THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

True confession: I haven’t finished the book The Wolf in the Parlor. I might not, at least not in the near future. Here’s why:

As I said in my last post, the author’s thesis is that “people and dogs, around 12,000 years ago, linked their evolutionary paths together and evolved socially and physically to take on supportive roles. He argues, according to the reviews, that humans lost some of our brain power because dogs took over those functions, and dogs lost some of theirs because we became their protectors and nurturers.” It seems downright churlish of me to stop reading before I read for myself the full extent of his argument, but what I’ve read in the first 60 pages has put me off a bit.

I mentioned earlier that the thesis itself sounded a bit simplistic, but I love speculation and the more the merrier if it’s based on good, solid information. But Franklin’s supporting information seems thin, at best. Here’s an example: Interested in the early evolution of the domestic dog, the author goes to his local library. But he finds little of value, he tells us. He says “Some of the more promising works included a few generalized remarks about the development of the dog; they all sounded the same, and had a ‘just so’ tone to them.” He goes on later to say that the books he ended up checking out were also a disappointment. “Most were superficial, showed some misunderstanding of biology, or were otherwise unsuitable…”. Never in this section does he mention other ways of researching the topic.. he writes as though he accepts that his library has all material relevant to his question. As a lover of libraries, I can tell you that even really, really good ones can only house a small portion of relevant books, and many of those are profoudly out of date. As a science writer, I would assume he is adept at internet searches…?

Eventually, in the books he checks out (we never know which books those are), he finds references to a paleontologist named Stanley Olsen, who spent decades finding and measuring fossils of domestic dogs (dogs can be distinguished from wolves by their shorter muzzles and smaller teeth). He published some of this work in 1974, and Franklin moved heaven and earth to find a copy (The Origins of the Domestic Dog: The Fossil Record) and traveled to the University of Arizona to interview Olsen. Let me be clear: I’d give a lot to interview Olsen myself, he sounds absolutely fascinating and extremely knowledgeable. But 1974 is 35 years ago, and what we’ve learned about the fossil record since then is astounding.  Still, I love that Franklin went to meet him–but what about other sources of information about the evolution of the domestic dog? Surely Franklin found many interesting books on that topic? And what books did he read? He is a science writer after all, so I expected him to clearly list his sources.

I turned to the back to see if he had read, for example, Ray and Lorna Coppinger’s book Dogs, its subtitle being “A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution.” But there is no bibliography or reference section, a surprise unto itself. I turned to the index, and Coppinger is indeed mentioned, but only briefly, and only in regard to a discussion about dogs losing the terminal portion of the hunting sequence inhibited (find, chase but don’t kill and eat). Franklin loves Coppinger’s suggestion that dogs are wolves with the ‘kill’ portion of their behavior inhibited, but adds that other scientists “. . . criticized Coppinger’s idea for various technical reasons, …” but doesn’t tell us what those were. Neither had he read Coppinger’s book; he learned about him in a manuscript being edited by James Serpell (now that’s a book I can’t wait to read, I’ll alert you as soon as I find it, don’t know if it’s out yet.)

There are some wonderful sections of The Wolf in the Parlor. Franklin clearly adores dogs and the connection between them and people. He is not only smitten with his current Standard Poodle, he credits him for saving his life (I skipped to the end). If I had no other books to read I’d finish the entire book, and someday I imagine I will. But right now Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog is luring me in, and I just got a book written about a search and rescue dog that looks like a page turner. The wolves in the parlor are just going to have to lie down and stay for awhile.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: It rained! Oh boy oh boy, it finally rained, after almost 3 weeks of no rain. I’m the first to admit 3 weeks isn’t long in many areas of the drought-stricken country, and I know it’s flooding right now in some areas, but we really, really needed the rain and just looking at the moisture soaking into the ground feels so nurturing and good. Willie and I got to go to a new place to work sheep; a good friend and neighbor’s not far away just got a small flock to work her rescue BC on. We had a ball; Will was wonderful, I was a bit slow–not being used to faster reacting sheep, but a good time was had by all. Well, maybe not the sheep, but Will was excellent around them and worked them very quietly. The trick with Will is balancing his speed with his lack of confidence (too slow and he loses power and confidence, too fast and he starts the sheep running.) We’ll be back soon I’m sure!

