Saturday morning (1/18), Bryna and I left with our friends Marsha and Dropshot (celebrating his 5th birthday), for the Raspberry Ridge Sheep Farm in Bangor, PA. We were meeting Teri Fleming and Haley (Bryna's 17 month old aunt), and Joyce (Teri's cousin) and Dawn (a sweet 12 year old beardie). Bryna & Dropshot were going to sharpen their herding skills over the 3 day weekend, and Haley and Dawn were going to lay eyes on sheep for the first time. Teri worried that Haley wouldn't turn on, but I bet her dinner that she would.
I told our hosts, Carolyn Wilki and Mitch Holmgren, that I had put in a purchase order with the weather gods 'way in advance. As Marsha and I unloaded her car, Mitch drove up and asked if I was sure I was dealing with the right weather gods! The temperature there in the Poconos was about 5 degrees F when we arrived, and with the wind chill I am sure it was -10F or lower. On Sunday, I think it was even colder -- certainly windier -- although the sun was out all weekend, and the light off the snow was blinding.
We worked our dogs in an unheated area in a barn. It was small, but out of the wind. Dawn went first, and she enjoyed herself and showed some interest in the sheep. She also enjoyed watching Joyce run around, and alternated in whether she wanted to play with Joyce or the sheep. Nonetheless, lots of interest for an old gal seeing sheep for the first time. She was an extremely sweet, sweet dog.
Then came Haley, on whom my dinner bet was riding. (Go, Haley, go!) She started out pretty confused and delighted by the presence of Dave, Carolyn's border collie, in the ring -- he was fun to play with too, but he didn't want to play. Then some of the sheep moved away from her and that got her going. She liked it! I enjoyed watching Teri, who didn't seem nearly as flat-footed with sheep as I was when I was starting out. Haley showed some puppy play behaviors -- and watching her move certainly reminded me of her mother Jody. But she definitely was going to make Teri lose her bet. Haley had a wonderful time -- nice first go for a young dog.
Then came Bryna, who hadn't worked in such a small area for months, and who has been trying to convince me for a month that she was ready to start in season. No question that she was ready to go and get HER sheep. Carolyn, who is very absorbed in operant conditioning and positive training began us with an exercise on a 20 ft lead. Bryna has plenty of power, and according to Carolyn ought to work at least 20+ feet off the stock. So as I worked around the ring, Carolyn let Bryna move to the balance points, but with short tugs would not let her move too close. We were, in effect, trying to re-condition Bryna to the proper distance, not the zone she has preferred. It was very interesting, and a fun exercise. She did begin to hold her more distant position -- seemingly on the opposite side of the room!
Then I worked Dropshot, while Marsha took pictures. Dropshot can work closer to the sheep, and he didn't have bad habits to unlearn. We made very nice progress with him in the same exercise, and he began doing spontaneous downs on the balance points. Once he knew that I would pop forward quickly with liver treats, he did a few more of these -- he's a real chow hound. And the slower pace of the exercise let him work for a longer time than he usually does. He is fun to work.
That night Marsha and I made dinner for our group and our hosts -- chicken marvella (a chicken dish with olive oil, capers, lots of herbs and spices -- and prunes!), rice, and a hot mushroom salad, and a Grand Marnier souffle. Joyce and Teri were the sous-chefs and sommeliers, and we all snarfed down everything. Then we got out the liver brownies, Frosty Paws, party hats, and presents to celebrate Dropshot's 5th. Tail-wagging fun!
Sunday morning, Bryna and I worked on another exercise, to help her pay attention to me as we go toward the sheep to start working. With me holding the long line, we walk to the sheep. The moment Bryna moves ahead of me, I ran away from the sheep, whooping and yelling to have fun, and lured her with a wonderful treat as I ran backwards from the sheep. Then I "let" her turn me to drive me back to the sheep (running backwards TO the sheep), and giving her bits of treat. We kept working closer and closer, and as we got better, I turned so that she was in heal position, and now "driving" my treat-filled left hand. Eventually (about 15-20 min) we could get to within 10 ft of the sheep with her driving me the whole way. It was great! Did I mention that this was outside, in a wind chill of about -10F? But no one got cold, with all this work.
Then we got to the next phase. The 5 sheep were in a small pen about 10 ft square. (It's the holding pen for the B course she has set up.) Bryna, on her line, herded the sheep with both of us outside the pen. This was to improve her stop on balance and down at a distance -- and give me chance to give her a treat when she downed on command properly. The length of the line let her go to just the opposite side. Whenever she paused on balance, I stood on the line, and *then* told her to lie down. Once she was really, really down, I zoomed around and dropped a liver treat between her paws. We did that a few times, then varied the routine with my grabbing the lead at that point, whooping happily, and saying "get back out", and pointing at a line or track as we ran together. When she got there, I said "there!", then "lie down." We worked up to my being able to back off a few steps, and then allowing her to drive me to the sheep again. We both had a great time. We worked on that for an hour, ate lunch and rested, then worked on the same exercise in the afternoon alone.
When we came back to the farmhouse, Carolyn had a student with a beginning German shepherd (also on a long line), who was learning to tend a boundary. We stopped to watch. The flock of about 60 sheep and 10 lambs had a fence on 2 sides, and rope on the ground marking the other 2 sides -- about 40ft x 60ft. They were just starting an exercise in which Carolyn clearly and blatantly dropped corn on the ground outside the tended area. The shepherd's job now was to keep the sheep in the boundary, and not in the corn. Carolyn said that, since we were standing there anyway, we could watch the short side, to make sure the sheep didn't surge around! We had worked groups of 12 sheep on only 2 occasions before! I had no idea what Sweet Pea would think of so many. But we did it. She got bored when the sheep were just standing there, but when they began to surge, she was a trooper. No barks, but just good pressure when I said "get 'em up" as a sheep approached our side.
Then things got really interesting. Someone told Carolyn that a ewe was having trouble with her lambing. Carolyn had to leave, and we 4 neophytes were to keep the sheep in the section with the corn. While the corn lasted, this was no trouble at all. But after about 30 min, and no Carolyn, the student with the shepherd had to leave to go home. Carolyn asked Bryna and me to keep the sheep there until more corn was gone, and then help them back to the pen. I was relieved when she said that that was a place they would want to go anyway, and our job was primarily to make sure there were no strays, and that the gate was shut after them.
After a while (and it was now getting dark), most of the heads seemed to be up (and I couldn't see the corn anyway), so I decided to let them go back. What I didn't know was that a truck now blocked our route and the sheep all had to filter around it in a 3-4ft opening on either side of it. This split the sheep, and we had to do lots of maneuvering but we got them all in, and shut the gate. Sweet Pea had done real work!!! Smootches to her head, and dog biscuits galore. Sure, it was on a long lead, but she had worked hard, never quit, faced down the biggest bunch of sheep she had ever seen, and her mom didn't embarrass her by falling on the ice on her fanny or anything.
Bryna was very very tired that evening. Marsha, Teri (RN), and Joyce had been lamb-tending during all of this, and helping save several lambs.
Dropshot and I had a fast lesson Monday AM and so did Bryna and I before breakfast. We got to see Haley & Teri work again, and it was fun to see so clearly that Haley was getting the concept. It was also great fun to get to meet Teri and Joyce -- their experience in beardie-dom certainly dwarfs mine.
We got home to what seemed like a balmy low 30sF. Both of us had a big dinner, and crashed into bed around 10:00. We worked hard! And we can't wait to go back there in August for a week of sheep dude ranch!
Cheers,
Lynne and Bryna (the tough Sweet Pea)