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.