Here’s a video I took this morning, in the rain by the way, of Willie & Lassie playing with their Chewber. At first you’ll just see Willie, while I make silly noises to hype him up and get him exercising without having to stress his shoulder by fetching or leaping. It takes him longer to get moving than usual (because I have the camera?), but you can see how he runs and shakes the Chewber as if he was trying to kill it. (What was that about the final stage of the hunt being inhibited? Just kidding, I think Coppinger is right to some extent on that; I don’t think I’d use a wolf as a herding partner!).

As I do every morning, I asked Will to lie down and let Lassie get the toy. Watch how she turns and looks at him when she returns. Anthropomorphically, I always imagine her saying “I’ve got the toy-oy. Nee Nee Nee Boo Boo!”

Well, I can’t tell you that last night went smoothly, but my Willie boy tried his best and ended up learning a lot about working sheep last night. (We went to a good friends, Peg, who has a lot more sheep and a lot more land than I do and is extremely generous with her time.) First, Will and I drove a flock of about 35 sheep into a pen at the end of a long field, and then turned and walked 40 yards in the other direction, where Peg had brought out a group of 5 or 6 ewes about 250 yards away. I waited until I was sure Willie had seen them, and then sent him “Come Bye” (clockwise). He began correctly, but then stopped part way there and looked back at the flock he had just worked (who were behind him and me both). I said Come Bye again, and he started right but again slowed and looked back. Eventually  he ended up driving directly toward the flock he was supposed to run to the back of, and actually drove them away from me at one point. I whistled stop, lie down, come bye, etc etc, all to no avail. It was abundantly clear to me that he was completely confused, so I stopped trying to signal him and went to help him.

As I started to walk toward him he got around the sheep and brought them toward me, or more accurately, he ran behind the sheep who were now charging in my direction toward the larger flock behind me. The group he was trying to work ended up smack dab against the pen’s fence, with a few thin boards separating the small and the larger flocks. That was Willie’s next challenge–pulling the small flock away from the large one, and he just couldn’t manage it. He needed to force himself between the fence (and most relevant, the larger flock) and push the small flock away, and he just couldn’t do it. He kept looking at the sheep inside the fence, and as an excessively strong-eyed dog, he simply couldn’t detach himself from wanting to work them too. I suspect it was partly a confidence issue, Willie being a dog full of fears, but the draw of the other sheep was clearly a huge factor as well. I went over and helped and we got it done, but when we tried it again he still had trouble. We’ve worked a bit at this at home, but what we’ve done is new enough that it didn’t transfer to a new context.

Peg and I switched directions to make it easier for Will, but now the sheep were on the upside of a pasture with two hills and big dip in the middle. Will lost sight of the sheep halfway through his outrun and began to run flat (toward the sheep rather than around). He tried to fix it when he got the sheep back in sight, but by then he was too close, and struggled to get control of them once he got around them. He brought them to me eventually, but it wasn’t very pretty. I was sure he had just never been in this situation, (losing sight of the sheep on such a long outrun) so I sent him one more time, and damn if he didn’t run a perfect outrun, take control of the sheep much more effectively (not perfectly, but not bad either) and bring them spot-on to me at a perfect pace. Whew. Good boy, good boy.

Of course, by now he and the sheep were a bit tired (Will over heats pathetically fast, so between runs 2 and 3 he had taken a rest in the shade, drunk water and had water poured on his paws), so that partially explains the quiet pace, but nonetheless, it was a good place to end and I was pleased he had clearly learned from experience. We’ll try again next week if we can fit it in before we go to Africa, but meanwhile I’ll work on the issue of shedding the sheep off of a fence with a flock right behind at home.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Besides walks with dogs and working with sheep (and scrubbing water tanks and grinding nails… all the boring stuff we all do to maintain life), lots of time at home is being spent of preparation for Africa. Oh my, hard to believe that in 2 weeks I’ll be with a pack of animal lovers watching hippos in an underwater viewing area in Tsavo National Park.  I won’t be able to send posts from there, so I’m going to write articles before I go, to be posted throughout the time I’m gone. Who knows, maybe I will have internet access in some places.. that would be great fun to write you all from there!

