moving away so that the dog has to come in on their heads--it serves as a natural means to encourage a young dog to kick out (give more space) on the outrun and at the top.

 

J.

[Maja]

Thank you. Food for thought for sure . I hope there will be more videos in not too distant future.

 

Maja