The Great Sloth

Some may tell you the great ground dwelling sloth is extinct, but certainly it has left modern tree dwelling descendants. Today I realized I was looking at another relative of these tree dwelling creatures best known for their economy of movement. The alarm went off at 5AM as usual. It was a lovely cool morning with the much awaited rain drumming on the roof. I pounded the snooze a couple times before getting out of bed some 20 minutes later. I opened the door for Song to dash outdoors, then called for Dare who ambled through. Dare is seldom in a hurry to get up in the morning. Not having seen Levi yet, I called his name a few times, no sign of him. So I walk back to my bedroom where I'm greeted by eager faces of the three dogs in crates, ready to go play. Where is Levi? Sprawled on my bed, big smile on his face, tail thumping, hoping I'll climb back in for another hour or so of sleep. What a lazy beast!

Splitting Sheep

Yesterday I decided to split the lactating ewes off to wean them. The lambs are 5 months. They are grazing in an electronet paddock with their lambs and some yearlings on town land by the cemetery. My latest thing has been using the dog least suited for each piece of farm work so as to strengthen those skills in that dog. As such Levi (“I can’t stay put for 2 seconds”) was the choice. I wimped out and decided to take the dog most suited for this task, Fina. You can park her while you are sorting and she stays put. Poor Fina, she’s done little farm work. When I’m doing farm work I’m doing a job, my mind is completely focused on the job, and the dog had damn well better be helping me do the job. In other words dog, don’t mess up.

Fina did a nice job bringing the ewes to the break in the net the holding them there without running them through. She worked nicely on command to change their position so I could sort the desired ewes up front. I managed to sort a few through. When I’m at the fence like this they know it is off, and the lambs wanted to follow their mothers. Of course there were some other ewes already weaned that were determined to get through, making it harder to get the ones I did want. I lost a few I did not want through so I called Fina out to put them all back in again. She had trouble with the concept of coming back out, but managed and got them all back in reasonably. Next attempt I got a better set out, but still had a couple animals that dove through last minute that I did not want. I decided to put them all in the trailer, then just grab the unwanted sheep and put them out of the trailer and have Fina put them back behind the fence. Remember this is all happening in a town field along the cemetery. I pull Fina out of the paddock to load the split sheep into the trailer. They have started down a dirt road into the woods. I send her to gather. She goes straight down the middle of the road, dives through the middle of them and splits them into the woods on either side (where I could not even see them). I yelled at her and resent. She basically does the same thing again, not thinking about the job or reading her sheep, making a bigger mess. I really let her have it. We get all but two of the sheep, those two she had buggered into the woods and chased, almost putting them back through a lower part of the fence (more mindless work), then finally they ran along the fence and woods back to the road up top near the trailer. I go to load everyone in the trailer (not entirely sure I actually have everyone since some of this happened out of sight so I’m guessing how many were lost and how many we got back). Fina’s feelings are hurt since I’ve yelled at her. She’s not sure she can do more than lay on the ground and feel sorry for herself. She quickly decided that taking my commands and contributing to the work at hand was a much better route to survival and we got the girls in. They load easily and I’d backed the trailer along the fence so she really only needed to cover one side. I get the two I did not want out, and Fina did a reasonable job putting them back in the paddock for me. Fina apparently does not deal well in tight situations (on road between fence and woods) where the sheep can and will actually try to get away.

I have the water tank in the trailer as well and the sheep have almost emptied the water in the paddock. I decide to go fill the water tank and come back to fill the trough. I go to the closest spigot in the cemetery to fill, noticing someone watering graves down at the next spigot. I wonder how long she has been there and whether my yelling at Fina was a tad crude for sacred ground. Oh dear.

