zenotri

Thanks I'm enjoying her so much. We have one more trial this coming weekend & then it'll be 6 months till the next one, so plenty of time to get some good training in.

It's been over a year since I posted in this thread, but I wanted to come in & update. Lass has continued to gain confidence and we are very much a team now. There is no sign whatsoever of the worried dog I started with. We have just completed our 3rd trial and have progressed in each one. We penned this weekend and were only 1 point off making the final. I am over the moon! She has become a lovely sheepdog & has a really nice natural ability to settle her sheep. We are getting lots of nice and very encouraging comments from the trialling community. Thanks again for all your advice it really helped

I hope it'll work because that's what I'm doing with my current pup in training. Once she's trained tho, I will take her somewhere for distraction proofing.

At 6 months they can learn just about anything. The only limitation is putting too much stress on their growing joints, so no excessive running, jumping or fetch games. At a minimum, she should have a good recall as this will likely be tested in the coming months. As far as games & tricks, it depends what you want to do with her. I do agility, so most of my games at that age are centered around agility foundations and building a solid reward system. If you're looking for inspiration, look up kikopup on YouTube. She has a heap of clips showing how to train some everyday, as well as some very complex behaviours.

I am convinced that this Ee red colour exists in the Australian BC due to an infusion of Australian dingo way back. Our kelpies also have the same Ee red colour known as cream. The BC show people would never accept this, despite early Australian records of breeding the dingo to the BC & kelpie, but the kelpie people are often proud of it.

Wonderful news!

Sending mojo from Australia. Hope he's back soon!

A friend of mine trialled her dog one Saturday a couple of years ago. Before leaving the trial, she went to use the bathroom & tied her dog up outside. As she came out, she started chatting to someone, got in the car & drove the 2 hours home. It wasn't until she opened the back of her car that she realized she didn't have her dog. Meanwhile, many of us were trialling the next day as well, so were camped overnight. When she rang in a panic, We had the dog with us and offered to drop him off the next afternoon on our way home. She felt so bad that she jumped in the car, drove 2 hrs to get him & then another 2 home. Lol, for months afterwards, we used to write signs to stick on her windshield at every trial "make sure you have got your dog"

My first plan with my dogs and any children is that they are able to coexist. Both have to earn the right to interact with each other and i do not encourage dogs or children to play, do tricks etc until I have had time to observe both. Even my own 2 children and my own 5 dogs have been raised this way. Each of my children share special mutual bonds with my dogs now, that have developed over time. They each do some training with them are really great mates. I make it clear to visiting children that they are my dogs and they are to be ignored. I make it clear to my dogs that visiting children are to be treated with the same respect as visiting adults. If a child has a special interest in the dogs, and they are able to display calmness & gentleness with them, I show them how to interact & may let them play or do some basic training. If I do not see what I need to see from the child, they don't interact. If the children want to do anything which is likely to overexcite the dogs, the dogs are put away. People are often surprised when their non-child friendly dog seeks attention from & is great with my kids. I am sure it is because they understand the basic principles of avoiding eye contact & letting the dog make the approach.

I don't give a verbal for jumps, I don't even have a word for them. I would take it a step further & say that not only do I not command every jump verbally, I don't even signal every jump, even for my young dogs. I tend to work handling points on a course/sequence & take whatever obstacles are in between as expected.

Agreed. We did the foundation work for it too & found it very worthwhile & heaps of fun. I also decided to go with 2o2o in the end, but would recommend the groundwork for the box method as a really good training tool.

A little update on Lass... I am so happy with her and am really enjoying taking her to sheep. She never thinks about quitting now & has surprised me with her maturity a few times lately. I feel really relaxed with her & she rewards me for that by keeping her head ( in a young dog kind of way ) She calls off & stops quite well and is generally pretty obedient. Last week, I worked her on fresh sheep. Lol, it was a little wild, but she did some really nice and long casts & never lost her sheep. At one point 1 sheep split off & bolted. I wasn't really sure what to do, but she took off after it & to my surprise came back with it in a very steady manner. To say I was pleased is an understatement! Here are a couple of little clips from today on some quiet training sheep.

I find the best way to calm a puppy is to train them for short sessions. 10 week old puppies have an amazing capacity to learn and stimulating their brain tires them out really quickly. I start recall training from day 1, they lean to sit, down, go into their crate. They learn to retrieve a ball and they learn to take and release a toy from me on command. When I bring a pup home, I use all of their meals to reward them for these behaviours.. I try to practise good habits with them. Everything I want them continue as an adult is encouraged and everything I don't want is discouraged. Snapping at faces is definitely something I would discourage. If you pick him up & he snaps,put him down. If you are sitting on the floor & he snaps, give him something else to do, or let him use his teeth on an appropriate toy. It is unlikely he is angry with you, more likely he is trying to play or is bored. For times where there is still excess energy, they get a big bone to chew at , in their crate. Hope this helps.

What a wonderful story and stunning dog. Looks like the two of you were meant for each other. Congratulations.

I gave Lass another go on sheep today. We went to a different place, the sheep are also very quiet, but we don't have a heap of options available to us. I felt we did much better today. Lass had so much more confidence & seemed to really enjoy it all. She was doing nice little casts and I mostly just walked around & let her bring the sheep along. She did not think about quitting once and was even stopping naturally. I am trying hard not to apply any pressure and find that the easiest way to catch her is to crouch & call her softly & she is quite obliging.