Posts from — February 2008

Last week, I had a rather heated e-mail discussion with a woman about the qualities of certain lines of Border Collies. The woman in question is a sheep farmer. She bred for toughness in her lines. She wanted a dog who would stand its ground while a ewe rammed it until the ewe figured out the dog wasn’t going to back down or hurt her baby. She also relayed stories about dogs working through broken bones, a bitch leaving the whelping box, carrying a puppy with her and going through electric fence to get in to work sheep, dogs who had to be hobbled while they worked sheep to prevent them from killing sheep, etc.

This discussion occurred after I told her of a bitch (from the lines we were discussing) who had stopped working after being injured while working stock and then was beat by her then owner because she wouldn’t work. According to this woman, the bitch shouldn’t be bred because she quit working. The bitch is working perfectly fine today in the hands of a new handler.

You know what? If I was injured while doing something, I’d be reluctant to do it again and someone beating me would offer little encouragement. I wouldn’t expect a dog to be any different. It’s a matter of survival. If a certain action causes you injury, you approach it again with extreme caution, if at all. If not, then you may very well be killed the next time around.

Is an all-consuming desire to work, even if it is through extreme pain, something that you’d want in a dog or any living being for that matter? Are dogs so expendable that they can use them until they are completely used up?

I’ve seen some Border Collies in agility trials who go over and through obstacles with what appears to be little sense of self-perservation. Sure they are fast and they win trials if they stay on course, but what about injuries? These dogs are so driven to run courses that to look at them it’s as if they have completely lost their minds and perhaps maybe they have.

Breeding for any extreme is never a good idea. Of course a stock dog needs to be tough, but who in their right mind would expect a dog to work through broken bones? And what about the mothering instincts of a bitch who left her puppies to get to sheep? I don’t know. I think some people have their heads buried in the sand.

We had an episode this morning which caused me to stop and think about my relationship with my dogs and how important it is for whatever we do together. Just like yesterday morning, four of the lambs separated off from the main group. They ended up along the fence in the front pasture with the rest of the lambs inside their fenced-in area. I decided this would be a good training opportunity and brought Gel out to the front pasture with the intent to pull the four lambs away from the fence and bring them further into the pasture to work. I drew a crude map of how my property sits so you can get an idea of where we were.

I sent Gel to the left, intending that he pull the sheep off the fence and started walking to the right into the front pasture. Gel went, but he was hesitant. Almost as soon as he started out, the sheep turned tail and ran back along the fence line. Gel stopped and turned and looked at me. I “shsssssh’d” him along at which point he went out to the right, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in bringing those sheep to me. The four lambs got back onto my property (after the duck pen, there is an old barbed wire fence that the sheep can get through) and back into the pen with the rest of the group and Gel ended up in the gateway holding them in. He was looking at me and I know he was expecting me to yell at him, and I almost did.

I stopped and thought about it. Should I bring the sheep back out to where we started and try again, or should I put Gel up and not allow him another opportunity to work. In retrospect, I should have sent Gel to the right so that he could have stopped the sheep from escaping, using the fence line as a barrier. Sure, he could have stopped them going to the left, but it was putting him in an awkward position. I wasn’t thinking about where the sheep might go, I was only thinking about where I wanted to go. Stupid thinking on my part and I put Gel in a position to loose his sheep, something I try not to do. Gel is an honest dog and if he quits, it is because I’ve put him somewhere where he shouldn’t be.

Still, I don’t like it when he quits.

So, I went back onto my property and put Gel on a chain in front of the fenced-in area where my sheep were and took Fern (a/k/a the speed demon) in to work her. I only worked her for about five minutes, then took her out and let Gel off the chain. He went to the gate expecting his turn, which he didn’t get. Hopefully I made my point, “I understand I put you in a bad position and I have no right to be mad at you for loosing the sheep, BUT, I expect that you are going to put forth a reasonable effort to right things as long as I don’t yell at you.”

It is all about relationship building. I’ve done Gel a lot of wrong due to my stupidity about stock. I hate that it happens and that it is still going to happen sometimes, but it is a learning process. Luckily, Gel is relatively forgiving. I have to keep reminding myself about where I was a year ago and how far along we’ve come. When I think about where we were two years ago, now that’s scary. We’ve come a long way. It can only get better.