Closer to home, here’s Will and flowers, two of my favorite things:

I took Will to a friend’s to work him on different sheep in a new environment. I’m getting to the point where he and I don’t have too much more we can do at home. My small flock is so tame that Will has to be within a few feet of them to move them, unless I split out a few and force them away from the main flock. Then they are flightier (and more challenging), and I’ll do that more and more, but don’t like to stress the ewes and lambs too much when the lambs are young. Either way, it’s still the same sheep in the same place, and Will needs to learn how to work lots of different types of sheep in different places. (So do I!) We are used to working in first gear, when most sheep work in done in 4th.

I wish I could show you a video of how he did. We were at a gorgeous farm where Will has never worked, and three things happened that made me so happy I could have carried him home myself, all thirty miles.

1) I sent him on a long outrun, two to three times as far as he’s ever gone (perhaps 250 yards? I’m guessing). He did a perfect outrun, and I don’t have the words for what it feels like to watch your dog get smaller and smaller as he runs away from you, curving out at just the right time to go around the flock and not disturb them until he gets to the back. As I think about it, I should  NOT qualify it as a “perfect” outrun, because no one was holding the sheep in place, and they were moving long before he got there and were close to the edge of the field. So, was his ‘lift’ perfect? (That’s when the dog gets around to ‘twelve o’clock’ and first makes contact with the sheep.) I can’t say, because the sheep were moving long before he got there (not because he was too close), he got them stopped once he got around them, he turned on balance and brought them straight to me. We’ve never worked on such a huge field and it makes my heart full to work in a place that open and free.

2) He’s got his flanking whistles down. Down pat. What’a boy, I’m so pleased. Here’s a synopsis of the process:

a) We work on his flank whistles for 2+ weeks, looks like he has them nailed.

b) Week three everything falls apart, I realize that once I thought he “had” them I tested him by asking him to change directions a lot. I begin to suspect he thought that both whistles meant “change direction.”

c) For 2 sessions, I go back to the first steps, having him run around and around, clockwise or counter clockwise as I repeat his whistle over and over, using the movement of the sheep and visual signals to keep Willie moving. I tested him a few times in a different context, and it seemed he wasn’t making any progress on which whistle meant what.

d) The next time we worked I send him on an outrun and he runs around to twelve o’clock and keeps going. And going and going. He runs an entire 360 degrees around the sheep, ignoring my signals to stop. It takes me a second outrun to realize he had interpreted Step C not as whistle training, but as training to run in mindless circles around the sheep.

e) After realizing this, I sat down and laugh out loud in the wet grass and asked Willie for a kiss. Willie obliged, then peed on a bush, then looked for sheep poop to eat.

f) I stop using his flank whistles for a few days (used verbal), then gradually added them in on occasion, no longer having ‘flank whistle training sessions,’ just using them when I know he wants to go that way anyway. Gradually I start asking for them when he’d prefer the other direction, and with very few corrections (a verbal no), Willie starts getting them right.

g) I take him to Peg’s (where Redford is) and he gets his flank whistles about 19/20 times.

h) Willie not only took his flank whistles every single time at our last outing, he listen beautifully, even at 200 yards. Bless him.

3) Willie came to me as a puppy pathologically afraid of other dogs but was great in the field with a guard Pyrenees (more on Willie and other dogs in other posts, and probably and eventually a book.) We’ve worked on it for three years, and he’s been improving leaps and bounds. My friend’s sheep were guarded by a working Great Pyrenees, described as a “big galoof” who loves all dogs, but still, I was thrilled that Will and he had two perfectly reasonable greeting encounters. At one point Will would have run away in terror, at another he would’ve attacked. This time Will briefly greeted him before going to work the sheep, and then left my side the instant I said “that’ll do” after working sheep and ran to sniff the other dog some more. I won’t say there wasn’t a bit of tension there, but nothing serious and easy to manage. Just being able to have Will around unfamiliar dogs is a joy, especially a big, guarding male.  More to come on that score, as I said, but back to herding for a moment:

Mind you, Wilie and I couldn’t score well in a trial now if our life depended on it. He behaves completely differently if anyone, anyone at all is watching (I know, I know, is it me, or is it Willie?) and he is easily intimidated by sheep. He’ll lose contact with them, take the pressure off when he shouldn’t, get rattled if there’s any stress and if he is confused, but lordy he’s trying incredibly hard and I love him to pieces. And me? Oh dear. I have no ability at the moment to work fast moving sheep… I simply can’t make decisions fast enough to get flighty sheep to stay on a perfect straight line on a drive, but then, I’m trying hard, too. Willie seems to forgive me for it, or at least, he can’t talk and tell me what he thinks…

Lassie terrifies Trisha: Yesterday morning I woke up mildly surprised. In five minutes I was in terror. It was 6:15, and Lassie always, always ALWAYS wakes me up between 5 am (sigh) and 5:45 because she has to go outside to pee. In general, I haven’t set an alarm since we stopped taping Calling All Pets over a year ago (when I had to get up at 4:30 on Wednesdays). But now, it’s 6:15 and Lassie is sound asleep. No worries, I pad over to her doggy bed and gently touch her shoulder. “Lassie,” I say quietly, because she often startles when awoken because her hearing is so bad. Nothing. Lassie is soft and warm, but immobile.  “Lassie” I say, and press with my hand a little harder, shaking her shoulder back and forth. Nothing, and no sign of her chest rising and falling either. This time I push forcefully into her, saying LASSIE now with real fear in my voice. I’m so loud and clearly scared that Jim peeks over the bed, worried himself. Nothing. Not a twitch.

It’s amazing the thoughts that run through your head when you’re in crisis. I remember, very clearly, thinking that “she must have died recently, because she’s still warm and there’s no rigor mortis” and “how sweet that she died in her sleep and presumably didn’t suffer.” These were cognitive thoughts, generated by my cortex, when my amygdala and hippocampus was screaming OH MY GOD LASSIE IS DEAD. I remember the thoughts and the emotions of terror and panic as being parallel, but completely separate from one another.

The panicked part of me shook Lassie one more time, this time shaking her hard and yelling her name with pure terror in my voice, and as I did she slowly raised her head and licked my face. I burst into tears and sobbed like a child, kissing her muzzle and saying her name over and over again. This morning she woke us up around 5:30, and at first I thought, “Oh Lassie, just a few more minutes!” and then…. was overwhelmed with gratitude that she’s there to wake us up at all.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, during the sweetest spring weekend you can imagine. Here is a picture of the yard that Jim took yesterday:

In this next picture, I love the different postures of Will and Sushi: Will is chewing on his Sunday bone, Sushi is practicing her “lion on the hunt” look.

And here’s why Sushi is now stuck inside for the next few days: This baby robin flew/fell out of the nest on top of the porch light this morning, along with two others. There are also Chipping Sparrows in the bush by the living room window, wrens nesting in the exhaust vent from the bathroom (which no longer works, although for years when you turned on the bathroom fan you’d  hear cheep cheep cheep cheep… now it doesen’t work at all and I’ve just given it away to the wrens), a PeeWee nesting on top of a down spout by the porch and barn swallows nesting in the garage. [added note 6/10: an alert reader suggested it was not a PeeWee and she was absolutely correct! I watched carefully the next day and saw the typical tail flick of the Phoebee and heard their typical song. A PeeWee is nesting close by because I hear it often, but not on the house.} That’s four nests attached to the house…. and all with babies about to fledge. Sorry, Sushi!

I wondered if you have seen this — an automatic ‘dog washing machine,’ in which you put your dog into a metal box, streams of water and soap engulf him or her, then presumably the dog is dried with blasts of hot air.  Here’s a link to the Dog-O-Matic (sent to me by an alert UW student). I’m relieved to say it’s only in France so far, but honestly, keep your eyes peeled for it to show up in your area (and be ready to stop it!). Poor poor dogs!

