Doing My Homework ...

The last time I was out at Dianne's, she was showing me how Echo is not covering on the come bye side, and how I was (unknowingly) balancing to her, thereby negating the need for her to come to balance to me. (At least I think this is what I think Dianne was trying to get through my thick skull.) So, I went out and practiced today. My first goal is trying to really see and understand what it is she's doing, all the while being very conscious of my handling. Therefore, I set up several different scenarios and tried to really clearly show the different results by the various handling techniques to see what works and what doesn't. Here goes.



From the triangle pattern: (For a lack of better description of what I call the "triangle pattern" ...) Dog at 12:00, sheep at 6:00, handler at 9:00. After handler sends the dog, handler moves to 12:00, dog should fall into balance at 6:00. Clear as mud?

I sent her ... and you can see she stopped at about 10:00 ... the sheep were getting away, so she covered, but still didn't cover all the way, so sheep continued on their escape, which forced her to cover fully.

Standing between her and the sheep: And I sent her. You can see she still came up short, I said nothing and didn't move. She saw the escape happening, so she covered tight, sort of broke a ewe off, and if it wasn't for the irrigation canal, she would have chased it, but her momentum forced her to cover.

From my side: Sent her from my side, and not surprisingly, she crossed over, and covered on the side that is more comfortable to her.

Triangle pattern with pressure: This time, I used the triangle pattern, but rather than walking from 9:00 to 12:00, I went from 9:00 to 4:00, putting pressure on her all the way through the top of the outrun and as soon as she came to balance, I backed up, releasing the pressure. Seemed to work very nicely. However, this is how I have been working with her, and I think this method is what caused the problem in the first place? I have no idea.

Verbal correction for coming up short: Here I stood directly between her and the sheep, and sent her. When she came up short, I gave her a small verbal correction and a re-direct, and she took it in stride, and I sent her all the way around. Will this fix it? I don't have a clue.

Away to me: This is what her away side looks like. Much more confident. She comes all the way around and covers nicely.

So ... we'll see. A work in progress, I guess.

Here are some photos of her from today.













Let's go get some water!



Happy (& wet) tails!
JD