Bryna & I went to a clinic on outruns at Raspberry Ridge Sheep Farm on Feb. 6-8. The centerpiece of the clinic was learning the command "get out" as a prelude to a proper outrun. "Get out" means "turn away from the sheep" and if followed by "there" it means hold that distance. If the dog knows this command, it makes your outrun look a lot less like a Bowling for Sheep contest.
On Saturday (2/13) Bryna & I went to our usual training site near Leesburg, Virginia. We were having an OK, but not great morning. I stopped after we worked about 15 min, walked Bryna over to the side of the pen, and started to give her some water while she was on a down-stay. Apparently the sheep moved too much for her satisfaction. She took off like a bat out of hell, and I gave up yelling "lie down" after she gathered a full head of steam. When I caught up with her, I snapped her leash on and said "Look here, you just decided that we were quitting for today, so now we are going home." I put her in the car, drove home, and didn't speak to her for the next 3 hours, except to tell her to get out of the car. No screaming or yelling, just removed her and ignored her.
I think something sunk in. On Monday (a day off for me), we went out again and she said "Oh? You want me to lie down? Is this a convenient spot? You want me to slow down? Is this much enough?" We put some very flighty sheep through their paces. She was taking her "steady" commands, and staying off the stock much better than she usually does. But at one point the sheep broke, and Bryna took off. This was ok, since she had not been given a command to stay, and you don't want the dog to wait for a command to correct that situation. As she approached the 3 sheep, I thought "might as well give it a shot" and yelled "get out!" from my distance of about 30 yds (<30m) away. SHE DID IT! She widened out about 5 feet before going to the other sideat the top of the outrun. And I was even able to stop her on the other side. Now ideally, I would have been happier if she had been out about another 30 feet, but it was clear that she responded in the correct way. I was practically hopping up and down I was so happy. About 5 min later, I let the sheep bolt again, and again I got her to widen out. Utter bliss....
Dreaming of filling out our entry forms for the Oatlands Sheep Dog Trials,
Lynne & Bryna