I drive back to the paddock, clean one of the tanks and start filling it from the trailer tank. There are still some ewes with bags in the field. I decide to try to get those while I’m waiting for the water to fill. This time I take Levi. He was not bad. I manage to sort the three ewes still in the paddock with bags out the opening in the fence. Now I need to load them in the trailer without losing the sheep already in the trailer. This time I was not planning on loading sheep so I did not park the trailer along the fence. The sheep can go either way around the trailer and there is no real room to cover. And the sheep in the trailer were getting antsy as there was no food in there. They wanted out. It was a bit exciting. One sheep booked past the trailer and van, then veered and ran up a big pile of dirt they have for burials, Levi running right up the pile along the outside. His work was close, fast, but he was always trying to get a job done, never splitting through them, and reading his stock. I suspect he’ll be my go to farm dog in another year. He is much better than the girls at moving large groups. Fina is too direct and may dive through them. Song does not keep forward pressure on as she tucks the sides. Levi has a great sense of how to keep forward pressure on while keeping the group moving on line. He has always had this, nothing I taught. Also, he never gets truly stupid or silly which both girls are capable of.

Drought

Well we had a bit of rain in the past few days. A relief but not even beginning to be enough to end the drought. We've gone hot week after hot week with virtually no rain. My pastures are burned to a crisp, brown grass crumbling under your feet like uncooked angel hair pasta. I'm getting some big bale hay in to feed the sheep. The pigs lay in the dust. Right now my sheep are on town land beside the cemetary, not great forage but at least green. I've been supplementing with grain to keep condition. There are other offers to graze around town, but none of the areas is large enough to make it worth hauling the sheep and equipment over to set it up. I want at least a couple weeks of grazing to make the setup and transport worthwhile.

Fina

Fina has been slowly coming together. Little by little we have been working through her worries, gaining confidence at a distance, and most importantly learning that she has to keep trying and keep listening. Fina is a bit independent and does not handle pressure well. She also loses confidence fast when working at a distance from me. Not a great combination. However she is also blessed with a quiet and direct way on stock. That talent and the fact that she was a gift from my friend Darlene gave me the determination to continue working with Fina. I decided to work her through this summer, and if by fall we had not gained some significant ground I would find a home more suited to what Fina could give.

We had a tough spring. Fina would get to the top of her outrun, lay down and watch the sheep run to the setout. Or she'd get them down the fetch, start the drive, then get flustered, lay down and quit. She frequently became the flankless wonder, walking her sheep beautifully on a line, but not the line to the panel and not willing to flank to correct it. These problems showed up at home, and even more on the trial field. Her half sister Song delights in new sheep and new fields, not at all bothered by trial environment pressure. Fina is more fragile and gets worried about such pressure.

Fina was training up rather well this spring at home, but periodically went into the avoidance mode when under pressure. Add trial pressure and she quickly closed her mind. By mid May and many retires I was pretty frustrated. The problem manifested as the dog losing confidence at a distance, stopping taking commands, and often just laying down. I started picking people's brains on the problem. I got lots of good traing suggestions. It was Barb Armata that got to the heart of the problem. Fina's solution to pressure was to avoid it. So she closed her mind and either lay down or just blindly followed the stock. Barb told me to work through that avoidance first, make Fina listen. Not in a harsh way, but get her in situations where I could be right there to make it happen. So I put a short line on Fina, and when she stopped walking up because she was flustered I took the line and got her started. I worked her in smaller areas and subjected her to bursts of rapid fire commands, moving in and insisting when she tried to opt out. As I removed the avoidance option Fina learned that she really can do what I'm asking. Little by little she is gaining confidence in herself, in me, and in our ability to work together. She can handle some pressure for compliance now, knowing that the moment she does what is being asked the pressure will lift.

Fina placed at the Ames' Cascade Farm trial on the July 4th weekend. Nothing fancy, 9th in a field of 35 dogs or so. But a decent run. The July 4th Cascade trial was the last trial that Darlene was well enough to attend last year. The next weekend at Merck Forest was not always what I wanted, often hesitation before giving me the (oh so difficult) flanks I wanted, but she was with me. This past Saturday I had a dog on my whistle the entire run. She won the trial. Sunday she had to set out for some time early in the afternoon and did great on some very tough and recalcitrant sheep. Then she ran late afternoon. She had a bit more of the flankless wonder going on. The come by tends to fail first. So our lines were not great, but she took corrections, got the flanks eventually, and we got around. She did some lovely work at the pen with stock that did not want to go in. Since the run was not competitive at this point I used the pen for some stern flank practice and she was good with it, cleaned her flanks right up and worked extremely hard to get those girls in. We timed out in the shedding ring, having walked in with about 30 seconds to work.

