superminty

Forgot to update with details of my last session with the Cash-man. We had our second ever go on cattle - this lot are only little though and they are super cute! We let the stock gather and start to move off, then I sent him. He went round to the head, stopped them and then didn't know what to do! So he lay down and just held them. They wouldn't just turn around like sheep do, so he had to apply a bit more pressure to turn those heads. I was really happy with his work, he lacks confidence so is very puppy like around them, but he has no problem covering the head and applies the right amount of pressure to get them to turn. At one point they all jammed themselves in a corner and he had to work pretty hard to get them out! Also copped his first kick in the head - I am glad he is learning this lesson (that cows kick!) now while they are little! He did struggle a bit with the numbers - there are about 10 and I think he would work a smaller group much better. They do tend to string out a lot more than sheep do. He did a nice shed at one point -completely by accident. He split three off and wouldn't let them back into the main group Silly dog. He was a very happy boy once he got back on the sheepies - he knows how to control them

Agree that this is common in working kelpies. It's in their blood to respect personal space. My own boy hates to be at my side - he much prefers to be at "balance" as if there were stock in between us. I cannot get him to walk parallel and close to me - he is always a metre out or if lured in close, he side tracks majorly. He is a bit less sensitive about personal space than Link sounds but will not come in close for a nice obedience "front" unless lured. Even lured, he will sit back and stretch his nose forwards as far as he can rather than moving closer. You could try shaping contact i.e. touching/targetting your body with his nose/shoulder/hip etc, anything that teaches him that it is ok to "invade" your personal space.

Going herding this Sunday. Goal is to start teaching sides The dog is getting close to 5 years old I realised today I think it's time he learnt his directions Hopefully gonna get to work some calves too, so excited! Last time he worked cows he went really well for about 5 mins, then it all got too much and he hid behind me for the rest of the session

A lot of people have advised reporting incidents like these to council (and I agree). I do have a question though. How much information would a council generally need to log an incident or follow it up? In this case, the OP knows the address, so I assume that would be sufficient. What about the case where you don't know the person's name or where they live? i.e. a little drama I had recently - I know the woman lives in my immediate neighbourhood and I can give a good description of her dogs, including a name, but I've got nothing else. The same sort of situation would arise if you were rushed in a park - you probably wouldn't get the person's name or address, nor would they be likely to give it to you anyway! Is it even worth reporting it?

I feel your pain, although me and my dog were only approached by two dogs, and I know the dogs pretty well (enough to know that they aren't real nasty). Unfortunately, the owner is a right nut. I too was abused when I asked her to put her dogs on lead and keep them away from mine. I have reported it to council and will be taking my phone next time to video any further exchanges. At least you know the house number.

Darn it, why can I NEVER remember to do this when actually in a situation where it probably would have worked! Had a treat bag full of treats too. Situtation arose about 15 minutes ago :D Sorry, completely OT.

You are on a roll Dova. They make you so proud when it all comes together I think I finally like my dog Only took 4.5 years. Have always loved him to death, but only now am I really liking him. Probably has a lot to do with the percentage of the time he actually listens to me these days...

Yes :D except I can't have another do til I move out of home (permanently this time ;) ) Such a pity coz I need a soft dog due to my kelpie boy being a bit full of himself.