It is amazing to me the difference between a puppy consuming kibble and one eating a raw diet. Monty was with me for two weeks while his family was vacationing in Sante Fe. What a difference between his body structure and Pyro’s who is on kibble. Monty is big, but he’s lean, very coordinated and still looks like a puppy.

Pyro grew too big, too fast. I understand that is typical of a puppy fed kibble, especially if it is kibble designed for puppies. Wally finally took her off puppy kibble, but the damage may have already been done. I know she’s been supplementing her diet with a lot of treats which isn’t ideal either. She was spayed recently, which is likely to only exaggerate her odd growth pattern. I hope she’ll be okay. Time will tell.

It took seeing photos of a three-month-old white-factored Border Collie puppy that I know is eating kibble to realize what the difference is. They are high in the leg, with big bone. It’s almost like a sausage perched on top of tree trunks. There’s no symmetry to the picture. It is harder to see in black dogs. I knew something was wrong, but couldn’t put my finger on it.

I believe feeding kibble matures dogs and cats faster than they should. That could be because of the quality of ingredients that is used in a lot of brands. Let’s face it, if you are selling kibble for $1.00 or less per pound, consider the price per pound the manfacturers are paying for the ingredients in order to make a profit. You can bet there the ingredients are going to be bottom-of-the-barrel and certainly not chemical or growth-hormone free.

I couldn’t help but notice the signs of spring in the air this morning when I was walking the dogs. I could hear the frogs near the river and there were more birds singing that what I’ve heard recently. Some Canada Geese were on the pond. Daffodils have bloomed. Before long the time will change and I can get some reliable training time in after work.

A perfect training opportunity opened itself up this morning. Seven of the lambs separated from the herd and went out into the field adjacent to my house. They were up near my neighbor’s house. I sent Gel to the left and he started running along the fence, then went under the fence and disappeared from view. He’s never done that before and I was wondering if perhaps he didn’t see the sheep or maybe thought he was going to go out to pick up more on the other side of the fence. I should not have doubted him because he appeared behind the sheep exactly where he should be. The beautiful thing was, the sheep didn’t even see him until he walked up on them.

I flanked him back and forth on the fetch using whistle commands and when the sheep got close to me, I flanked him completely around and started a drive. My instructor wants me really “chatting him up” with whistles on his drive and it took until this morning to figure out what she meant by that. Darned if it didn’t work pretty well. Gel is probably never going to be a good driving dog, or maybe it’s just like everything else, all in good time.

I was sick with yet another head cold over the weekend into Monday. I haven’t been so sick with viral-related illnesses since I’ve moved to North Carolina. The only thing I can attribute it to is that I’m now working in a high rise building in contact with lots of people. I was miserably sick. Not much is worst than a head cold. What I would have done to call in sick on Monday, but I couldn’t.

I am better now.

The dogs and I spent most of the weekend in the house curled up on the couch watching bad movies. They seemed to know I was sick and were quite happy snuggling. I did take them for several runs and I worked both dogs on sheep on Saturday. I took a few photos of Fern who is now six months old. She’s turning into quite the stylish worker. And keen? When she sees stock now, the head and tail come down and she’s “on.” I put my video camera up on a tripod and took two videos, but I wasn’t happy the results. I was using my lambs, who are not really dog-broke so I had to do a lot of repositioning to stay in the picture. There was too much dead-space in the video when I reviewed it. I’ll get videos during my lesson on Saturday.

Yesterday, I caught up with an open (USBCHA) handler that I used to work dogs with. It was nice to hear from him. We’ll be getting together over the next couple of weeks to work cattle. He has some young dogs he needs to work and has access to broke cattle. He’s fun to hang out with so I look forward to it. It’s funny, an individual was spreading rumors that all the handlers in my area were refusing to work with me, and I took that to heart so when I don’t hear from someone, I think it’s because I’m a bad person, but that hasn’t been the case. People are busy and I’m really such a small piece of this universe. I’m playing the game, as best I can.

