Beckett and her Ducks

It is so weird to see Beckett stay so far off the ducks and treat them so nicely — unlike what she does on sheep — as long as I keep my mouth shut. Beckett has so much baggage from a poor start to her herding training and I don’t have the skills or patience to retrain her. But she SO loves to herd, so I let her ‘get the ducks’ occasionally when they are out and about or I let her do a bit of fetching out in the big field before I start Trey’s lesson.

If Trey had her distance on the ducks, I’d be in heaven. But the part of the problem is that the ducks know that Beckett means business, even when she’s far away and being nice to them, and they also know that Trey is not confident enough to make them do anything from the same distance. Darn birds are smart! I’m hoping with time and training, Trey will develop the same strength of confidence that Beckett has. They both have the same amount of eye, but when it’s coupled with a lack of confidence it loses its power.

I let Beckett fetch a bit out in the big field last Sunday but forgot that I needed to contain the birds again. I could have put their crate out and they would have run right in (especially with Beckett behind them) but I had left the crate up by the barn where I released the ducks for Beckett. We were near the free-standing pen so I figured if I could get Beckett to get the ducks close enough, they’d run right in. Problem was to keep my mouth closed so as not to cause her to turn into ‘Mr. Hyde’.

So I just moved about so that she would go to balance and effectively change the direction of the flock. At the gate of the pen, the ducks started to drift the wrong way, so I stuck my stock stick out and very softly shushed Beckett and gave her the flank command — and she took it quietly without any bad things happening. The ducks changed direction and penned up quietly. I was so very proud of her!

Getting Better

Trey’s outruns are really coming along. I had her out on Sunday and we did a pretty long (for her) go-bye outrun, well over 100 feet. She started to slice in at the top but then self-corrected. This is exciting to see on two fronts. The first is that she is starting to realize that she has to stay out  all the way around to the lift. The second makes it even more exciting as Trey’s go-bye side is her ‘weak’ side. She is more likely to do a correct outrun without slicing or crossing over from the away side. So to see her self-correct and not slice on the go-bye side was very exciting and rewarding.

Now I kow this isn’t going to carry over into the trial field yet as it is not ingrained as a ‘default’ behavior. But with practice and more practice, it will eventually override her default slice. I just have to be patient and not lengthen the outrun too quickly.

I’m pretty confident that Trey is ready to qualify in Started B. Our weakest area will be the pen. Trey still moves so fast when I give her a flank command that she is way beyond where I want her by the time I can get the lie down command out. This causes problems as she ‘over corrects’ the ducks’ path, causing weaving at the minimum which is points off, but worse she makes penning them much, much more difficult than it needs to be — especially since the ducks really want to go into the pen and her behavior deflects them away from the gate. Gotta figure out how to slow her down. . .

Sheep Visit for Trey

The last time I went out to Lisa’s to work sheep, Trey did a real nice job. Lisa was pleased, as was I. Trey showed more eagerness to herd the sheep. I guess she’s figured out that they’re as fun to herd as the ducks!

Trey’s first outrun was pretty good. She turned off the sheep but then started to slice in on them. So I stopped her and then redirected her with a ‘get out’.

Trey has a funny little turn back on her get out that Lisa doesn’t like. When I stop her with a lie down and then redirect, Trey pivots tightly to her right, almost flipping over her shoulder. This isn’t efficient but we both think that she’ll stop it as time goes on since  she’s smart enough to figure that out. But it IS funny looking. It stems from me using physical body pressure to push her out when I was teaching her the get out command.

Lisa also told me that I was anticipating that Trey would slice in and stopping her before she actually did, preventing her from learning that it’s wrong. She told me to wait until she did slice (I thought I was but apparently was anticipating), then mark it with an “oops” or other wrong marker, and THEN lie her down and/or redirect her.

Trey’s speed was much slower and she also never did any diving in for cheap thrills, either. So improvement in that area. But one thing we noticed was that she wasn’t getting to their heads on her flanks. I wanted her to do a small outrun and then bring them to me. She’d get the sheep to me but never got to balance to hold them to me. instead the sheep kept circling me as Trey ran just at their shoulders, pushing them around and around me. We let her figure it out on her own and it took about 10 minutes of her circling before she wore out and pushed up her pace to get to their heads and stop them. When she got to balance and laid down, we praised her and quit.

Lisa thinks this is partly due to the fact that I am teaching her to drive. I hope so as she has such a lovely natural sense of balance that I don’t want to lose!

Update on the Michigan trip — we didn’t get to Sharon’s for a lesson as it poured all day Saturday. Too bad as I really wanted to do that. But Beckett did earn her UD and also her first UDX leg! Yippee!

Improvement Continues

Trey’s concept of ‘get out’ is steadily improving. I am moving around the set out point for the ducks to change the picture a bit each time we work so that she doesn’t do better just because she is comfortable. Trey is now flanking off more readily when moving the ducks around and she is also staying off their butts better. If I don’t stay on her she does tend to creep closer, but at least she’ll back off again when I tell her. Her speed is slowing down, too.

