Into the Field

 I was recently asked to help prepare a group of Heifers for an annual Fall Fair Cow Dog trial. My job is to dog break the cattle which should calm them down for when they go to the arena. The trial is indoors and when you take a bunch of cattle that have never been exposed to that type of surrounding it can take a great deal of fun away from the trial.

This is a perfect time and place to evaluate the training my pups have received to date. I had my new pup, Wage, with me as well as this mother, Kate, and of course my main dog, the old guy. Each morning we would round up the Heifers out in the field and bring them into a paddock. We would then separate a few and move them into another paddock and work them for about 1/2 hour. We then join the separated ones up with the rest of the herd and move them back out into the field. We did this up to 4 times a day.

Wage working the flank

Here he keeping everyone on the straight and narrow

While moving the cattle I used as few commands as possible. Mostly “there” and occasionally a directions command “go bye” or “away to me”. This gives me an excellent opportunity to find out where we are in the reaction to the commands. So now that we are back home it back to the side commands.

Even in the paddock he is keeping order

It was very interesting to watch Wage, he is 8 months old, work the flanks with very little direction. He would swing out and run along to near the head of the herd and then turn into them and run back to where we were driving from. This appears to be natural to him. He exhibited the same technique in the paddocks. He certainly did not pull any punches when one of the Heifers stepped to far of the line.

After 3 days of this, training in the training paddock is not going to be as exciting. Back to working on sides

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 ....

The Stop Command

I recently watched some super cow dogs performing at the annual DMS cow dog trial in Vanderhoof BC. Not only was it a good trial, the competitors were top notch. Competitors and dogs came from through out the Pacific North West and through out BC.

One handler and his dog caught my eye. When the dog was given a command it responded immediately. When the down command was given that dog hit the ground and you could not get a hair under him from chin to tail. I'm almost convinced that the dog has a flat underside.

Why do I mention this? Well I no longer teach my dogs, or handlers, the down command. I want my dogs upright and always maximum visibility to the cattle. Also teaching the dog the down command wastes a tremendous amount of energy. This is critical when moving large numbers of cattle over long periods of time. Remember that my main aim of this blog is to train WORKing stock dogs.

Now if you are training a competition dog then you might want to teach the down command. I do not see any need for it. Some may argue that is the only way you can get a good stop (?) on a dog and that you can always train a dog to stand. You may be right and if that works for competition folks then who am I to argue. There is no reason however that you can not get a perfect (?) stop at the stand position. It's all in the way you train the dog.

It is a pleasure to watch the competition dogs work. Most competitions do not allow the dog to think on it's feet. Time and points are the main concern. Still it's nice to watch.

Starting the stock dog pup

As I discussed in an earlier post I like to take a pup to stock at 5 or 6 months. This is not a training session but more of an evaluation session. What I am looking for is the reaction of the pup to stock. I usually use sheep for this and try to get a group of somewhat passive sheep if possible All I do is release the pup in the general area of the sheep and stand back and watch what happens. Several things can happen:

1. There will be no interest.
2. The pup may show some signs of curiousity.
3. The pup may advance towards the sheep.
4. The pup may charge the sheep.
5. The pup may start to circle (head) the sheep.

When checking this out you should try and have the sheep moving slowly. This may spark some interest to the pup. Now if there is no interest after a few moments, at this early age this is no real problem. The hormones and instinct have not kicked in yet. I will take the pup away and try again in about 1 month's time. There is no sense in trying to force the issue as you may end up doing more harm the good.

Now if the pup takes an immediate interest and starts to do something then I will give her a few minutes and then call the pup off. I want you to note what I said here: “I call the pup off”. This is very important because if you can not call the pup off you have not done your preliminary training. With a pup 5 to 6 months old and for that matter any new pup or dog, I will not expose them to sheep for at least 3 or 4 weeks later after this initial exposure.

Handlers have to accept the fact that not all pups can be started early. I have known dogs that were18 months before they were turned on. I'm not sure if I would want to wait that long and usually would place the dog in a good home.

If you take a look at the following picture, you will see a very young bitch pup displaying obvious herding instinct. No commands are attempted and she is allowed to “do her thing”.




She was first taken to sheep at 5 months and displayed similar behaviour. She is 6 months in this photo. I took her off the stock after approximately 5 minutes and chained her to a post while I did some training on another dog. When I finished the training session I let her have another short go at the sheep be for calling her off. I will follow this routine every couple of weeks and watch as her confidence builds. I suspect at 7-1/2 to 8 months she will be ready for daily training as well as doing some work with the other dogs.



Now this all may sound like I am trying to force the training issue. Quite the opposite. If a pup is ready then it will become more satisfying to the pup, after all, these are herding dogs and that is what they do. The key is don't force it. Also remember “exercise, discipline, then affection” makes for a happy pooch.

Until the next time

My Dog(s)

You will notice in the header picture a different looking cow dog. Most folks think that the only good stock dog is a Border Collie. Well I have not met to many of them I did not like. Having bred, raised, trained and worked BC's for many years, I just could not get the consistency I wanted in my breeding program. Also I encountered that aged old problem of getting only 1/2 to 3/4's of a day of work from them. I know that I will get lots of discussion on this and so be it.

In my BC breeding days, the most consistent question I would get from "working" folks was: Will your dogs work all day? I could not answer that question in the affirmative and that always struck me. I had good breeding stock and some as tough as nails, but the working all day in mountainous terrain, heavy bush, was always a problem.

I was introduced to a new breed, the "New Zealand Heading Dog", or some times called the "New Zealand Collie". The dog works with a heads up style and is a really great thinking dog. But more on that in a later post. What I have learned about stock handling and herding I attribute a lot to my dogs. This has also changed the way that I now approach training the working stock dog.

I will get into some thoughts on training in general in my next pot

The beginning

The purpose of this blog is to start a dialog on a most valuable working ranch hand, the working stock dog. Be it sheep, cattle, chickens (?) or competition. This blog will definately not be breed specific and will probably talk abut guradian dogs as well.

One of my main concerns is the training of the stock dog. I will spend a lot of time on this and will revisit each topic frequently. I suspect that some of my thoughts will be controversial, and hopefully will generate some discussions.

Although I am retired, I continue to be involved in ranching (on a contract basis), stock dog training and also I put on stock dog demonstrations at fall fairs and special occations. I have just purchased a new bitch pup and will be sharing with you all the fun stuff of bring her up and training her to be a useful working stock dog. I will introduce you to her and why I made the choice for her breed in a later post.

That is it for now .... stay tuned