Smalahundur

Thanks, that answers my questions quite adequately. Lemme guess, you have never seen a sheep up close in your life have you

So on a note unrelated to color ( and believe me, you don't want to know my stance on merle) why do you think your bitch is worthy breeding material? You state you breed for working homes, so am I safe in assuming that you are an experienced stockwork trainer, with at least some trial succes, and by that I mean serious ISDS style open trials. If I would contemplate buying a pup of you, those would be the things I would be interested in, of course along demonstrated proof of the working capacity of both parent dogs. I couldn't care less about color ( I lie, I actually have a secret crush on tricolor, and you know what? Never owned one...) So can you rather tell us anything about your background as a handler/stockman/trialer. And the more interesting qualities of your bitch.

"Lightyears" better huh? So the data on difference in health and longevity of dogs fed fed raw versus dogs on kibble must be very significant, and therefor very convincing.

Wow, I didn't realise what a horrible dog trainer I was, skipping this "exercise" ( sitting on my behind for at least half an hour doing nothing with the dog tied up next to me wasn't it?), that really really jolted my consience. No selfconfidence, no selfcontrol, and -gasp!- no zen. All that denied to my poor dogs,. My eyes are tearing up you know...Ah well, I am off to do some stockwork now and I'll make sure to apologize to them...

That is just a word. I can imagine this could be helpfull for dogs that are kept at home, visit office environments, pubs etc. Think personally its a bit farfetched to call it an "exercise" though, but that just depends on how you want to define that term. Won't do it myself for the simple reason I have no need for a "long down" in the daily life of my dogs. If that would change I think I wouldn't reserve special "training" for it, just something a dog would pick up on the fly. They seem to make such a big thing out of it, sitting for an extended period with your dog on a leash beside you. Difficult to imagine anything simpler to do with your dog.

Recently there has been quite an influx of not stockwork related questions in the expert section. In the last topic a "guest user" made this remark : 'Ah, well this was one of two options for a guest poster'. Made me wonder wheter this is a forum software issue since the last upgrade.

That would look really good on a fortune cookie.

"Positive reinforcement"? To each his own, but an 11 month old dog that jumps me, bites hurtfully, breaking the skin as described, in those kind of situations? The germans have an expression "ein blaues Wunder erleben". That is exactly what my dog would experience if he would start such obnoxious and potentially dangerous behaviour.

Oh, I am sure the biggest dog lobby group has that covered Mark. I mean the AKC is having no trouble organizing " instinct tests" for herding dogs, I assume they do something similar for gundogs. So am sure they will be able to assess trainers of these dogs without any qualms. No need to worry

Really? I never noticed any "fear mongering" from kibble manufacturers.

Been there done that. Several times, once falling backwarts over a fence, and on an other memorable occasion I was mowed back down by the sheep when I was trying to get up again. My wife looked on both occasions and was way too amused. I prefer to train in private now....:)

One of mine has pannus, an autoimmune eye disease. Though both eyes are affected, sometimes the left, sometimes the right is worse. It isn't curable, but manageable with cortisone eye drops ( now almost constantly) and occasional ab, and anti fungal medication. I am afraid it is a slowly losing battle, but so far so good, she is eight years old now.

This part of the forum needs an automatic pop up warning, "Are you sure your question is about stockwork?".

Wait, this dog is blind and deaf? So you can only communicate by touch?

I have seen a human "herd" (not really the proper term btw) a sheep to death. In the roundup, it was unusually warm ( and the human in question was stupid). Under those circumstances you can even on foot ( let alone horseback or quad) easily walk a sheep in the ground. Exhaustion, fear and heat stress killed it. I think there is nothing wrong with that dog, just an enthousiastic young dog that was exercising his innate drives on a hapless pig. The fault lies entirely with its previous owners for allowing that behavior. Did they leave him alone with the pig for this to have happened? You should never allow bordercollies unattended near livestock, especially young untrained ones ( and there are a lot of cases in which this went wrong, resulting in injury or death of the stock). Lucky for him your barn owner picked him up.

You better post this in the general bordercollie discussion. This "expert" section is meant for questions about stockwork training.

My current dog-in-training is very easy to train in the sense that he is very biddable, even at the start of his stockwork training I was clearly in the picture. He is very keen on working sheep, so I consider myself lucky with that combination. I have also had a bordercollie that was almost entirely unbiddable, he clearly lived for his own desire's, and seemed to give a rat's *** for anybody else's opinion. I suspect in his case it was a hopeless combination of his upbringing (actually lack thereof, I got him as an adult)) and a difficult, extremely hard character. I sometimes wonder if I would have gotten a handle on him if I had gotten him as a pup. I actually doubt it, He was quite extreme. Pity, he was fearless ( but maybe that was part of the problem....) So I think the spectrum is pretty broad, but that said, I also think my experience is rather exeptional, and generally bc's are rather biddable, and therefor easy to train by someone who knows what he is doing.

Your video was very entertaining indeed Maja. Lovely dog, Darinka. I am working on similar issues with my new(ish) dog Seimur. He will drop reglulary when walking on, no mattter what kind ( fetching not so much because my current training group is getting pretty dogged, being in use for about 4 months now, so they move quickly in my direction when fetched). He'll drop when the pressure builds, nearing sheep on the drive or wearing. Not very difficultto get him on his feet again, but usually does need acommand ( or several) for it. He is pretty young ( 14 months, got him at 8), and I think we will get this resolved when we are getting a better handle on this elusive "pace" thing...

Tried to edit last post ( unsuccesfully); apologies D'Elle, misread your post, you didn't propose only to breed "pure". The post might be interesting anyway.

I would have quite a lot against that. For starters, my working bc, is not registered at the ISDS, just at the icelandic stockdog organization. That would make it a "mutt" in the eyes of the only organization that has conned politicians into the belief they are the only authority as regards to dog breeding, the FCI. They have managed to get legislation across in Belgium, that only " pure breeds" are allowed to breed. Road to ruin.

All of a sudden I remember why I avoid the parts of these boards that don't directly relate to stockwork. Bye folks.

Sorry to hear about that deeply disturbing aspect of your childhood cptJack. I will not discuss this topic further with you.

I have looked at the video again, and the dog hardly gets hit by this flimsy thing (call thát pink piece of hollow plastic a "baseball bat", come on!). Yes it touches him, but not with a lot of impact. Take in consideration that this dog is in training for biting people, and one good bite can, as we all know be a death sentence for the animal, this aversive method may well be justified. In my opinion no reason for such a hysterical outcry; a prison sentence for for the trainer, and shutting down of the facility? Absurd. Maybe try to look a bit better at the context in which the dog got corrected (hey, I don't even mind you want to call it punished), it may well have been justified and effective.

"pain shuts down the learning proces"? How come that people believe such utter utter nonsense? Just think about it for one second, what do those people think is the basic function of the phenomenon "pain"...?

Good explanation Maja. I suppose this is what I have heard called Derek's "dangerous ground" method. I have been wondering about what was meant by that term. You and Donald made that clearer. It has also been my experience that stepping in/ pressuring the dog does not always yield the desired results. I am just coming back in the house from a training session with Seimur. He still has a tendency to slice in at the top. I decided to experiment a little, positioning me like Maja describes (nothing new, like in the daisy wheel exercise Vergil Holland describes). But now, instead of putting pressure on the dog I smithe the offending piece of ground like a madman (feeling slightly silly ), and resend. It worked really well, after just a couple of times he really widened out at the top. I have no doubt we will need time to consolidate this but for now I am really satisfied with the effect of this approach.