What a sweet looking girl Skye is. Oh I want another one so bad

Hi all. Been great hearing about everyone's training successes, it inspired me to get in some more training Had a training session worth bottling today I split the session into three short parts. The first was working on yielding and improving the shape of the cast i.e. keeping on the edge of the flight zone and not "slicing". I think he has finally got the idea of this yielding thing He left beautifully almost every time, lovely and soft and steady. He is also responding really nicely to my pressure and is correcting the shape of the cast when asked. My aim is for the sheep to not move at all until he is at balance. At the moment he moves them a little with the side of his body as he is cutting in a bit at the top but I reckon one more session on shape might just fix that. The second part was working on stops (pause) and not cutting in when changing direction. He is not so good at this but then, I haven't yet taught him sides so it is to be expected. Also did a bit of work on our walk up and I think he understands this pretty clearly. The third part was driving practice. Great success He drove the sheep all the way up one side of the paddock (A course size) on a long line, with me only needing to adjust his position a couple of times,. He was also happy to move the sheep away from me (I was 10 metres behind at some stages), and is putting pressure on in the right place i.e. when I give my balance cue. He is however swinging around to face me when I ask him to down so will need to work on this. He did stop though when asked (I am amazed!) and remained facing the stock, so there is hope :D All in all, a great day. And I learned yet another lesson about how smart sheep are. In one of our breaks, I tied Cash up outside the paddock. The sheep were about 15 metres away. They figured out quick smart that he was not a threat when outside the paddock, and started taking little steps towards him, keeping their eyes on him all the time. They could have just wandered off at any stage, and had done so in our other breaks. Well, Cash got mighty narky about being stared at by sheep and started barking at them as eyeing them wasnt getting him anywhere. Well those darling sheepies just kept creeping towards him, completely unconcerned. You can't say sheep don't have a sense of humour Completely different story once he was back in the paddock with them! I just love how they choose their battles.

You should see how hard the fast dogs hit the A-frame on the ascent! That's full force on their shoulders initially.

Kate and Karen give lessons out at Nyora. See http://victorianherdingassociation.com/index.asp?ID=26 for contact details. Dave runs beginners clinics out of Diggers Rest and is very good, particularly for city slickers. See http://herding.webs.com/ There is also a guy in Darraweit Gium - Geoff Henshall - I don't seem to have his contact details at hand but he is great at starting new dogs. There are a few more out there but I haven't got any details.

Looks like you went to Diggers Rest BellaDonna, I recognise those sheep My boy Cash is the littermate of Mouse, not sure whether you got to see him.

Flanking commands are your sides, or directions. So in your case, Bye and Away I assume mean go clockwise and anti-clockwise. I use "Get Out" to mean choose your own direction and will use "Around" for clockwise and "Back" for anti-clockwise. Had a good day training, got some nice stops - just a brief but clear stop of motion, then a change of direction. "Down" on the other hand....he will do it on second command usually (BIG improvement), but still tries sitting, sniffing, creeping etc. I really have to insist on a down, even if it means the stock get away, otherwsie I will continue to get these half a**ed attempts. Darn dog. Unfortunately he doesn't respond to a tough approach, I just need to outsmart him. We do leave the ring if he is being a real pest, but there is no point growling at him or physically correcting him, he will just blow me off. He's just that kind of dog. But the rest of his work was lovely and we had a good walk around off lead with no bolting back to the ducks - he is quite responsive to me on ducks. Now to get that on sheep!

Well, I am off to do some duck herding Today's lesson plan is to work on stop (pause and change direction) and down (going down on first command, not 100th and staying there until released) over a couple of short sessions, then maybe one little bit of driving practice.

I guess I have an advantage with driving because, although my boy has had some training over the years, it has been minimal and only occasional. So he is still quite green and doesn't have trained flanks - therefore he has no concept that a flank command always means "come back behind me". I do see people trialling dogs at advanced levels with dogs that do this - and they manage quite all right, but it can get a bit messy. At the moment on sheep, I have a long line on the dog and the sheep on a fence. I stay right in close behind my dog, with the line fairly taut. I give a flank command and help him stay in front of me i.e. if he turns away from his stock to try and come behind me, I stop him with the line and keep him in front of me. Note that I am just introducing flank commands now, so it is basically a brand new exercise (I have done a little around chairs in the backyard though ). My emphasis is on keeping the dog on the flight zone, no matter where I am. In a drive position, this is easiest if I have my dog on a line, because obviously I cannot put direct pressure on him to keep out of the zone, I have to manipulate him physically to do so. Also he doesn't have a stop on sheep so I can't use that. On ducks he will stop/down so I can keep him on the edge of the flight zone without having him on a line. He also has a nice direct walk up on ducks. This is a bit lacking on sheep too.