Speaking of animal welfare, thanks to everyone who wrote interesting and informed comments about my last blog, basically a rant on the problems associated with horse racing. If you are interested in the topic you might want to read the comments, there are some very good ones. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and keep up the conversation.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I promised I’d tell you what happened to Redford the Ram (and Willie). It was one of the accidents that come out of nowhere, in which everything is going according to plan, and then, surprise!  Redford had been split off from the flock, along with a neutered five month-old ram lamb to keep  him company. I needed to ensure that my ewes didn’t get bred early and deliver lambs in the depth of winter (like last year) so Redford and friend were moved out of the main flock, and into the orchard pasture up the hill from the house. We call it the orchard pasture because of the wild apple trees that used to punctuate the grass in spring with a flurry of white blossoms, and it is my favorite place on the entire farm. The sheep seem to like it too (that’s where the photo from the last blog was taken.)

I went up to practice Willie’s flanking whistles on Redford and lamb, knowing that they’d be a bit more flighty than the main flock because they were split off from them. The main flock is slow and pokey, so a bit more speed is good practice for me and Will.  But, Redford and friend weren’t a ‘bit more flighty.’  They were an ovine version of hysterical.  I sent Will to take them out of a corner, something we’d all done–sheep, dog and human–a gazillion times. However, rather than moving away from Willie and out of the corner, as usual, the ram lamb panicked when Will was a good 40 yards away, and turned and smashed his head into the fence to try to get out. Oh my… I love my sheep and hate seeing them frightened or hurt, so I immediately said “LIE DOWN”  to Will, and bless  him, he did. The lamb settled down and moved away from the fence a few feet, so presuming we were back to relative normal, I flanked Will and asked him to go around the sheep to move them out of the corner.

My mistake, because apparently the sheep weren’t as settled as I had thought.  Redford turned and, true to his name, rammed full speed into Willie, who stood up for himself without biting, bless him. It gets blurry from there… imagine two white shapes and a smaller black and white one, moving left, right, up and down at high speed for a few seconds. Somewhere in there, Redford took a tumble, and ended up with a bruised shoulder. He limped quite badly a few hours later, and I fussed all night worrying about him. I’m quite fond of him, and he’s valuable besides, so it felt important that he recover.

Good news, after two days Redford is as good as new. He’s going to some dear friends on Saturday morning, to live with their ram for the summer, and then we’ll both use him for breeding. I’ll let you know how the transfer and ram introduction goes. Unfamiliar rams can be very aggressive to each other.. think National Geographic and Mountain Goats.. and in some cases can even kill each other. Peg and I have no intention of that happening, I’ll tell you more about what we’ll do to prevent that in a subsequent blog. Meanwhile, here is one of Redford’s daughters, a lovely little ewe lamb from the good ewe Martha 2.0 (her face is behind the lamb). Martha is my oldest ewe and is beginning to breath in a labored fashion, so I’m waiting for a visit from the vet for her. She was born by emergency Caesarian section when her mother, the original Martha, died in delivery. Thus the name, Martha 2.0. Cross your hooves that it’s nothing serious…

zxx

I just finished reading a review copy of Karen Pryor’s new book, Reaching the  Animal Mind (Scribner). I don’t know when it’s coming out, I’ll let you know as soon as I hear (but you can pre-order it on Amazon now). It’s an inspiring book, especially for those that haven’t yet used clicker training on any of their animals. I don’t use clickers for everything I have to admit, I tend to use them most for tricks, or any behavior that is not in a dog’s normal repertoire.

One of the interesting parts of her book is a report of research by Lindsay Wood that found clicker training significantly faster than a verbal marker at training new behaviors. This makes a lot of sense, given what we know about sound and the way it is received. I did my dissertation work on sound, and learned that sounds like clicks (broad band spikes, basically) are perfectly constructed to get a lot of response from acoustic receptor neurons. They are also unique, and so get more attention than any words we could produce.

I also loved reading about her early years at the Sea Life Park, thrown into the “deep end” as it were, as a last minute trainer for the planned marine mammal show that was starting in just a few months. Karen’s ability to combine the science of learning with real live problems, and her intuitive understanding of the importance of figuring out why an animal is, or is not, doing what is asked, is truly inspiring.

