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Yes, apparently the round pen was too small. And the sheep were misbehaving. And the handler was screwing up.

 

How do I know? Today Ann (ten mos old next week) escaped into the field with the ewe flock, fifty sheep and eight grown over acres, yeeeeargh! I focused on keeping calm, talking to her (thanks Karen), and putting myself where the sheep were drawn (they are not drawn to me). Eventually Ann settled down and worked them around - yay!

 

Is is better to start a dog with a good bit of eye on larger groups of sheep (or goats)? I can't find any information on this. I wonder whether it would benefit Ann, when we start seriously, to work the large flock - obviously in a more controlled area.

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Do you keep your dogs in an area, where they can not see any stock?? I guess I made that mistake and one of my dogs was strong eyed anyway... He got just plain sticky, and would fixate on just a few, no matter how many head were out there. I did trial him sucessfully, but he was never a good ranch dog, cause he had to be told every move.. A trainer told me that a working dog should never be able to see the stock when he is idled... Does everyone agree with him?... I ask, because this new rescue I got yesterday seem to have a lot of eye and I don't want to make the same mistake with her.. However in my acre fence around the house they can see the stock and also see the stock across the road..

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No, she's not allowed near stock by herself. We go for walks where she can see them but she is on leash and not "freelancing". She was just born a bit on the strong eyed side. I knew I was in trouble when she was ten weeks old and she started putting her head down on the ducks. :rolleyes:

 

She shouldn't be as bad as "sticky" (though way too early to tell) - but her mama tended to be on the eye-y side so I'm being very careful to keep her free through every stage of early training. Easier to get the head down when you need it than to free it up later. There are lots of things you can do to help, though - Cass never had a locking up problem - you'd only see that eye when she got "sucked in" on a flank. Patrick's dog Doug the Dog has a bunch of eye and he only gets stuck when he has no earthly idea what to do - which I think has less to do with eye than inexperience. But he'll do that same thing on a flank if he's feeling insecure.

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