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Bonnie and Sheep III


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Yay!!!!!! Thank you :D, I'm so glad. I did a shed yesterday with the sheep and Bonnie came through very nicely. I am going to a trial end of July and I was wavering whether to run in class one or two, since I have not and won't have much opportunity to practice, and then I realized I won't be able to get there to be in time for class one, so we will run in class two. I except rather light mountain sheep. It's a non-sanctioned trial (there are zero sanctioned trials this year), so I'm not running the risk of getting stuck in class two too early.

 

The geese are maturing and starting to show their goose-mettle :)

 

Maja

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  • 4 weeks later...
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And so we ran in class two. When we got to the shed we stayed there until the judge said "Time". Since 3 dogs lost the sheep, we ended up number 4 out of 7 with 42/100 points (up until the shed). I am very happy with Bonnie, she did most of the thinking for the two of us, things were just too fast for me so everything was chaotic, because the sheep were not easy.

 

I was not sure whether to run in class two, since we practiced almost nothing before the trial, but now I am very happy about it. I like it. Standing at the post is much nicer than traipsing up and down the mountains with the sheep.

 

After the trial there was one day clinic which was really great.

 

Maja

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This is a little video of the geese, Bonnie and wily little sheep.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDV9XqpQ354&feature=player_embedded

 

And today we came back from a trial with Kevin Evans, and Bonnie came third out of six dogs. It was a joined class two-three which means there were dogs running who are at open level. We of course got stuck at the shed, but I almost got it a couple of times. I think one day I will learn to shed.

 

Maja

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  • 3 months later...

Well of course now it does show up, weird computer...

A very nice video, I like it one can clearly hear you give the commands.

I think she´s a great dog your Bonny, very interesting to see her development here on the forum. I´ll dig around a bit and look up some of her earlier vids.

And yeah those are cute little sheep! I think Gláma would like such mini sheep, she can still be somewhat shy of the ornery older icelandic ewes she has to deal with (and not without reason!)...

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I'm glad you all like the vid. :)

 

I like it one can clearly hear you give the commands.

I don't :lol:, I wish you could hear me produce a bunch of cool whistles :lol: .

 

These are Polish heath sheep, they are a little bigger than the rest of the flock, which are ouessants. These are wily young ewes :). I like them very much. I wish I could show more difficult tasks we did that day, but I just can't concentrate on sheep and dog and filming when things are difficult. Right after the end of the movie the sheep - using the fact that Bonnie was not looking at them - escaped to the forest, circled round us, unseen and dashed off home. So we got them back and trained on them some more until they gave up on their wily ideas. Bonnie had to work very far from them, and she was so lovely. Almost makes me unhappy about our Darnika coming, after all first she's gonna come and pee everywhere and then, as sson as she get's over that intellectual difficulty a bit, she's gonna make total hash of sheep herding :lol:

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Grabbing the opportunity afforded by a short warm spell, I took our wildest three sheep for a little drive :lol:

 

 

Nice video. Bonnie is very responsive, and I like her square flanks. She turns sharply off the sheep before beginning a flank. How did you train her to square them so well? Did you use any particular exercises? These are not rhetorical questions :) My dog and I have been working on that issue for some time now. IME a dog who does not cut corners on the drive is a pleasure to watch, and it makes driving a far easier task. Good work. -- Kind regards and best wishes for the New Year, TEC

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Thank you :), I do agree; I think she is a nice, happy flanker :). Here is Bonnie with very young geese this spring.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_DX9dHp9KA

 

Thank you :).

 

I taught her flanks in a number of ways.

 

Started with the triangle – I think it was here that I was told about it. It’s where you lie down your dog, and then you walk a way from the sheep, past the dog, and then you call the dog, so that she comes to you and behind you around the sheep.

 

Here is Bonnie 11 months old and two excercises one with pressure, and it does not work and the other with taking off pressure that does work (the one I tried to describe above):

 

 

One of the Czech teachers gave me a nice exercise if you have time, since one needs to take it easy for it to work: So you and the dogs stand at a distance from the sheep, put your dog on one side and wait. You wait until the dog turns its head all by itself. When she does, you give a flank command in accordance to the direction in which her head went. This is very good for off balance flanks, becasue if the dog stands and you say nothing, she will finally look in your direction to see if the boss fell asleep or what, and then you put the flank command when her head turns. With Bonnie it was a bit difficult because I had been following Derek’s advice to always keep the dog focused on sheep, so In the beginning I could stand there for quite a while before she turned her head. And int her cas it was usually thinking „bodily” – she would turn her head slightly because she was thinking about a flank, not to look at me,a nd then the flanks were very good – this method is good in general becasue you put the command on the dog's conscious thought about a behavior so associating it with the correct performance is easy. At least that what seems to me, although I know I’m only guessing.

 

And alternative to that is calling the dog to you and once she starts (even if it's just the turning of the head) you give the flank command.

 

Once I knew Bonnie could make a good flank, the moment I’d see she didn’t bend out nicely, I would lie her down sharply and repeat; the second flank would be very nice usually.

