Clinic with Gordon and progress update

We haven't been herding much lately because its been trials time and Laurie is busy helping with trials or competing with Bandit so Bandit can qualify for the 2011 Aussie Nationals.  I attended an AKC and ASCA stockdog trial to see how these things work and to get Fly used to the environment.  It happened that both of these trials were at the same farm in Washington MO.  It was nice to meet some people and I even got some experience moving stock when I was drafted to help at the ASCA trial. 

Fly and I got about 10 minutes of work after the first trial day of ASCA.  It was light attendance and we were just getting the stock ready for the next day.  We basically ran a 'started' course, thru two gates, along the fence.  Fly did pretty good considering it had been 3 weeks since she'd worked any sheep.

I met Jerry and Sharon Rowe from Kansas who have been in the Aussie world for about 40 years plus.  I then audited one day of his clinic and learned about the sheep pressure 'bubble' and how when dogs get too close into the bubble, the sheep explode.  Very good explanation!  Also , Sharon helped me with getting respect from Fly .  I realized that I'd been letting her get away with badness, pulling me around the field, etc.  We are making good progress here!  Now all the dogs have to sit/stay when I open a door, I go out first, then they come out and sit/stay again while I close the door.  THEN they can be released.  Its definitely taking a lot of the doorway chaos out of the picture!  I also need to work on 'with me' when walking with Fly . She is NOT allowed to be the boss!

Finally we had another lesson and we are working on smoother outruns.  Fly has a tendancy to cut in too close.  We need to round out that 'outrun' and make it smoother and calmer.   Then Tuesday of this week we had a clinic with Gordon Watts.  Back in June we tried to go but Fly wouldn't work for Laurie and I wasn't ready either.  Gordon said 'big improvement'!  yay!  Fly worked well and Gordon helped me out the outruns. 

What I need to do is be on the far side of the sheep before we start with Fly on a stay.  Then ask her just to walk, as in fetching. THEN I can turn a bit as I described in an earlier post, this sets Fly up to do a little outrun to get around the sheep.  I use the 'shhh, shhh ' sound to tell her to go around.  The fact that she is already walking helps keep the whole process calm.  I can also add the 'come by' and 'away' flanking commands to teach her direction.  We had a 2nd session at the end of the day , very short, and we did MUCH better.  Gordon also stressed that short quality sessions are MUCH better than training too long and getting bad results.  Can't wait for more sheep time!