I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned this before, but Gel is in charge of cat patrol. In general, cats do not do as well as dogs in a “pack” environment. As a species, cats are solitary. If food is sufficient, they will live in groups, but fights are a common occurrence. There is a pecking order in my crew and it is frequently being sorted out. Gel reacts to the sound of cat fights. I think he doesn’t like the disorder and feels he has to fix it. It can be quite irritating to see him “alert” to a cat fight, yet do nothing about it. By “alerting” I mean he starts, looks at me, then goes to where the fight is happening. He’s been known to go outside (when he could fit through the cat door) in the middle of the night to get to a cat fight. Finally, I’ve made him an effective member of the cat patrol. If there’s a fight, I make him walk up in on it and if his presence doesn’t stop the fight, I tell him to “push” at which point, he jumps into the middle of the cats which breaks up the fight. He’s a useful dog.

I measured Fern a few days ago. She’s just 16″ tall at the shoulders. I’m not sure she’s going to grow much taller. She’s a little pocket rocket. Gosh, I love this puppy. As I wrote this, she’s curled up on the ottoman. She’s still a puppy and gets into all sorts of trouble, but all in all, she’s a very easy puppy to live with.

Until later …

Gel is so polite, he shows his teeth to stock before he uses them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make the stock move, he needs to learn to back up his threats by connecting with those teeth if need be. I forgot I had these photos that were taken in June of 2006. This red goat was quite the hot ticket. Wally sold her not too long after this picture was taken. He tried not to keep any goats with horns as they had the tendency to be more aggressive and ruin fences with their horns.

I’ve been teaching Gel a bark and hop and down on queue to add to my bag of tricks to move cattle. Of course I know he isn’t going to do this on stock; in general Border Collies work stock without barking. It’s fun to train different behaviors if the dog is operant. I’ve called around to try to find someone who is experienced in trialing on cattle to give me a quick lesson, but thanks to the drought, most everyone has sold off most of their cattle. I guess I’ll just wing it, like I did last weekend. I do have a better understanding of how cattle move and I will go to local farms and walk around them myself.

This morning I brought the sheep out into the back field to work on driving and whistles. It was a good session. It isn’t going to be too much longer before I’m going to have to keep Fern on a line when I’m working Gel. This morning she kept trying to go out and fetch the sheep herself. I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble putting distance on her work. She’s already outrunning at least half the length of a standard Novice/Novice run and she’s casting correctly. She has inherited Gel’s square flanks, but she stays in contact with the stock better than Gel does. It is hard to tell whether Gel’s occasional lack of contact is natural or created by me. As a young dog, he was very pushy and I spent a lot of time pushing him off stock. I’ve since learned it’s harder to bring a dog in than it is to push it out so it’s best to keep them in early on in training. I’m lucky Gel is as forgiving as he is. Fern is very forgiving as well.

Quite often the discussion comes up on the various sheepdog lists and boards about Novice handlers, whether they are given fair treatment, if they have to move into Open, if Open is where everyone should strive for, etc. There was a time that I felt that Novice handlers were not given fair treatment. After the trial this weekend, however, I can understand how the Open handlers feel. They work bloody hard to get to where they are and it is difficult watching a Novice handler making a mess of a run due to lack of training, commitment or just plain arrogance. I have a new found respect for Open handlers.

I love walking in the fields when there is a full moon. I don’t have to use my head lamp to see. There was frost on the grass so the entire landscape was various forms of white and grey. It was very, very pretty.

My morning walks have been shortened lately by cats coming along with us. They don’t walk as fast as I’d like and I feel I have to keep an eye on them to be sure they don’t get left behind and possibly become coyote snacks. This morning, I walked in reverse order, heading up towards my neighbor’s house first. There are a lot of cats in his barn, my cats know that. There is an invisible territory line in the field the separates our houses. My cats don’t go past that line. Ted came out with me this morning, but he stayed behind the territory line and I was able to get in a good walk with no cats to have to keep an eye on.

I wasn’t sure what I expected going into an ASCA trial. I know I was expecting to see some good dogs, and I did see a few, but not too many. I am sure there are some good working Aussies out there, but I think they are few and far between these days. So many lines have been convoluted by conformation lines. I am glad BCs will never go there, at least not to the extent that Aussies have.

