Today was even windier than yesterday..anything not nailed down is in the province just east of us.
A whistle ( and dog trained on one ) would of been darn handy for the OLF in the field...sheep wanting to head to Timbuktu with the high wind on their butts made for more walking and getting in the right place and a person had only a nano second at that.
Couldnt work on the sends like I wanted to in the field and in hindsight (like 'now' realized I should of taken them to the cattle pasture to see if they would of settled better on grass and then work on the sends as
sheep did not settle at all in the field & dog couldnt hear me d/t wind )
Quade typically never barks unless not clear with what I want and I'd get that bark when he realized he was coming up short on his flank...usually 2 o'clock...felt like I was doing too many redirects with moving stock so
ended up coming back to the empty bale yard and worked on squaring up our flanks /distance and seeing if I could fix my flip 'away' on the one flank that I still get from time to time....works if I softly call his name or 'here' before squaring him, so his head turns in instead of out...hoping to install some muscle memory so it happens less often but realize that some residue will show up as a default behavior when tired or stressed.
Will take sheep to the small cattle pasture and work on send exercises over next few days. If I can get him to leave properly from the get go, it'll help solve the coming up short on those bigger outruns (moving sheep)....so will work increments to make things more solid and will work on those in several areas on the farm/field which will give me 'different acting sheep'
Training sheep are wonderful for working out some training excercises but *if the sheep leave and fetch back to you *before the dog even gets in the right position ...the dog never learns nor understands his job completely.
Something to be very aware of and not to be complacent about....so a person can use environment to 'change' their sheep and / or travel to get on different sheep so the dog continues to learn how to read /cover sheep....which obviously builds confidence.
All part of the miles to a seasoned dog.
A whistle ( and dog trained on one ) would of been darn handy for the OLF in the field...sheep wanting to head to Timbuktu with the high wind on their butts made for more walking and getting in the right place and a person had only a nano second at that.
Couldnt work on the sends like I wanted to in the field and in hindsight (like 'now' realized I should of taken them to the cattle pasture to see if they would of settled better on grass and then work on the sends as
sheep did not settle at all in the field & dog couldnt hear me d/t wind )
Quade typically never barks unless not clear with what I want and I'd get that bark when he realized he was coming up short on his flank...usually 2 o'clock...felt like I was doing too many redirects with moving stock so
ended up coming back to the empty bale yard and worked on squaring up our flanks /distance and seeing if I could fix my flip 'away' on the one flank that I still get from time to time....works if I softly call his name or 'here' before squaring him, so his head turns in instead of out...hoping to install some muscle memory so it happens less often but realize that some residue will show up as a default behavior when tired or stressed.
Will take sheep to the small cattle pasture and work on send exercises over next few days. If I can get him to leave properly from the get go, it'll help solve the coming up short on those bigger outruns (moving sheep)....so will work increments to make things more solid and will work on those in several areas on the farm/field which will give me 'different acting sheep'
Training sheep are wonderful for working out some training excercises but *if the sheep leave and fetch back to you *before the dog even gets in the right position ...the dog never learns nor understands his job completely.
Something to be very aware of and not to be complacent about....so a person can use environment to 'change' their sheep and / or travel to get on different sheep so the dog continues to learn how to read /cover sheep....which obviously builds confidence.
All part of the miles to a seasoned dog.
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