Happy Trey
Trey was so happy yesterday when I finally headed out to the barn and gathered up a set of ducks. It’s been almost two months since I’ve had the time to get out and train. Grandbabies and holidays certainly take precedence over herding practice and the weather also plays a role at this time of year.
I gathered a set of all hens and released them in the front pasture. Immediately all of our bad habits came into play. Trey was too close causing the ducks to string out and split off. We worked on finding that elusive bubble of pressure where they would move and yet stay flocked. We didn’t find it – yet – but Trey did begin to back off the ducks’ butts. She was too fast/frantic causing her not to think and process, instead just react. I worked on keeping my voice low and quiet so as not to feed into her reactiveness and she slowed a bit and I could see her start to think.
She was too nice! This one is a hard one to correct. This set of ducks tends to not flock tightly. If one wants to head out on her own, she does. Safety in numbers doesn’t seem to be part of this group’s philosophy as I saw at least three of the five make a break for freedom and the barn. I knew this when I picked them for Trey’s lesson. If I always use my “British” set (so called because they are named Chuck, Harry, Simon, William, & George – figure it out) which is a lovely, tight-flocking, non-confrontational set of ducks that Trey finds easy to herd, then Trey doesn’t learn to think thru problems or handle difficult livestock. I use the British set when I’m introducing a new concept or practicing something difficult. It’s nice to have a set of ducks that doesn’t try to get away or challenge Trey.
And that leads us back to Trey’s last problem of being too nice. Livestock can read dogs as well as dogs can read livestock. Prey animals must be able to read the level of threat from a hunter and boy, these ducks can really read my dogs! Part of Trey’s ‘too close’ problem stems from her ‘too nice’ problem. The ducks know that she’s not going to hurt them and so they ignore her and do what they want. And it’s not just my ducks who can read her. Even strange ducks at a trial can read Trey and know that she won’t hurt them so they can basically ignore her. It appears that she has a lot of eye, but there is no power behind that eye. Beckett can be two fields away and still strike terror into a duck’s heart. She has power. Trey does not. So her too close issues come from having to be close enough to be enough of a threat to the ducks to get them to move. But then they string out and peel off and ignore her because she is no real threat.
So yesterday I encouraged Trey to rough up the duck that was trying to get away. At first she’d just go gather it back in but as I kept encouraging her to “get it!” she did a bit of an air-grip – just opening her mouth near the duck’s neck, never touching feathers. This did not impress the duck. But after repeated encouragement on several different occasions Trey finally started to be . . . well, less nice. Once she even rolled a duck and caused her to squawk in surprise. We had a bit less peeling off and more flocking after that. It will continue to be a problem, especially since there is a fine line between appropriate/necessary ‘roughing up’ and inappropriate/ unnecessary ‘duck bowling’.
This all happened while I was just letting Trey do mini outruns and fetch the ducks to me. Her old issues are still there for me to figure out and deal with, too. She leaves too fast on the outrun; she goes too straight – barely curving out at all (altho on her go-bye side she did widen out when I told her to ‘get out’ but only if I reminded her). And her worst problem is that she doesn’t cover her ducks on a go-bye outrun – she always stops short, allowing them to walk right by her on their way to freedom.
I can see it happening but don’t know if I can describe it. Here’s the scenario - the ducks are ‘escaping’ back to the barn on a line about 1:00 or so (if I am at 6:00). I send Trey on a go-bye (because that is the side we are practicing at the time even tho it may not be the ‘right’ way to send her) and she stops her outrun and starts walking in on her lift at about 11:30. Not even close to where she needs to be to cover their escape – in fact, her position pushes the ducks even farther over to 1:30 or 2:00. If I give her a reminder ‘go-bye’ command, she then overflanks by a lot and sometimes doesn’t even stop but continues to circle. She does not do this on her away flank, only the go-bye side which is her weak side anyway. And it’s not only on the outrun/lift. She doesn’t cover her stock at anytime on the go-bye, even driving.
So on her outrun and lift we have three main problems that I am struggling to figure out how to fix – 1) she leaves too fast, 2) she goes too straight (both sides but worse on the go-bye flank), and 3) she doesn’t cover her stock on the go-bye. Any suggestions are welcome. I know Laura gave me some tips on the leaving too fast but darned if my old brain can remember. I’ll have to contact her and get a refresher. (It’s hell to get old!)
Then I worked on Trey’s driving. I have a line of trees that run east/west along the north end of the front pasture. I stood about 15′ out from that line facing north and had Trey work on doing extended figure 8s around the trees in a perpendicular line to where I was facing. This helped Trey work on her cross driving concepts, helped me with my depth perception, and also helped me to learn when to flank her to make the turn around or past a tree.
It wasn’t pretty but we did get figure 8s around the four trees three times going both directions. At first Trey kept overflanking and trying to fetch them to me, but after a while she figured out what we were doing and listened to my ‘there’ as she flanked just enough to change their direction. I had to work hard to remember my flank commands (I am terrible about that!) and I had to work even harder to keep my voice quiet and low. I get frustrated easily and that comes out in my voice and poor Trey is the one who has to deal with it which she does by getting frantic and reactive.
The best part was that I didn’t resort to lying her down to get the ducks to go where we needed them to go. I didn’t do a ‘bump and drift’. Trey actually slowed down and stayed far enough back so that the ducks moved steadily and in a group. She even stopped on her feet once when I told her to ‘wait’! That’s a first!!
This set of ducks also doesn’t run right to the crate when they see it. Don’t know why they don’t see it as safety like the other ducks do. So we had to work pretty hard to get them to go into the crate. Trey did a fantastic job of staying back far enough and yet covering their escape and it only took us about 3-4 minutes to get all five into the crate. Guess we’re going to have to train them to the crate because a good training session can go bad if mayhem ensues when we are just trying to put the ducks away.
But Trey was a very happy herding dog yesterday and took a good long nap afterwards.
