Well, I am starting Rio on stock. She is an interesting character. She's still very much a puppy, and is not quite sure what to make of her hard lessons as a young stockdog. She's used to getting treats every five minutes and being a "good girl" ... and now her reward is whether or not she's allowed to walk up on the sheep. Big. Huge. Difference. LOL!
I've kicked her out a bit in the round pen, so we've moved her into the field as of last night. I used Zip as the perimeter dog and used him quite a bit to help his daughter clean up her messes. But I was also making her responsible for the mess. She would be pushing the sheep past me, and I would turn the other direction, so she would have to work twice as hard to bring the sheep back to me. Something like this:
(<---) me ... (<---) the sheep ... (<---) Rio
If Rio pushed too hard, and it started to turn into:
(<---) the-me-sheep (sheep passing me) ... (<---) Rio
Then I turned 180 degrees and went the other way to where it looked like this ...
(<---) the sheep ... (<---) Rio ... (--->) me
So Rio had to go all the way around and make it ...
Rio (--->) ... the sheep (--->) ... me (--->)
The first half of the session was a bit ... um ... exciting, but she was picking up the idea. By the end of the session, we were using Zip a lot less, and Rio actually started thinking and almost squaring up the flanks when I would turn. Very nice! Loved the immediate progress. I look forward to seeing how she develops.
J
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