Her outruns are truly becoming a thing of beauty. We are consistently doing 100+ foot outruns with Trey’s line well to the side instead of straight up the middle. She’s still not moving 90 degrees on her first takeoff flank, but she does widen out on her own as she goes. She’s still wanting to slice in at the top and I am still redirecting her at that point. Good thing is that I’m not having to lie her down each time to get the redirect. She’ll do it on the move now, except of course, when the ducks are moving. If they remain in their holding ring, then Trey takes the redirect, but if I pull the ring over at the point that it would happen in a trial, she slices in and won’t move off when told unless I lie her down. It’ll take time but I am happy to see the improvement continuing.

I took her to a friend’s place to work some different (and larger) ducks and I did see that everything we’ve worked on and improved here at home fell apart in the new setting. I expected that as it’s what happens with obedience training, also. On our first outrun yesterday, she went straight up the middle at an extreme pace and wouldn’t lie down or redirect. After a mild scolding, she got better on subsequent outruns. None were as good as here at home, but I did see her trying to think and do it correctly.

This set of ducks also challenged her quite a bit. It’s amazing how these birds can read a dog and assess their confidence and ability. Three of the ducks stayed together, but two kept splitting off, even if Trey was clear across the arena from them. And they wouldn’t split and stay together — no, they went in two different directions. When Trey approached the one, he’d scurry back to the flock of three but the other single would hold his ground and hiss at her. Trey didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but I kept encouraging her and telling her to “get ‘em” and she finally did a mild grip a couple times and the duck moved for her from then on. So we’ll go back in a couple weeks and work them again. Trey should do much better the next time.

Next Monday, I’m going up to Lisa’s for another lesson (and to pick up my “new” used laptop). I’m hoping Trey can show Lisa some of her good work. I know that Lisa will have some insight and new things for us to bring home and practice. Then the next weekend (Aug 7-9) I’ll be in Lansing for Beckett’s next attempts at getting that last Utility leg and her title. I sure hope she pulls it off. Deb and I are hoping to get up to Grand Rapids to Sharon’s farm so I can see Cinder do some herding in person. Deb is hoping to get her ready for an couple of HT attempts at the National Specialty in October. I’m also hoping to get a lesson in with Trey. I understand that Sharon is an excellent instructor and am eager to hear what she might have to say about Trey’s herding. Also, it’ll be another new place and new stock for Trey to practice on.

Trey’s “Get Out”

We have continued to work on Trey’s “get out” command and I ‘m really seeing a big difference in my control over her. Ever so slowly, her outruns are widening out, but they’re not perfect yet. I am having to lie her down as she is still slicing in near the top. But when I do lie her down and redirect her with a “get out”, she peels back over her shoulder and widens out and comes up behind the stock very nicely. Now if I can get her to do that without the redirect.

On Tuesday, I took Trey and the ducks out into the other pasture where we normally haven’t trained. I need to keep moving things around so that she doesn’t get comfortable with one area or situation. I didn’t set up the ring nor did we practice the “get out circle exercise”. I wanted to see what Trey remembered from previous lessons. So I put the ducks in the holding ring with a long line attached to pull it over if she did a nice enough job to ‘get’ her ducks.

I was very pleased with the outruns she did. As I said previously, she still sliced in at the top causing me to stop her and redirect her. But I can see that she is trying and actually getting some of it right. Our first outrun was over 100 feet and she stayed well out until the slice. I am very sure that by the time October rolls around we will be ready for the B course outrun.

So after working a few outruns, I let Trey have her ducks and we worked on the free-standing pen exercise. I had it set up near the top of the pasture by the barn so the ducks were running that direction anyway. So I used that opportunity to let the ducks ‘get away’ from Trey as she held her lie down. She is very worried that they will escape and sometimes ignores my commands as she thinks she knows what needs to be done.

The pastel set that we were using are very sensitive to my presence also so they didn’t want to run right into the pen with me standing holding the gate. So Trey got some flanking practice in along with more ‘get out’ practice. It was nice to see her move off the ducks when I told her to get out. She will learn that she doesn’t have to be right on their tail feathers to get the job done, but it will take time as I allowed it to go on too long before correcting it.

We also just ‘bumped’ the ducks around the pasture — I’d have Trey either walk in or flank and then lie her down before she got too close to the ducks butts and then let them drift and settle. Then I’d have her walk in again and then lie her down. She will have to do this a LOT to learn to slow down and pace herself a decent distance away from the stock. So we bumped them around for about 15 minutes without Trey getting ramped up or diving into them and with no stress on the ducks (they were happy to eat the bugs we stirred up). It was a real positive lesson and Trey enjoyed herself while she learned.

Overall, I think we are making great progress!