I look forward to taking Fina to the post now. She still has her problems, but don't they all. Now Fina has opened herself to working with me, trusting my commands and her own ability to do the job. Fina was bounced around for training a bit when young as Darlene was sick. Then Fina ran in Open with Darlene. Darlene was too sick to train and Fina was not really ready, but they were well matched and earned a placement. I believe that Fina was put on this earth for Darlene to partner with. It looks like now Fina will partner with me as well, frosting on the cake.

How do I train thee?

After working dogs with a friend this morning we had a talk about various trainers, methods, and philosophies on training dogs. I don't seem to get dogs trained all that quickly. I've never had a dog on the trial field before 2 years, except Cato in Novice Novice. I have a tendency to move a young dog to the bottom of the training priority ladder whenever we hit a training plateau. They get a bit of work to see where their head is at, and hopefully we’ll get some progress going again. I take forever to get commands on a dog, and even longer to get them on whistles. My dogs generally run in Open for a year before they are reliable on whistles. I’m reluctant to move forward in training until they are working with the attitude I want, and I like them to be about 80% successful before I add complexity to any particular job. I’m quite reluctant to put a lot of pressure on a young dog until I’m sure it understands and has generalized the command I’m enforcing. The stop is learned early and enforced all along. I’m afraid I seem to take forever installing flanks, no doubt aggravated by my regular errors on which side is which. Then it seems, when I get one piece of training done, something else breaks, so I go back and spend some time fixing that. You can see how I manage to extend the process!

I know there are folks that get dogs ready to go much younger than I do, but today I realized I’m fairly comfortable with my methods. I’m enjoying the process and that is more important to me than having a dog trial ready at a young age. I see young dogs competing that are confident in the job and in their handler so you know some good training occurred to get them there. I just can’t seem to do it myself. I keep working with trainers, watching their methods, observing their way of working with their dogs, and trying to learn so that I can teach my dogs the job more quickly. I haven’t the natural talent for training I see in some, but I am diligent in observing, questioning, and analyzing the process. I’ll get there, but it needs to be on my terms: I won’t make the job more complex until the dog has shown me a fair mastery of the current level of difficulty (neither will I dwell at a level until the dog is flawless); I won’t apply hard pressure for compliance to commands until I’m quite sure the dog understands the command, has generalized it, and is well able to comply with the command when given. My exceptions here would be “lie down” and “that’ll do”. Many strong young dogs need some serious pressure to establish those commands before you can even consider going forward in training.

Part of our morning conversation was training pressure. There are very successful trainers who routinely put pressure on green dogs, and accept that the level of pressure may well make the dog quit. The dog will likely come out at the next session having thought through the lesson and much improved. I have put pressure on a dog until it quit, but it is a seldom thing. It takes the joy out of training for me. Afterwards I mentally review my session extensively, deciding if it was good training or not. Could I have changed something to help the dog achieve my goal in the current session? Was my goal realistic? Can I approach the training challenge from a different direction entirely and perhaps have more success? Did I just lose my temper, get frustrated and push too hard?