Meanwhile, I brought Willie and 4 sheep to campus yesterday for a sheep herding demonstration for my University class. Willie had never worked inside in a enclosed arena before, much less in a setting with 150+ people watching. I thought he’d be a bit nervous, and he was, even more so than I thought. What interested me most was that the sheep had no trouble percieving and responding to it. They wouldn’t move away from Will unless he was just a few feet away from them. Normally their flight distance from Will is about 15-20 feet, (flight distance varies tremendously depending on the dog and the sheep and the context), but in the arena Will had to be right behind them to get them to move.

Poor Will tongue flicked his way around the entire hour, but he didn’t make any huge mistakes, never lost his head and so I am still proud of him. The fact is, Will is simply not the perfect herding dog. The pro’s would call him weak, in that he doesn’t have the confidence and the power to intimidate stock, especially bold individuals who are willing to threaten  him. The ideal herding dog takes complete charge over a herd, but without frightening them.. a tricky balance indeed.  However, Willie tries hard and I can’t help love him for it. He’s biddable and he’s game and he tries so very hard, it’s just impossible not to love him for it. He helped load the sheep up for the demo, and even though the ram challenged him (and ran him backward 10 feet), Will came back and reasserted himself, and the ram turned and trotted up the ramp into the truck.

As I think about it, I realize that I myself have never been particularly brave, but I’ve tried not to let that stop me in whatever I do. I have, after all, spent over 20 years working with aggressive dogs.  Could it be that part of why I love Willie so much is that I identify with him?

Who knows, but here’s part of why I love my two-legged guy, Jim, so  much: The photos below is of just one of two gorgeous flower arrangements he brought me for Valentine’s Day (did I mention he also brought his home made heart-shaped sugar cookies, made from his grand mother’s recipe? Oh yeah, and then there’s the chocolate he brought… am I lucky or what?)

And here’s why colorful flowers are so welcome this time of year, although I do love the fresh snow on last year’s flower stalks:

This morning I tried to get a good photo of Redford confronting Will, but failed miserably. That’s great news… I couldn’t get the photo because every time Will walked within twenty feet of Redford, the ram turned and walked away. I did take a few photos, but my battery died so I can’t upload them for you. I’ll send some before the end of the week, of Will and sheep, and hopefully, of Snickers new lambs, if she ever, finally, gives birth. (We are calling her Explodo-Ewe at the moment.)

Truffle’s little white lamb is filling out like a champ. He’s got all the milk to himself and is growing like crazy. He has started what I call “popcorn” play, which is pretty much like it sounds. First there is a lamb standing still, then there’s a lamb leaping straight up into the air. Except in this case, the lambs twist their bodies a bit, land, run a few feet and do it again. It’s lucky the weather is warm (in the 20’s!) because it’s hard for me to leave the barn, he’s so much fun to watch.

I wanted to write more about Will, the ram and “power” in a herding dog, because it was herding dogs that taught me about ‘body blocks’ and ’space management’ in dog training. (See Other End of the Leash or Family Dog Training.) There is no question that different dogs have a different effect on the same sheep: some dogs seem to take charge from a long way away while others have to get much closer to get the same effect. If a dog has what handlers call ‘power,’ the sheep will look at the dog, turn their heads looking for the best route away from the dog and leave, even if the dog is a good distance away. Other dogs have to get much closer to get the same effect, or can even cause the same sheep to stand their ground or charge forward. When I first got into herding I thought the difference in the dog was in it’s posture… the more extreme the stalking posture, the more intense the effect? But it soon became clear that wasn’t it.

The biggest difference that is obvious to us is vector of the dog’s energy. Is the dog standing still but leaning forward, standing square over its 4 feet or leaning backwards, even an eighth of an inch or so? Biologists call movements and postures that always preceed an action “intention movements” and there’s no doubt in my mind that sheep can read where a dog is ready to go next: forward, to “take the space,” or backwards, to protect itself and get away. I show a video in many of my seminars that show 3 different dogs working the same group of cattle, and the difference in the reaction of the cattle is amazing. One, clearly fearful dog (tongue flicks, looks back to handler often, ears back, body leaning backward.. ready to run away) ends up with the cattle walking right up to him and sniffing his nose. The most confident dog walks forward with what can only be described as presence, and the cattle take one look at him and turn away. Dogs are brilliant at sensing these movements too, which is why we all need to be thoughtful about how we move around our dogs. You can use them to your advantage (teaching stay for example) or get into trouble by leaning forward toward a dog who is nervous around strangers.