I know how to do it in theory, does that count? Remembering that balance point is simply the point where the stock are going where you want them to go - well, I name balance point. So once I say "right there", my dog should know that I want the stock to stay on that line until I give a flank command. Therefore, for driving, I simply ( ) give my balance cue when the stock are pointing in the right direction and voila! Line is set and the dog should keep them on that line until further notice. I have started doing this with ducks because they drive easier and I only drive for a step or two before calling my dog off. I am also using a fence to start with to help the stock stay on line. I taught the balance cue initially in a fetch position, and it's a work in progress I don't really have flanking commands yet (oops) but won't be using a different command for inside flanks. I expect my dog to stay on contact at all times, so whether he crosses behind or in front of me will depend on where I am standing in relation to the stock's flight zone. Clear as mud?

Hi JulesP kelpiesrule - Jasper is a lovely looking dog, really stunning And I am usually a working kelpie fan through and through but golly I like him He has lovely distance off his stock but I would say you need to work on getting him to hold balance rather than covering all the time. He is only young though and holding balance is a lot of pressure. My boy is only really starting to do it now, mainly coz I have started insisting he do so I have issues going in off lead - only on sheep though, he seems ok on ducks. Although his last duck trial (12 months ago at least) he took off, jumped the back barrier and went looking for the ducks there He is a bit of a goose.

Wow, they are real talkers, aren't they! Adorable :D

Tell me about it, I can't believe it myself. He has really started to mature of late (and about time!) and I feel like we are finally getting along - I'm not battling with him so much and he is becoming quite responsive to my pressure, which is nice. He is much more intense on sheep, no video to show because all our recent sheep work has been pretty ordinary :D so I'm keeping those videos a secret. He did do some beautiful sheep work the other day but of course, no video! Finally got him to yield properly, I think it is really sinking in that I want him to go around the flight zone, not cut in. Haven't seen many Lappies down here, I did see a couple when I started with my first dog, but that was years ago. Be great to see some video if you can manage it, I love watching other breeds working.

Thanks Dova, he has been off stock for almost a year so I am really pleased with how he is coming along. We have done almost exclusively fetching up to this point so have some driving practice to do but I find that he is happier to drive ducks away from me than sheep, probably because it's so much easier :D He really does have a hard time letting them "get away" though, he is a natural heading dog so we struggle with obstacles sometimes - he just doesn't want to let them go through and "escape"! My next task is to teach a solid stop and down... And I must remember to work on ONE THING AT A TIME! Not 5 different things and risk confusing the poor dog like I used to. Need to keep my dog trainer hat on.

Hi all, I know we have a herding thread already but the title is misleading, so I thought I'd start another one to chat about herding, training and trialling - and brags of course Since retiring my agilty dog recently, I have decided to get Cash (4.5 yr old working kelpie) back into herding and we are having a ball! We've mostly been working on ducks as I find he is much softer and kinder to his ducks than he is to sheep. I've been having a lot of success getting him to yield/stay out of the flight zone. I have found that he works with me more than he used to, which might be due to the work I do with him from day to day (he has issues, to put it nicely ) and also through me being much quieter when I train i.e. I am trying not to yell at him when a mistake is made, because I realise that I am usually the one whose fault it is Here is a recent video. We were just working on getting him to yield when he moves off, and keeping out of the flight zone.

Hey huski - I'm new at this too, but I started with a proper article coz my girl thinks anything and everything is a toy so I knew she'd be motivated to find it. I did play some rev up games with it first though.

My emphasis above: I agree and that's another reason I get so mad at people who walk their dogs off lead. How are they to know what the on-lead dog is like? They are putting their dogs in harms way, in addition to the risk from traffic and it's so bl**dy unfair on the dog.

Excellent, thanks for that, I shall approach my research from that angle. I was thinking that in the event of the on-lead dog causing damage to the off-lead dog, there would certainly be liability for damages on the part of the on-lead dog's owner, but perhaps that liability would be mitigated by the fact that the off-lead dog's owner is breaking the law. I just don't want to be one of those letter writers that goes off half-c**ked and makes unsubstantiated claims