kylieandpossum

hmmm yes i see.....very nice.....and its good that hes calm! some of the things you describe you can teach a flyball dog, like toy and ball drive, its sometimes better if they dont come with too much of that already. there will definately be someone at castle hill who would want him for flyball, although the...um...competitor in me doesnt want them to have anymore height dogs than they already have i would take him right now if i wasnt renting and could squeeze another one. im sure he will find somewhere soon, he looks adorable

GREAT WORK SAS Hope it works out for Cobber soon hes so cute....for flyball purposes anything with a BC cross is highly desirable - does he have longer than usual cocker legs? any idea if hes a fast mover? he has attracted some attention in flyball circles!

hmm maybe. its interesting that she works your ducks and chooks and not other peoples! that sounds like a very nice way of working them, a really nice approach. it does sound to me like she doesnt know that sheep can be moved in the same way. i dont see any reason why she wouldnt learn it tho. maybe shes a three sheep dog, which is 'unusual' for koolies, given the need for movement, but maybe try that. 3 are much less intimidating, harder to move but maybe less movement is better for her? totally agree. and about the land! one day.......

oh i know that look! once you get the bug youre a dead man. i took poss along with a view to behaviour modification and now im preparing for trialling. hilarious! some of the people i do herding with are also in a flyball team with our cattle dog and we had a flyball comp on the weekend and the herding nuts are sitting around talking about technique and when s the next trial, flyball, what flyball? very amusing. we are going to go look at a few more before we do them tho, yard dog trials esp being kind of complicated with all those gates to latch and unlatch. you will be surpised at how if you jsut get a couple of things under control the rest will fall into place (about the body slamming, you might lose some points for that :D )

i think now i have done so much work with miss p she would be controllable over ducks, she may however have learnt some bad habits from our cattle dog from when we used to keep chooks and came home one day to a pile of feathers. hmmmm. he seemed to like the taste of wool too. hence, no more sheep for you! poss tried to work a friends cat once, that was pretty funny. just stalked it, down low, avoiding swipes, but didnt run away. she can be gentle when she thinks she might get hurt. no body slamming!

Funny you should ask M, we are looking at buying a 100 acres to have sheep for the pups, do you think that's excessive.......... dont worry some friends and i have made jokes about forming a co-oporative and buying a few acres for some sheep, and room to set up an agiltiy ring and flyball run! then we would all have to quit our day jobs because we were too busy with other things! so glad you had a good time, looks like chill had a ball

We went really well. It takes so much precision and concentration to manouvre the ducks through the obstacles. I was so proud of my boy, he did so well. We ended up coming 3rd!! We also got 1st in the city slickers sheep competition, 1st in the novice high jump ( he had never jumped before but ended up jumping 6ft 11) and 2nd in the encourage sheep trial. We entered the Novice sheep trial too and did ok and he got a score, but i know what we have to work on now. Paddock work!! Sorry, i will stop my weekend brag now. I am so happy with my boy. He cant get out of bed today though. Big Weekend!! Here is a pic of him with his prizes oh well done! i wish i had seen it, esp the ducks. i love watching kelpies work ducks. im not sure if the ducks would survive a koolie and now he can cook his own toast

sounds like the weekend was fun, i told my herding friends about it and they were very jealous and suggested if we got in the car friday night we could have got down there in time! adam, that issue is easy to fix but it depends who you have instructing you and what methods you use. i will tell you what worked with P but it could be different for your boy. poss naturally worked around ok but if they got stuck on the fence her first instinct was to duck inside, ie between me and the sheep. because she worked high i had a stick in my hand (a thin light piece of fibreglass, like they use for electric fences). its an extension of my arm and not to be used to hurt her with. when we first started it had a plastic bag tied to the end of it. when she wanted to duck in front i stepped in there quick and put the stick out in front of me to block her (say we're working anticlockwise then the stick is in my right hand so that my shoulders are turning in front of her, giving her the space behind me to work in). she learnt quickly she needed to stay out of that area between me and the sheep - it was jsut a natural aversion to strong body language and a stick with a flapping piece of plastic on the end of it! we didnt want her to back we wanted her to get the stock off the fence by going between them and the fence. she is a good barker but would just stand at their heels and bark. so i pointed the stick right at her butt and made encouraging noises, like a 'chchchchchc' sound, which gees her up, so she was getting a negative motion (the heat from me and the stick behind her) and a positive sound. i had to make sure that stick stayed right there (let me clarify, i wasnt behind her, im still in the middle of the yard, its just the thought of that stick behind her, that i could step into her with, is enough), and then shes getting encouragement to go forward. she was uncertain about it but i just kept making the noises and encouraging her, like go one possum, get em possum and everytime she took a step forward she got a good girl, still with the stick there, and then she just pushed her way through and got a big 'good girl' and the stick came down and now she does it no qualms. does that make sense? this is jsut what worked for me, interested to hear how other people do it. and if hes only working in short bursts take him out BEFORE he looses interest so he leaves wanting more. he will come back keener. esp take him out if he does a good bit and is really excited. hes still young tho so i wouldnt worry!

