Tuesday, October 13, 2015

always learning but not sure it is always the right thing to learn

I keep thinking about blogging again as mostly I have posted long posts on face book . Quick and easy but I am thinking only interesting to a small % of my FB friends.

I have recently had a lesson with two new people .One just sort of by accident as she saw a post I made on the FB group "to novice and beyond " about my Ava buzzing in on sheep at the pen.   She felt I missed some basics . I think because Ava was naturally wide that I never worked on close flanks with her for fear of pushing her too far out !  But the time has come . This instructor ( Lynette Millville) was able to really make an impression on Ava with just her pressure and got some very nice flanks in a small area ( AKC A course duck arena size ) .

I did go back for another lesson about a month later to again work on flanks and we used her double fence with the dogs inside the two fences and the stock in the pen itself so this did indeed basically force the dog to be square but at this point in their training how much do we need to do to make it carry over ?  It was also helpful for me to be able to use my intent and pressure to stop and turn my hard to stop male dog ....I really liked that part : < ) We also used this to work on "stand there" when he was in balance and he actually started to stand still !   She uses a pulley system for "out" work ...don't think I like that but will think on it.

Then I finally got a lesson with Cindi Hayden in New Hampshire !  I have been trying to connect with her for a long time.  I was surprised as I thought she was more of a munchie crunchie , no corrections let the dog do whatever trainer . I was wrong.  She starts with the dog learning your energy and intent on a leash and if the dog does not respond to a quiet "lie down" she does a quick leash correction .  She also uses pressure pops and reales and a growling UH if the dog is pulling ahead on leash wish becomes ; if you hear Uh , you are wrong figure out something else. Her corrections were emotionless but consistant .  My boy dog was doing some awesome downs on a whisper in short order ! Consistant ...hmmm ... I teach agility and taught obedience ...I KNOW THIS ..why am I so bad at doing it ? ! THe best thing about this lesson was being shown to connect with the dog before letting it go to work. She took Fios all around the field getting him on her page with walk , down , come here , etc. and then did let him do a bit of work . They looked great !

I am taking care of a friend's stock and went and trained yesterday and was very good , using my little old dog to do all the sorting .She really seems to like this work and is calmer than the others which is weird because she gets very stressed at trials...hmm I am letting her feel her way in pens but am giving commands in trials...rotten little just let me do it my way dog ; < )  Then before working Fios and Peak , we did on line walk abouts as Cindid did.  It was a very good session for both dogs ..yeah !

No comments:

Post a Comment