A New Way

Roy turned his arena sideways, made it a bit wider and longer.  No more uphill to contend with.  That hill was the bane of our lessons.  The chute was lined up with the draw going up a pretty steep slope.  So the dog had to contend with the sheep first trying to angle across to the draw as they came out of the second panel at a race missing the chute (or pen) and if the dog was able to stop the sheep and get them through the center, the sheep, then racing, would go through up to their draw as the dog was left behind from the flank back of the chute to put them through.  Which tended to make my dog flatten out on the back as she tried to cover the escape.  And it was also hard to stop her on the back as she knew the sheep would accelerate up that hill to the draw.  But now the way from the chute is level.  It is easier to get her to listen and respond now that she isn't so worried about the escape.

The sheep were very honest today as the switch was just made yesterday.  So they had very little draw to pull too.  It was great fun.  First time, as usual I was trying to micro manage giving every command on the cross drive to bring her out a bit or slow her down.  After we completed that go Roy told me I needed to stop commanding, or trying to anyway, so much.  And lets see how she handles the cross drive if I remain quiet.  Yikes.  That was much harder than I expected.  So I was practically biting my lip to keep from shouting slow down.  But as it turned out she was right.  She corrected her positioning on her own and pushed the sheep at a gentle slow trot across to the second panel without me saying a word until I gave her the command to pull them off the fence.  Trust your dog!  So I will try to keep my mouth shut and let he work!

We did have trouble on the far side of the arena holding the sheep to the fence.  The sheep leaned on Rave as there was a slight draw going that way where the ewes with lambs were penned.  And Rave gave to the pressure allowing them to drift out although still going forward.  So that is something that we are going to be working on.  Not sure how to get her to hold that pressure so it will be interesting to see what Roy has us do over the summer.  It sure is good to get back to taking some lessons.  It has been a long winter.