I have walked onto the training field with a plan to put a great deal of pressure on a dog for a specific behavior where I’m not having success with other methods. In these sessions I have a clear idea of how I will set the exercise up. My goal is for the dog to succeed, but I’m prepared with where and how I’ll apply the pressure to force the issue if needed. I’m ready to apply a great deal of pressure to break through the training plateau. I don’t like working this way, but sometimes I believe it is the best method to get a dog through a training problem, far better than muddling around in repeated failures. If I decide to put strong pressure on a dog for certain behaviors, I remove all other criteria. I set the exercise up so that I’ll be in a position to enforce compliance immediately. I try to set it up so as to expose the problem I’m working on, but otherwise set the dog up for success. Effectively the dog has a single requirement it needs to meet, or there will be hell to pay. The instant the dog complies then the correction ends, and my demeanor returns to cheerful. I want the message clear, understandable, and attainable. What is “hell to pay”? That depends entirely on the particular dog. It is whatever will make that particular dog worry about me and worry about the correction to the point of releasing a strong behavior that I don’t want and replacing it with a behavior that is likely mentally uncomfortable for the dog. Depending on the sensitivity of the dog and the intensity of the behavior I am trying to change, that is possibly enough pressure to make the dog quit entirely.

There are many people who substitute severity of correction for consistency of correction. Severity in the absence of consistency is abusive to the dog and ineffective as a training technique. If you allow a number of missed stops to go by you have lost the right to have a fit and get mad at the dog the next time it misses a stop. The absence of consistency is hard on a dog even if your corrections are not severe. Inconsistent corrections muddy the rules, delaying understanding. For corrections to be effective they must be consistently applied, even if the timing is inconvenient for you. After all, how many of you always obey the speed limit for fear of the occasional speeding ticket? If you were to get a ticket virtually every time I’m thinking you would be saving fuel.

There are many ways to train a dog. Each person who endeavors to train a dog must find methods that they are comfortable with, and that produce the results they want. Methods that work for one person may not work for another. Part of training is our timing, and the persona we project to the dog on the training field. Some methods require more precise timing, or a more imposing persona. You may be able to master these methods eventually, or they may never be effective for you. There is always another way. I have yet to attend a lesson or clinic with an experienced trainer and not come out with some new understanding, or a new method of training a behavior. However I sometimes reject a trainer's overall view on training. Dog training is rather like the Bible, you can find references to back up many different points of view. You can point to an example of a successful trainer’s style to validate your preferences, and I can point to the different style of another trainer to validate mine. Know yourself, your dog, and use your judgment and conscience. Take out the dog reference and I believe the same applies to religion.

Not all trainers can be successful with all dogs. Everyone's style and temperament suits them to certain types of dogs. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you remember that the fact that a dog is not suitable to you as a trainer or handler says nothing bad about either you or the dog. It simply means you are not a match. Personally I can really enjoy some strong minded dogs, as I'm a bull headed person myself. I have several friends who enjoy biddable and compliant dogs and shy away from dogs that attract me. All and all, you will probably be better off working with an instructor who enjoys the same type of dogs as you do.

When you are working with a trainer you need to try hard to understand how their methods work, and to handle your dog as they suggest. Give their methods a chance. If you are truly uncomfortable with that person's methods or a particular exercise then don't participate. Use your judgment. It is important to give a technique a good try to see if it will work, and equally important that you make the final decision on actions that will affect the physical and mental welfare of your dog, yourself and the stock. Use your own judgment, but don’t jump to conclusions. Find methods that work for your style and temperament. Have respect for folks that have taken numerous dogs from playful pups to confident working partners.

It is not easy, but then nothing worthwhile ever is.

Everything is under control here

I spent the day doing farm chores. My sheep are currently grazing on the town field surrounding the "little red schoolhouse". This is a historical one room school maintained by the Tyngsboro Dunstable historical society, a lovely setting used for a variety of town functions. On the edge of this land is the town pound, a small pen with 5 foot high stone walls and a narrow gate. This is where loose animals were put in colonial times to wait till they were retreived by their owner. The pound fills with brush and poison ivy, so each year I put my sheep in there for a day to clean it out. Today was the day. I got up there at 7AM, made a small pen with temporary net fence so I could catch Boogaloo the llama. This llama is not very trusting of people and quite difficult to catch. It takes patience and a small pen. Once I caught him I put him in my trailer, then took the sheep out of the fencing and called the police to come stop traffic for me. The gate to the pound is 2 feet from very busy Route 113 so I need traffic stopped to move the animals in and out. Once traffic was stopped I moved the sheep into the pound, then brought the llama in as well. All went smooth as silk. After a couple hours mowing, moving the temporary fence, and setting up the next grazing area for the sheep I checked the progress of the sheep in the pound. Not good, they really were not eating down the brush quickly. I decided to add the yearlings, who were pastured a couple miles away. I still had the trailer hitched so I picked them up and brought them to the pound around noon. Song moved them in neatly despite the three new sheep being a bit wild and not sticking with the flock. Again, the police stopped traffic so I could move the stock on the road safely.