they look like some serious working dogs! and very tired ones, like 'im trying to sleep here can you get that stupid camera out of my face'! they look very strong and tough. and so do your sheep!!

hmm interesting. of course i have no real idea not seeing whats shes doing but it could be sheep, they're a bit more intimidating,a nd it could be that youre asking her to do it yuor way, rather than letting her have free rein...im not sure how you introduce her to the sheep tho. but possum raelly resisted anyone trying to tell her how to work for quite a long time and we still have words about it now. if you are trying to impose yourself (which you should, cos you want her to do what you tell) she may be like, hmmm i dont think so! but like i said, couldnt tell you for sure.... (shes veeeeery cute by the way)

oh. my goodness. i want one of those. and yes we shouldnt really be making this into the koolie-appreciation thread! sorry

and also ditzy. princess p has blonde tips on her ear hair so perhaps its not her fault

they should be pretty tough dogs from up there, pretty rough country. they will know what to do all right, they're gonna run you ragged look forward to pix and report, have a great time

what a gorgeous creature! where did you get them PAX if its not a rude question?

oh i think im in love what a cutie!

i think some arm twisting should be done re the puppy comps! no one expects puppies to hehave! have a great time anyway, it looks awesome!

yes you are a great advert, i checked out the site too, it sounds amazing!! what a fantastic 'fun with dogs' weekend!! sooooo jealous my husband would love to see his ACD work cattle but i reckon the ducks might loose a feather or two...i used to have chooks once... did you say you were doing sheep and ducks jesomil? what about you kayne? take lots of pix and report back!

tell me more about this thing you are doing at welshpool? is it some sort of herding extravaganza and if so, how do we get one here

well i have quite a long answer for this (unusual for me, sorry! ) but other peoples experience would be very interesting to me as well. apparently the UK agility king, greg derrett, said that you could not compete at top level agility if you did herding. there is one very important reason why he would say this. in herding, the dog must NEVER go between you and the sheep. in agility, thats a rear cross, where you send the dog in one direction in front of you while you step left or right BEHIND the dog. if you dont allow it in herding, how do you allow it in agility? dogs do contextualise with some things, but when you use agility training methods, esp operant conditioning, thats a very strong behaviour youre installing. in our situation, we have a cattle dog, jem. he has been clicker -trained (operant conditioned) to compete at top level agility and flyball. he is the fastest cattle dog in australia in flyball (can do a run in 4.1 seconds) and is one of the fastest agility dogs of any breed (hates weaving tho, slows him down!). his drive to perform is awesome. but he references trent, my husband, 100% of the time. he is so tuned to trents body language, so used to taking his cues from trent, that herding was a real struggle, in the sense that trent could move him around but he wasnt working sheep, jem was just watching trent over the sheep all the time then there was his natural instinct - hes a cattle dog. drive and nip, yes. not scared of sheep at all. around? what the f*** is that?! there was NO off switch, no way to calm him down that didnt involve a 4x2 or a 'command' like stop, which was then just a pure training exercise and not about working sheep at all. it was frustrating for trent and for jem as well, and they have decided to call it quits. possum has not been trained like that, we recognised our mistake in over-training jem and didnt force it on poss. she is very 'obedient' and responded well to clicker training but her instinct to chase was really going to cause trouble in flyball training. surely that other dog running along side me needs rounding up?! which is why we took her to herding, to learn to work with a dog with so much drive. she can now do a full flyball run and was really easy to train for it, she has very high tug toy drive and this is a very high motivator for her. we are slowly desensitising her to other dogs being near her when she runs and she may one day actually compete. i dont know whether herding lets that chase instinct build or whether the herding training we've done, as in relationship building, will pay off in terms of she comes when i call her, that kind of thing. i dont imagine doing agility with her anytime soon - she would be easy to teach the component parts but whether i can control her at speed (there is no slow for possum!) is another thing. but i think some part of these issues are also breed related with their different working styles etc. i take what greg derrett says with a grain of salt, im sure they can contextualise enough to get past it. you would have to be careful with your commands, a back in agility might mean something different in herding, but you can jsut choose different words. in agility i get a bit confused because an arm out is go in that direction, whereas an arm out in herding is a block, so i would be interested to hear what vickie says about this as trim is a very good agility dog. i do think, just personally, that maybe deciding which one you want to do WELL at might be the key and then you can prioritise certain behaviours/training methods for that one. because herding comes so naturally, and i enjoy it so much, im putting that above flyball and agility with poss, but i do think herding and flyball actually complement each other. JMO! cheers k

