Today I harassed my husband to take photo's of Jock training, so that I could refer back to them at a later date, and to post them on my blog.
Let me start by saying, what a fantastic young dog I have here! Not only is he a beautiful addition to my family, the clown, the cuddler, the cutie, but my god is he really coming into his own as a sheepdog! (okay, so I'm just a touch biased, I admit it! lol).
Anyway, the training started as per usual, with the sheep in the pen (it's about 40ft across now) and Jock and I on the outside. Usually I start him outside just to make sure he is paying attention and listening to my commands. It also gives him a chance to burn off some pent up energy. Today, due to the sun playing havoc with photo's, we kept this to a minimum.
Off lead, I took him into the pen and put him on a stand whilst I fiddled around closing (and securing) the gate. He waited patiently just in front of me, watching the sheep.
I repeated the 'stand' command, walked into the centre of the ring and sent him come-bye (not his favourite side). He started in too close, so I flicked him out and he widened out beautiful. In one fluid motion, he picked up all four sheep off the fence, jogged them towards me and stopped on the point of balance. I didn't even have to tell him to stand when he got to that point, he just did it!
Anyway, so I got him circling again, widening him out, changing direction etc. I spent a lot of time walking through the sheep today and putting myself in a different spot in the yard. At one stage I was running to a new spot, but Jock must have realised because he spun the sheep around and had already put them there. That stopped me in my tracks.
I called him off, put him over to the opposite side of the yard, and cast him 'away', again I had to flick him to widen him out, but he didn't put a foot wrong. He circled in behind them (quieter this time) and brought them to me.
At one stage, after I called him off and put him on a stand, I was standing in a slightly blocking position when I sent him, but he went anyway. I sent him 'away' and he thought about going 'come-bye', but that wasn't the command I gave him, so he kept going on his path.
He's still very excitable, and rushes in too much in the beginning, but when he settles, he does really well. One ewe is causing him some grief at the moment, constantly wanting to argue the point, but he puts her back in her place (without biting her - although he will snap) and then gets on with the job. He doesn't like it when they split up on him, and will do his darndest to tuck any stray sheep back into the mob.
I think that he thoroughly enjoys his work, and he seems to love 'working for me'. He's always happy to come off the sheep, I never need a lead at home (on dog days on different properties its a different story) to take him to or away from the sheep, and as long as he's not in full flight, he'll respond to my recall instantly!
So, I have a couple of things to say (talk a lot, don't i? lol)
1. Thank you to Andy and Gill for your advice, tips and encouragement,
2. I have myself a beautiful sheepdog, and
3. I'm rather pleased with myself! hehe
Oh, there were over 400 photo's taken today, and I'll post a couple of them in the next post!
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