I went to get the sheep out around 8 this evening. I had their next paddock all ready for them, fenced, nice full water tub, full salt mineral feeder, and deep clover to dine on. My plan was to wait till the police arrived, then go catch the llama and lead him out while the dog brought the sheep. I had left Boogaloo's halter on which makes catching him easier. Hah! At moments like this you realize that this is not simply a llama, but rather a f#$*%*ing llama! I was not going to spend 20 minutes trying to clip a rope on the llama while the policeman was waiting. I decided the brute would follow the sheep anyway, so I gave up on catching him and sent Song in to gather the sheep out. I backed into the road, ready to lead the sheep to their next graze. There were quite a few animals in the pound, and the gate is very narrow with a drop to the road. It took a bit for Song to get them all out. While she was in the back pushing them out, the front sheep were out the gate and turning up the road in the wrong direction. There was not much I could do with the dog still behind 20 or so sheep in the high walled pen. By the time Song emerged from the pen after the last sheep the front sheep were high tailing it up the middle of the road for the next town. The llama was running with them. They veered into a retail yard for a business that sells stone, weaving in and out of the pallets and piles of various rocks. They were putting on quite a show for the line of stopped traffic.

As soon as Song got out of the pound I sent her fast for the breaking sheep. The ewes and lambs had spread about in the stone yard, and it took some work to get them back out. The sheep were darting this way and that and Song was rather enjoying herself working too close and too fast, which was not helping. I got Song settled and she quickly had the group back together and marching in my direction. The llama (the f#$*%*ing llama) was nowhere to be seen. I calmly commanded my dog, bringing the sheep back along 113 towards the opening to the school house, pretending I had a plan. My mind was racing. No llama, no llama, no llama... This is a llama I can barely catch in a small pen. No way he'd be caught loose. If he did not show up I'd need to bring the sheep back up the road to try to get him to join up. Cars were already backed up quite a ways in the short time since the policeman stopped traffic.

Just as the last couple sheep turned into the the school house drive, the llama came racing out from behind the wall for the stone yard. He was looking about wildly for his sheep, whimpering and humming as upset llamas do. Fortunately he saw the last couple wooly butts disappear into the school house drive. He galloped down 113 after his sheep like Derby contender, skidding on the pavement as he turned into the drive right in front of the cruiser. If my llama runs into a police cruiser do I have to pay for the damage?

Fortunately the llama decided that the minute or so his sheep were out of sight was more than enough separation. He stuck right with the flock as I moved them into their waiting paddock. Once everything was under control I did admit to the officer that the process had been a bit more exciting than I had planned!

Empty Chairs

The latest NEBCA News is out. It has a piece on my dog Cato, who I lost in January. The piece included a photo of Cato, laying in my double folding chair at a trial. Beside that chair was the very empty chair of my very dear friend Darlene Hutchins, who died of pancreatic cancer in September, leaving us with only memories of her infectious laughter.

I sent the link to a couple other friends who were close to Darlene, but not likely to see the NEBCA News. Both were hit as hard as I was by the image of that familiar chair, without the familiar face and smile that go with it.

Brenda Buja commented...
"Empty chairs...someday ours will be empty too! Enjoy what you can, eh??"

It is a sentiment to remember. Enjoy your life. Enjoy and cherish your friends, your family, your dogs. Darlene met life with humor and a grin. She blessed herself and those around her with joy. Her chair is empty. Our hearts are full.