 

For flanks that are on balance I used Derek’s stick method sometimes in addition to the head turning. However, one thing I founds a bit too late is that Bonnie reacts to fences, so what I thought were tight flanks, they were actually flanks with fence adjustment. I learned about it later when I went to trials with wide open spaces and Bonnie started running so wide she’d visit a couple of neighboring counties on the way :lol: . So this is a mistake I am planning not to make with my next dog.

 

So this what I know about the topic fro today :)

 

maja

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Thank you smile.gif, I do agree; I think she is a nice, happy flanker.

...And in her case it was usually thinking "bodily” – she would turn her head slightly because she was thinking about a flank, not to look at me,and then the flanks were very good – this method is good in general because you put the command on the dog's conscious thought about a behavior, so associating it with the correct performance is easy.



Thank you for such a excellent detailed description. "Happy" is a good adjective for Bonnie. She seems capable of walking-up on stock, yet when asked to flank she maintains the original distance/radius. Beautiful combination.

So, wait until the dog turns its head, and give the corresponding flanking command. I'm going to mix my own homemade blend of your recipe, and try it at our next training session smile.gif It has a good look and feel to it. Let the dog begin to question what the next command will be; dog turns it head slightly for whatever reason; give the flank command, and the reward is working the sheep. You advise that it may take patience for dog to momentarily take its eyes off the sheep. Did I paraphrase correctly? My dog is moderately keen and a few years old, consequently may require more than a little patience to get the head turn, but I'm going to give it a good go. The potential results appear well worth the effort. Hey, if my own mix is not working well, will you send me a jar? cool.gif
I see a shaping/molding methodology as underlying philosophy. I really like the idea of simply waiting until dog is a little uncomfortable and turns its head slightly, beginning to question, "What's next?", followed by a natural reward. -- Thank you, TEC and Josie
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dog turns it head slightly for whatever reason; give the flank command, and the reward is working the sheep. You advise that it may take patience for dog to momentarily take its eyes off the sheep. Did I paraphrase correctly?

 

Yes. I just want to clarify because I mixed together what I was told with what I actually did afterward. I was told (1) to make the dog to turn her head (e.g, call her name, make a noise, something). But since I put some effort into teaching her that she is to listen to me without looking at me, it was not easy to get her to look, and I didn't like the idea of undoing my previous work. Hence, my first change was (2) to wait for her to turn her head on her own, wondering what's up with the boss. But to me the best option is (3) if the sheep move some, and she wants to flank, and then turns her head, and then she is not taking her eyes off-sheep -I think this is the cleanest and fastest way.

 

I will do it with my next puppy and I wonder if it will work on her too :)/>

 

Maja

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Maja -- The exercise worked perfectly. A couple times I had to be sure she didn't fall off the sheep (increase her radius) a little as she flanked, and Josie has been a dog that tends to cut corners on the drive. So, that's not a bad thing. I placed myself a few steps on the side (and behind her) that I hoped she would turn her head. The moment I saw a slight voluntary head movement (5-20 seconds wait, and I suspect her way of asking me, "What's next?"), I gave the corresponding flank command. She immediately broke sharply left or right, and with absolutely no reduction of separation. I think it is now a matter of gradually decreasing her distance to the natural pace/separation required for driving our heavy sheep, and repeating the process. We began training at about 3-4 times the normal drive separation from stock, and I believe I saw squarer flanks even when rather close behind the stock. Thanks for the tips. -- Kind regards, TEC

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That's really terrific! I am so glad! :)

 

As I wrote, once Bonnie got the idea of what sort of flank was required, I would lie her down the moment I saw she was going into a flank wrong. And then I'd repeat the flank. The second time it was usually much improved. And Bonnie used to be very slicey with her flanks.

 

Maja

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  • 3 months later...

It has been a very bad stretch for Bonnie when it comes to working sheep. The snow stayed for so incredibly long that all of the ewes managed to have their lambs so our little training window between the end of winder and lambing never happened. Of course she works the flock but it's a piece of cake for her. But basically, she hasn't done much work since December. The good new is that Darinka is turning 5 months tomorrow so soon we will start going with both dogs to train somewhere else.

But we have geese again and here is a short video with geese for the first time with Bonnie. they are very young so Bonnie's task is not to spook them, since they fall over and tend to crash into things.

 

(vid soon)

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The vid of Bonnie driving those two tiny lambs made my day, so cute! Especially the "let´s hide behind this tree" part at the end.

Our lambing season has begun, well actually we are just over half way already; just under hundred lambs right now, hopefully about seventy more to come.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Working with Bonnie is awful nice, and this recent idea definitely sprung from my laziness. It's a powerful motivator for me :D. As soon as Bonnie qualified for a higher class I took the opportunity to move up because I just want to stand at the post and watch the dog do all the work, and in the beginner class the handler is supposed to walk the cross-drive with the dog. In the mountains it's a very hard job :).

 

When people ask me what the stick is for, I tell them: "The stick is very important, and its length too. You must very carefully measure the length, so that when you have trained your dog you can rest your hands on it and your chin on your hands and watch while your dog is working."

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