Chesney's Girl

Moss just about 7 1/2 months old is a VERY lean 38#s and stands probably 21'' at the shoulders. He is all legs. I thought he was going to be a moose, but the growing seems to have come under control.

Depending on the size of the area (which I would pick to be fairly small) I would use 4-6, and if you want to have them tamed try working the same group together with an experienced dog that can handle them nicely, teaching them how to be worked by a dog.... Then you can make your own "baby dog group". I would start in an area where there are no corners for the goats to get balled up in, and I wouldn't use an area that is bigger than 50 meters in any direction... a 9 month old pup can cover some ground. You just need to make sure that the goats stay with you enough that the dog can learn to control and balance them to you without having to chase and recollect the group too much. You can also use an older dog to keep the goats in check by circling far off them while the young pup works close.

I suggest reading Anna's book. I work with Anna on a regular basis and is successful in the cattle world. I'm not sure where you are in AL, but I do know there is a gentleman that competed in this years NCA finals from Louisiana and a couple people in MS. I can try and track down their information if you are interested. Suggestions for your young dog have been good, however, my experience training a dog to work cattle is the fastest way to figure out just how much dog you have to work with. My dog Chesney can move cattle and will take a hard nose bite when needed, but is a little leary of cattle that don't move readily after taking a hit. Chesney does not have a heel bite. I have tried many different things to try and teach him that a heel is a viable target to move stock. At 8 and a 1/2 he has no heel bite. It's much easier to teach a dog to hit a nose that has a natural heel than the other way around. I don't think Chesney is enough dog to work cattle efficiently so I added some heavy artillery with the new pup I have. Already, knowing my new pups background and seeing how he works now, this guy will be able to move heaven and earth... That's just who he is. Now with that said, it's important that you teach your dog that if the stock is moving where they want, hitting a nose is only going to undo things. Thus a heel might not be necessary if there is enough dog to convince the cattle to keep moving.

I still wouldn't consider those dogs AKC conformation bred dogs... They move like athletic Border Collies. And the dog in the last video looks Kelpie almost. Regardless AKC trials are a joke... Hmmm... That's a tough one...

Moss' Grandmother goes back to a Stetson... When I get his papers I'll have to see if it's the same one. I do know that the Stetson in his background was a tough ass working dog...

Wow. I'm shocked. Keeping her family in my thoughts

Glad the difference is obvious in the working ability of the dogs. Those sheep are pretty typical for AKC trials. They have to have trained sheep because they don't have dogs that can control them. I've heard stories about people complaining at ACK trials that the sheep were not tame enough...

Of those videos posted, none of those dogs look like comformation bred Barbie Collies. They may not be true working bred dogs, maybe sport bred, but they are not conformation competitors. They are probably registered AKC but not very many, if more than one, generation back. Searching for actual videos of conformation competing Border Collies that do well in the ring and are in herding trials, are probably pretty rare, since the two don't go hand in hand. But I managed to dig this one out...

Dave, I wouldn't consider either of those dogs loose eyed. I like how Tip worked I think eye comes down to personal preference, like Dave mentioned. It also depends on the type of livestock you're working. A dog with a lot of eye that can almost become "sticky" (becomes almost mexmorized by the stock and doesn't move freely) on sheep will probably present with less eye on cattle. And vice versa, a dog that seems to have little eye on cattle might be more stylish on sheep. The eye can also vary with different types of sheep as well. Heavy sheep can bring out more eye in a dog that seems to be loose eyed on lighter sheep. My dog can range anywhere from loose eyed to relatively stronger eyed depending on the pressure he is reading from his stock. If the pressure is heavy and the point easy to pick out, he gets very stylish, if the pressure point takes a little more finese in finding, he has a hard time with it and tends to wear and work with less eye. As he's matured Chesney uses his eye more, but I think that the amount of eye has been there the whole time. Which is how I feel about all dogs, they are programmed with the amount of eye they will have and I think as they get older, they learn to use it more, whether for the better or worse.

Wish I had my little kick ass cow dog for these... Might have to come out and help if I'm available.

Kate, I doubt it was a chemical burn, but that's just the first thing that came to mind when I saw his paw I might have to look into this honey as well.

Kate. I know it's been a while since you posted. The first thing that came to mind when I saw his foot was not a torn pad but a burned pad, especially the Friday 8/31 picture. It looks like a chemical burn. Poor guy. I hope he is healing up ok. Since starting this thread I've been giving Chesney zinc again. We haven't had any issues.

Thanks again for the replies everyone. It's a tough situation with Chesney, I take him everywhere with me that he's able to go so he is exposed to lots of situations and there are only a handful of "triggers" or obsessions with him. He's always been a fixated kind of dog, but I've managed it to where people view him as normal and a really good dog, whose focused on ques from me, but I know the real Chesney Mark, I like this comment. If I'm sitting downstairs and Chesney sneaks off to go upstairs and watch the cats, if I call him to come back down (once I notice he's missing from the party) he comes back panting like he's been running around when all he's done is laid upstairs staring at the cats. I think your comment describes Chesney spot on. He's always been like this, over focused. When he was a pup and I was starting to work him on stock, he couldn't be able to watch the stock before he worked because he would literally sit and vibrate watching, working himself up mentally. Trials for him now are like this, he gets banished to the truck. Julie and Karen, if you guys need help or a trial subject let us know And Karen, I didn't take your post wrong, it's hard for me to watch videos like Chesney's too.

