Before I share this experience, let me tell you about Bryna's personality, at least away from sheep.
Bryna not only respects me as alpha around the home, she also seems to believe that she is not beta but gamma or even delta--in a household consisting of one human, one dog, and the occasional mouse. She is always fed after I eat, never gets on the bed or furniture, stays in the back of my station wagon as I have taught her, generally waits for me to go through doors first (not always, since I don't insist if it is more convenient for her to go first) or glances at me to see if I object. She never plays with toys that I haven't given her unless some other dog has also played with them, and doesn't touch things that aren't hers. I can leave any food on the counter that I want, for as long as I want, even if I am not in the house. (Well, OK, I wouldn't leave fresh fish at the front of the counter all day if I were gone, but most stuff she wouldn't think of touching.) If she has something in her mouth that I want to inspect, then even if she is out in the yard and I walk toward her and say in a firm tone "what have you got?", she does one or more of the following: sinks to the ground, rolls onto her back, drops the object, or faces away from me.
She shuts down if I punish her, but is overjoyed with praise. She is very cautious about loud noises, especially ones that involve metallic sounds. But so far, for any noise that I can expose her to repeatedly, she has acclimated. (I am unwilling to duplicate firecrackers and cherry bombs of 4th of July, so that is pretty bad for her, but she is no longer worries about thunderstorms, garbage trucks, squealing kids, clanging carts in the nursing home, etc.)
In obedience work, if I can keep her concentrated, she is terrific fun to work with. (Do note the important conditional there, though it isn't that important to what follows.) A recall is her best event--zooooom! When she was younger, I had a hard time breaking her of submissive urination, but she doesn't do that now. She is a kissy-face, cuddly dog, and views crawling into my lap after grooming for a minute or 2 as a reward.
Get the picture? I totally dominate this dog. There are no things around the home or house for me to add to my repertoire to dominate her--any more and she would turn to dust!
Now, consider what happens when we go to sheep. I have had a very hard time getting her to down on command. I have worked instead with "there" for a standing stop. This is getting better, but not what you would expect for a dog with as many lessons as we have had. She is utterly fearless around the sheep--lunges back at a ewe that tries to but her, goes between at least 5-10 sheep and a fence, runs right back if she gets rolled, etc. Her stamina is stupendous, and I can't tire her out before I tire me out. She just gets manic around the sheep. She still cuts in. Her balance is nice, and when she settles she has a nice steady pace that is wonderful. But it appears that she is the one who decides to do that, not me. But she doesn't listen to me very well. When she is listening she is lovely, though.
So last weekend, I went to Raspberry Ridge Sheep Farm. Bryna was on her 2nd lesson on Sunday. We had done a fun exercise before the lesson started. We did obedience work outside the pen with sheep inside. We did fast fun work, but also some stays, facing first away and then toward the sheep. Then we went into the pen (about 100x200, all set up with 2 gates for a PT course) and did some more. As long as we stayed at least 20 ft from the sheep, she could do this, and do it fairly well, though I was using really terrific treats and she was hungry. At a point when I got good attention, we began the lesson. Within 3 minutes, she was blowing me off.
Carolyn and I agreed beforehand that when that happened, I would dash out of the pen and disappear, down the hill and out of sight. (You wouldn't want to do this with just any dog and any set of sheep. But beardies seem particularly unlikely to try to kill a sheep, and Bryna less likely than that.) The idea was that Bryna would get herself stuck, unable to move the sheep, realize that she needed me, and start to look for me. That was the theory, anyhow....
I left the ring, while Carolyn stayed to report. After about 30 seconds, she said "come back up high enough to see this--you've got to see this!" Bryna had taken nice control of the stock and was working them in a calm measured pace, never once splitting them. She was trotting the sheep through the PT course!!!! She was taking back nicely, balanced the 4 through the gate, through the next gate, 1/2 way down the other side, paused, turned them back (comeby) to the gates, got them all through perfectly--it was the best run I had ever SEEN! (This is all true--I wish I had had a video of it.) I began to wonder if she was going to try to pen them, but no, she got to the center, and started them back through the gates for a 2nd waytome run. (She probably just then noticed that she didn't have opposable thumbs to open the gate....)
Finally the sheep got stuck in a corner. I think she might have gotten them off eventually, but I called her off. She wasn't thrilled but she did it.
What did all of this mean? First, after I got over how humbled I felt, I wondered should I spend my evenings with her, reading her the rules for the started B course? Can you put a dog in the pen to run the course without the human there???? I did reflect on the beardie's original breeding to do lots of independent work out of sight of the shepherd. She would enjoy being on a dairy farm, bringing the cows in to milk. The farmer could send her out, get a second cup of coffee, and find each cow in its own stall when he got to the barn. Probably after a few months Bryna would figure out how to attach the milking machines....
After some discussion, Carolyn and I guessed that Bryna may view me as a particularly interesting and difficult obstacle in herding. And my attempts to block her might just make her more frantic to get the job done. If that is the case, I need to build more solidly in her mind the idea that LYNNE IS THE HUMAN WHO REWARDS HER WITH SHEEP WHEN SHE WORKS WELL, not THE HUMAN WHO STOPS HER FROM DOING THE JOB. That fits well with how I have worked with her in obedience--after I got rid of the nylon choke collar for a flat buckle collar, and switched to an all-reward method, with next to no punishments/disincentives. If this were doubles tennis, I want her to start thinking of me as her partner, rather than as someone standing on the same side of the net blocking a hard fast volley.
Having said that, I am faced with the question of "how?" I would appreciate suggestions, as specific as possible. This will be constrained by the need to be near sheep, since the problem hardly occurs elsewhere. My first idea, which I haven't tried, is to have our quiet discussion as we have been, and which seems to help but not be enough, then to do some obedience work as close to the gate as we can manage. As she pays attention, we move close to the pen, and move away if she doesn't. After some good attention work, we enter the arena with her off-lead, or on a very long line. If she bolts for the sheep, we quit and take her entirely out of sight of the pen, for say 10 min. There would be no voice corrections or jerks (unless she hits the end of the line hard and does it to herself). Then try (obedience, enter, attention/bolt) again. If it failed the 2nd time, go home. This seems like a variation on what some of you have tried. For you clicker folks, I ask if this seems sufficiently like turning Sheep Into a Reward for Work with Lynne, rather than presenting Lynne, the Kill-Joy Remover of Sheep?
My apology for the length, but this problem takes some explaining.
Very humbly,
Lynne