Yesterday, after a snowy week, followed by thawing, Bryna and I went to the farm to train. The sky was bright blue, and the Shenandoah Mountains were visible to the west in the distance. You know what is coming: every place there was either snowy or icy. We selected the large round pen for training, since mud seemed preferable to ice, and there was straw in at least some of the pen. We had 3 sheep, not heavy but not light either.
I decided on 2 goals: improved short outruns with emphasis on staying out, and driving the sheep without turning it into a fetch plus letting her drive in a position several body lengths away from me.
Bryna has a lot of power, and it is hard to get the sheep to stay calm in such a small pen. I had hoped that her first outrun would be a calm one, and I did some things to calm her before we went in, and tried to go for an easy set up, with me between her and the sheep. Success was only modest. She didn't dive in, but she was still too close and too fast. I just stopped the action and set her up again. Much, much better! She stayed out to a more appropriate distance, and didn't zoom nearly as much. I have to say I wondered if she was also assessing the footing and deciding that this was a bad day for zooming. She never fell the whole time, but if she were a car, I think you could say she "spun out" a few times.
She shifted in a few minutes to much calmer work on the stock. It seemed like a good time to work on driving. I have tried to start this by keeping her with me, perhaps a body length ahead, and driving the sheep around the pen, with me close by. I also don't let her bolt after them if they get away. I say "lie down, stay!" And she gets massive praise if she stays and lets them go ahead and bolt to the other side of the pen. Then together (always off-lead) we go to the sheep once they have settled, and start again. I try to get her to wear, with me staying with (and, until yesterday, sort of beside) her.
Yesterday, my goal was similar, but I wanted her to do the same work about 4-10 body lengths away from me. Given the round pen, all we could do was push the sheep around the perimeter most of the time. We warmed up with Bryna near me. Many "lie down" commands, the minute I saw an urge in her to bolt around them. (Oh, the bath that was coming!) So I shifted early on to "sit!", figuring that cleaning up a beardie butt would be less work than the whole dog. I was even shifting to "stand!" as we continued. Anyhow, the key seemed to be holding her from ever getting into a bolt.
I found myself saying "steady, steaaaaady, steaaaaaaaaaady" gently and softly, in a tone you might use to quiet a baby that was almost ready to fall asleep. The effect of that was interesting. She stayed slow better than she normally would. Then she began a serious stalk, quite reminiscent of a border collie style--front legs down, head down, slow approach. It occurred to me that Bryna's front legs are a hair shorter than perhaps might be desirable in a beardie. She has always worked very quietly. When the stalk got added to that mix, it produced quite a startling appearance.
When she was driving well, I tried to get some driving flanks by calling her to me --which often meant moving out from the sheep. This was very hard for her, if it meant she had to go away from the sheep. It didn't always work, but it did sometimes. I stopped on several occasions to tell her she was the best dog God ever made. It was quite remarkable for me to see this, given that we have done next to no driving with her working that far from me.
There are 2 punch lines to this story. One is that when we got home Bryna got a frozen marrow bone to play with, plus more praise, with my emphasizing her general high level of intelligence, excellent obedience, and overall wonderfulness. She accepted all of this graciously.
The bad punch line, from Bryna's point of view, is that she left the farm with a stripe starting just behind her eyes and going to the base of her tail, about a foot wide. That was the part of her that WASN'T covered with a mud/ice mixture. We stopped at the do-it-yourself Doggie Wash. Bryna was going to get the whole nine yards bath, but the owner said that her dad had just called saying that her mother had been in a car accident, broken her leg, and was at the hospital having it set. So she said that I could do however much I could clean in 20 min, while she got ready to close the store. So Bryna got off with a large foot bath, and still had a lot of dirt on her, but many fewer twigs, straw bits, and chunks of mud/ice.
For a day with such horrible conditions, we had a great time, and I have a very happy dog, now brushed and very demure-looking in her red hair ribbon.
Happy herding to all,
Lynne & Bryna