There was a lot of poor stockmanship at this trial, especially on Saturday and quite frankly, I was appalled that the judges didn’t disqualify a lot of the runs. They didn’t qualify, but they should not have been allowed to continue their runs. What organization would set up a trial course were an extremely inadequately trained dog would be allowed in a 20 foot x 20 foot take pen to take sheep out? That’s hard even for a well-trained dog, especially if the stock panics when the dog comes in. If you look at the videos that I posted yesterday of the sheep run, you’ll see how nervous the sheep were when the dog came into the take pen. Imagine if the dog came barreling in there and sent them in every direction. A number of dogs did just that on Saturday.

On Sunday, the judges cracked down and didn’t allow a lot of what went on Saturday, but most of the guilty teams were not there on Sunday so it didn’t matter. A fair number of Border Collies and their handlers came on Saturday, but they didn’t do so well in the sheep runs. These sheep were not accustomed to being worked by dogs with eye and got very nervous when they were. They kept turning around wondering what the deal was with dogs who didn’t bounce up and down and bark at them and when they saw that eye, thought they were on the dinner platter.

All in all, I am very pleased with how Gel worked. I wish I had taken more time to prepare for the cattle runs, but I’m a quick study and we’ll be better prepared for the next show. I thought long and hard about whether I was even going to go to the second show, but I’ll do it. I am on a mission here. I am not entirely sure what this has become important to me, but it is. I know most Border Collie people look down on arena trials, and I can see why. At first glance, it does look like you are simply walking the stock around the arena, and some runs are just that, but not all of them. In USBCHA trials we have to free pen the sheep, but the dog does not have to go into the pen to take the sheep out. A lot of BCs are too tightly wound to do that and would grip in such tight quarters. If I could have sent Gel around the outside of the take pen, I would have much preferred that than sending him in there as it would have been less stress on the stock, but that wasn’t an option. Once the sheep hit the arena from the take pen, they are already unsettled. These are certainly not trained sheep, they react to how the dog runs them. If the dog isn’t right, the sheep are not going to walk around the course.

What I did like about this trial was the opportunity to work ducks, sheep and cattle, and to do it two times a day. That gave us plenty of experience. Not all dogs will work ducks, sheep and cattle and I like that Gel can, and all in all, he does it well. We’ll see what the next trial brings. Hopefully we can finish his open and advanced cattle legs. I have no doubt he’ll finish his advanced sheep and duck legs in the trial. The cattle, I don’t know, it all depends on how they work and whether I can handle Gel in such a manner that he is not put in the position of being injured. I found another ASCA trial in May that I can get to if need be to finish whatever cattle legs he doesn’t get in this trial. Then we are done with trialing in other venues.

I won’t trial AKC or AHBA. I don’t want to see what goes on in these trials. I guess I’ve become a Border Collie snob. In fact, I am not going to compete in AKC agility anymore. I am not going to support an organization that is primarily a conformation-based organization with other activities that people with their show-bred dogs can compete in. In AKC agility, you can go over time in a class and still qualify. You cannot in USDAA agility, where you have to be both fast and accurate in order to qualify. USDAA is an organization that honors excellence in performance. AKC does not.

The mindset that I need to acquire for trialing in USBCHA is that it is unlikely that I will win. The best I can do is to go to a trial and do good work. If we accomplish that, then we’ve won. There are very few handlers who win on any regular basis in USBCHA. It’s just too hard, as it should be. Even if you and your dog are prepared for the course work, if you draw a bad batch of sheep or run into environmental problems (i.e. wind, rain, terrain, etc.) then no matter how good you and your dog are, you may not do well in that trial. This is something for me to strive for in the future. That and agility in USDAA. That will be enough for us.

Well, we blew the Ranch Trial. I think we were both tired and certainly not on our game. The draws were very, very strong and quite frankly, I’m not sure how we could have kept the sheep from escaping when they did. The judge said that Gel’s work in the chute was adequate, but not great. I beg to differ on that assumption. Gel kept the sheep going in the chute as quickly as they needed to go. I was having difficulty operating it. If he had pushed them any harder, they would have been stacking up, which I would not have wanted.

