Saturday, June 16, 2012

The first day of the rest of there lives



The first batch of sheep arrived to day, I custom graze sheep and cattle. With the arrival of the sheep the start of custom training for Kate and her son Wage begins. Kate has been rough trained and is very effective with cattle. Wage has been exposed to sheep starting at 4 months of age and showed a remarkable talent for heading. Formal training is now underway.

Today the training is all about control. The dogs must learn, at this stage, that they will only work when told to do so. It's like boot camp where they learn the other side of themselves. First command is the "with me" command. This is some what like a heel command. Incorporated with this command is the “There” command. This is the stop command.

Today's training incorporating the above commands, was primarily shepherding. In other words we got to watch the sheep eat grass. It's a great self control exercise for the dogs and will be very useful in the future when checking cattle and sheep. This training will likely go on for about a week. All things being equal, we should begin to start on some directional commands: the "way to" and "go by" commands. Until the next time enjoy ....