sorry vickie i missed this before, she is the same height as my husbands cattle dog who measures 500 for agility, tho his height is in his big barrel chest whereas possums is in her legs. she weighs just over 15kg as well. im not tempted by the ankc stuff either, i know i could probly pass a herding test but it would just be for the title rather than for working possum, and she is really a yard dog - im only aiming at doing trials with her as it gives us something to work towards and keeps her working, otherwise we'd never see sheep. my dad lives up in tamworth and im not taking her up there just to run around with his fancy merinos! does trim try to round you up when you do agility. possum is a quick learner but if you dont keep up with her she gets frustrated and barks and carries on like a twit.

ok so i know i said i was going and i promise i will but this might help for those with sheep-withdrawals or perhaps with learning to watch your sheep. its hilarious! http://www.sheepgame.co.uk on that note...................

awwwwww hello chance! yes i can see the purebred kelpie there i think that you have hit the nail on the head re koolies, ratbags but cute as hell. this does NOT help ridding them of the ratbag. sometimes when miss p is being a ratbag even in the yard i laugh at her cos she so cute. even mr-im-a-big-hard-working-dog-man-instructor thinks shes cute. so, therefore, its not my fault shes a ratbag really, im going now....

yes kylie is killing herself laughing because its such a great question. for the first year maybe of our training it was like, sheep, what sheep! about two months ago i stopped looking at my dog all the time and started to focus on the sheep. things have been a little easier since, they tend not to run away when im not looking. and yet when i was a kid it was all about the sheep, you just assumed the dog would know what to do. now because ive been doing dog training in other things, herding could easily become a dog training exercise, so i am trying really hard to remember its sheep herding. i guess thats why its so hard to give people 'training advice' because its not really something that can be trained in that technical sense. i guess this is what i meant before when talking to jesomil about commands etc, that it seems, for me, to be about having the right relationship with my dog. ok she doesnt know the words i use but if i can set her up for the right behaviours then i can start attaching words and if she listens to me, we see results. one day i think it might click together. when you dont do it every day of your life theres so much to learn! like i only just learnt on the weekend that the sheep might flick their ears when they're thinking of stopping and this might be a good time to call my dog off, rather than waiting for them to stop and letting her over-run. do you have any secrets in that dept persephone by the way, im not getting any house work done today because of this thread

no well i imagine they (and you) are too busy working to stand still for some nice portraits!! i have to take along my OH to get pix. the first few times there was a lot of pix of fences and dirt cos possum was too fast to get a shot of love the union thing. politically speaking thats my kind of dog! frustrating for the employer i suspect!! robert was telling us about his oldest dog Gin, a red kelpie, whos a great yard dog but has that real independent streak, and one day they were trialling and he pushed her too hard and she just climbed over the fence and walked back to the truck. didnt run away, wasnt scared, didnt hide, jsut turned her back and walked off. im sure if she could have flipped him the bird she would have he said it was the walking away that drove him crazy but youve got to admire a dog like that, so much spirit. thats the line you walk i guess when you breed them strong. i think shes the reason he says he hates red dogs now. speaking of red dogs, jo i cant find any decent ones of a certain red ACD back-chatting, they must all be on your camera/computer...nor any good ones of you and annette...bummer... other than the grey (fawn?) kelpie my dad had called (originally) Smoky, the best dog we ever had on the farm was Ricky (short for ricochet cos he was like a bullet off the walls!) an accidental cross breed from a black kelpie father and a brindle bulliex thing (like tiger, jo) mum. awesome yard dog, could jump up and perch on one fence post, but then one day we were out the back and my mum went off in one direction with him and i went another way, and i got home way before they did and so we went out to look for them and they were sitting by the creek, he had the sheep baled up and was sitting with my mum licking her neck where she'd been bitten by a wasp. amazing dog. was my mums favourite forever after! how does that happen in a cross breed?!

wow im kind of in awe of your dogs persephone! would love to see pix of them. whereabouts are you, by the way? editted to remove quote