We lost points in the pasture work as well. The terrain was rough so there was a lot of zig-zagging going on. The sheep kept trying to turn back. When they did turn back, they bolted. He stopped them, but we lost control points. When we got to the top, a horse that was being kept confined behind four cattle panels was going bananas. That drew Gel’s attention and the sheep bolted again.

Oh well, I would have liked for us to have done well, but it wasn’t meant to be. We ended up high combined started dog and high combined for the entire trial by over 50 points. That’s not too shabby an outcome. In preparation for the next trial, I plan to spend some time around cattle to try to figure out what makes them tick.

Here’s a video of one open duck run. Certainly not the better of the two runs. This was the first time I’ve ever put ducks through an obstacle like the Y chute in the middle of the arena. It was much better in the second run when I stood back and let Gel do the work. The ducks flew like they did after the second obstacle for every dog. It was very windy and they were frisky. It is not abnormal for ducks to try to fly in windy weather.

Here’s a video of our first open sheep run. Again, not our best run, but we qualified. The sheep did not want to go into that far corner. The one other BC entered couldn’t get them in the corner and ended up gripping and disqualifying. Like the ducks, we had difficulty getting them into the Y chute in the middle. We did better in our second open run. I discussed our runs with my instructor and what we’ll work on in my next lesson on March 1 is keeping Gel from over flanking like he is doing in this video. Keeping off the stock is usually a good thing, but there are times I need him to stay in there.

Finally, here’s a started cattle run. This is a pretty good run and it was good for me to watch these because I can see where I need to keep Gel in order to keep the cattle moving. Throughout the run I can see he’s trying to head them to fetch them back to me, which is not what I wanted. In our next trial, I’ll need to pay close attention to where he is. It is good that he’s moving as free as he does and not locking up on the stock. Movement is important when driving cattle so they know the dog is still back there.

As I write this, the county that I am in is under a tornado watch and we are getting severe thunder showers. I’m glad the trial finished early so we didn’t have to trial in this weather and that I am don’t have to drive home in it.

I was very glad to hear during the handler’s meeting that the judges were going to crack down on poor stockmanship. I was shocked that they were allowing the dogs and handlers to treat the stock like they did yesterday. Several dogs got disqualified today.

Gel’s sheep and duck runs were excellent. We finished his open titles in both classes of stock. He took first place in both sheep runs and first and second in the duck runs. I blew the first cattle run … again! The cows kept turning on us and I got nervous. We got around the course, but it wasn’t pretty. The judge wrote the comment on our score sheet: “If you had handled the stock better, your dog could have obtained more points.” Meaning, if I hadn’t been such an idiot, Gel could have done his job and we would have qualified. We did qualify in the second run so he now has his started cattle title. That means in the next trial in March, we need to get our open and advanced cattle and advanced duck and sheep titles.

I am not at all concerned about getting the sheep and duck titles. The same ducks will be used in the March trial and they worked very well. I found out that the sheep would be those from a Border Collie trial person so they will be accustomed to being worked by dogs with eye. This could spell trouble for the Aussies. The cattle are coming from a feed lot and are used to being moved by dogs on a daily basis. Hopefully they’ve been treated well by these dogs.

We got through with the trial around 2:00 and as I was driving back to the hotel, I was wondering what I would do with myself and the dogs for the afternoon. We stopped at a state forest which was on the way back to the hotel for a hike. It was gorgeous! We went down steep stairs leading to the river. They were not solid stairs, but stairs made from open metal grates. Fern fired down them like no body’s business. Gel wasn’t so sure about them. He came down the slowly, whining all the way. In her concern, Fern kept running up and down the stairs to him without any fear at all. This is the first time I’ve ever seen Gel afraid of anything. At the end of our walk, he went back up them without fear so he recovered quickly.

What a beautiful place! There was a wooden walkway long the river which lead to trails. We walked for about an hour until it started raining again. Throughout the trial it was raining and windy, but it stopped right before we finished up. Glad I had the Muck Boots and my rain gear with me.

Tomorrow we have the ranch trial, which I’m looking forward to. The weather is supposed to clear tonight so it should be a nice day.