His recovery is usually 20-30 minutes to normal behavior and function. I've never seen him with lasting effects like you would expect with heat emergencies. I have also never seen him vomit or have diarrhea during any of these episodes I hate seeing him like this too. It's a little scary to see your dog wobbling like that. I use K9 energy edge post working on hard days regardless of him getting wobbly or not, if I do see him start acting off I'll give him some mid work on a water break, I notice it helping him on the recovery side of things, but have not seen it help as a preventative. The heat definitely exacerbates it and I try to stop him before it gets to this point, but a lot of the time he isn't acting like he's overly hot and until he stops and relaxes for a minute or two, then it hits him. If you watch his panting in the video he isn't panting like he's over heated, he's just panting like any other normal dog would be panting based on the activities we were doing prior to his episode. If I take him for a bike ride or run with the longboard on a winter day and he gets keyed up, it takes longer for him to get wobbly but I have seen him wobble on a cool winter day usually when we get home and I'm packing everything up. It's like he comes down off a high and the adrenaline subsides and he gets the wobbles. And for the record I don't usually have him walk back and forth like that when he's like this, I prolonged him getting in the water so I could have a video of what he's like for when I describe him to people.

Thanks guys.

Alright, I know we have hashed out this topic a lot in the recent past, but it's something I have been lurking on and trying to do my reading on, since it's something I've been a little concerned that Chesney exhibits a lot of the symptoms. I finally got a good video of what I see frequently in him when he works sheep, especially if it's highly stimulating situations (lambs, sheep breaking, working after watching me work other dogs). Other areas I notice it with him are when he sits and watched kids playing (especially with soccer balls) or when a bike or longboard comes into play. I understand that it has been HOT these last couple weeks, but I can work or have this dog out in the heat doing routine jobs for the same amount of time without incident, and the trigger seems to be stimulating situations. I have seen him starting to exhibit this type of staggering when he's working hard in hot weather at SAR, but I treat that as actual over heating rather than BCC. Earlier in the day we played frisbee in the heat for easily 30 minutes with breaks in the shade here and there, I was letting him determine how much chasing he wanted to do (he's pretty good at self regulating in mundain situations) then he went with me to softball, where he sat in the shade with a friend during the game. Then we went to what I thought was the trigger events. The background for this video: 1 hour of sitting in the shade watching my young cousin play soccer 15 minute walk to my friends house. Her fiance was riding his longboard and Chesney was VERY keyed up about it. (I can keep him under control but I can't turn his brain off of the fixation... It's controlled fixation) I did let him pull me twice on it totaling about 200 yards. For the second video I got him in the water to cool off (right after I took the first video) this is how he acted (appox 5 minutes of cooling down) Then we went to my friends house to sit for a few minutes and within 20 minutes he was not wobblie or acting "off" at all. I'd be curious to know what those who are familiar with this think I am dealing with. Is it something I should be concerned about like heat stroke or is it BCC?

Thanks everyone for all the tips. Another question with wrapping feet for those that have seen torn feet being a problem this year, do you wrap as a preventative when you know your dog will be working in conditions conducive to torn pads, or do you only wrap once the pad is torn? If you are wrapping as a preventative, do you notice your dogs heating up faster than when their feet are not wrapped?

I usually wrap it above his dew claw but below the joint on his front legs, his back feet, I've been know to wrap it to his hock.

Thanks. This believe it or not is not the worst his feet have been. I don't wrap it and let him deal with it as he will. That way air gets to it and it can heal. Surprisingly, for as soft as his feet are, they heal within a week and he is usually not limping after two or so days.

I was giving him zinc for a while but ran out and kept forgetting to get more to give him with his dinner (otherwise it upsets his stomach), so I've started that with him again. While he was getting it before, it did seem to work well with infrequent issues with his feet. He has a pair of muttluks but working sheep he doesn't have traction and slips around quite a bit, also when he's working both sheep and SAR he over heats much quicker with his boots on than when he doesn't wear them. Otherwise I like his boots for hot pavement and on cooler winter days. The vet wrap and gauze is what I use now, but he tends to throw those wraps after a while, he must have slippery feet since he will throw booties too every time he wears them, I think right now we only have 3 since the last time he wore them he lost one...

Alright, I know that the usual and logical answer for this is, let it heal. I deal with Chesney tearing his feet up more frequently than I'd like, but my question is more for "on the road" per se. I thought I read someone where a while back that there was a patch of some sort I could make from moleskin, super glue, and cornstarch that would allow a dog to continue working with a blown pad. Does anyone have any other suggestions for something I could possibly keep on me or in a first aid kit and definitely in my SAR pack that could allow him to continue work without further damaging his feet and make him comfortable? And when I say torn pad, I'm not talking about little round popped blisters, I'm talking like missing 75% or more of his pad, usually on multiple pads per paw. Just to give you an idea this is just one paw:

I can relate to all these experiences... these people are my future job security, without stupidity firefighters wouldn't have a job

Wish I could come back after our trip. It's one or the other at this point

It sounds like you're doing a fine job with her. Like others have said, I think you'll be fine if you can call her off. Chesney will obsesively watch cats, rabbits, chickens... etc but I don't worry about him since I can call him off. If I wasn't in a position to call him off though, he wouldn't have access to get to them, I trust him, but I'm know he only has so much self control and if I couldn't be there to help remind him of that self control, things could get ugly.

*goes back to practicing for my interview on the 18th so I can have one just like her next year*