Intention movements going forward or backward are just one factor in the interaction between sheep and dog. Some dogs are so strong that they worry sheep and can’t be used in small areas. Other dogs seem to take charge easily without scaring the sheep. Ideally, a dog is calm and confident, neither overly reactive but ready to win a confrontation if necessary. Some dogs seem to love confrontations, it makes other nervous. All of these things seem to be read by sheep, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Many prey animals in the wild behave comfortably around predators who are not hunting, but then immediately go on alert when the predators, lions for example, decide it’s time to stop lazing around and go hunting.

Willie clearly is nervous about direct confrontations. He tongue flicked a couple of times and ran back into the barn as soon as I said “that’ll do,” even though Redford never turned to challenge him.

Okay, he’s not the bravest dog in the world, but the fact that he tries as hard as he can and tries to work through his fears makes me love him even more. Besides, Redford apparently decided that he’s not worth challenging, at least not this morning, so I am pleased and proud that things are going in Will’s direction…

Now, if Snickers would just, PLEASE, have her lambs tonight!

Sorry no photos, battery is charging as I write!

If you’re a professional dog trainer, you’ve repeated “never repeat a command” countless times. Surely it’s one of life’s greatest ironies. I’ve said it myself many a time, and I’ve written about how hard it is to follow that advice. How easily the second “Sit” comes after the first one, yes? I’ve gotten pretty good at saying things just once, although that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. If I had five bucks for every time I’ve repeated “Lie Down” to my working Border collies I’d be a rich woman. But still, I’m better than most… and am the first to explain why it’s so important not to repeat a command. (If you want your dog to respond to a signal, then repeating it simply teaches him to not respond to the first time you say it and wait for the second.)

So answer me this: the man I call the “Tiger Woods of Herding,” Allisdair McRae, and the only woman who’s ever won the International Sheep Dog Trails, Julie Simpson-Hill, both repeat their commands, and do it on purpose. You can’t fault their success: between them they’ve won just about everything there is to win on the herding circuit. Their dogs are willing, brilliant and precise workers, who are as responsive as anyone’s in the world. And yet, if a dog doesn’t Lie Down when asked, their response is to say it again, but this time louder, as a correction (Do remember that we are talking about working dogs who can be 500 yards away from you, moving at a dead run, dancing on the line between herding and predation. This is NOT a time you can simply ignore behavior that is incorrect, honest.). This method does not lead to dogs who don’t lie down the first time that they are asked, it leads to dogs who are responsive and precise.

If this just resulted in winning trials, but with dogs who were cowed and fearful it’d be one thing, but that’s not the case. Allisdair and Julie can get into the head of a dog as well as anyone I know, and as far as I’ve seen, are relentlessly kind and thoughtful about working each and every dog.

Food for thought.

So I’m working Will, my young Border Collie, last night, asking him to push the lambs into a corner so that I could catch and treat a sick one. (Lambs get diarrhea just like people and dogs do, I suspect it feels just as bad for them as it does for the rest of us. Poor little guy looked miserable.) Willie is doing really well at this kind of task, even though he can be the kind of dog who is “sticky” and won’t push the sheep forward when it’s needed sometimes. But he seems to love real work, when the sheep really have to get into the truck, or the lambs have to be pushed into a corner so that we can catch and treat one. How do I know? Well, I don’t for sure, but his eyes seem brighter, he looks especially animated when we are done and most importantly, he is much braver when we have “real job” to do than he is when we are “training.” Don’t get me wrong, he loves to work sheep anytime, he seems to live for it, and generally he works beautifully. He’s extremely biddable, especially for a young dog, has great natural balance and perfect flanks.

But, sometimes when we are up the hill practicing his outruns or his flanks (going left or right around the sheep), he is hesitant to push the sheep forward. He’ll stop, sit down (silly looking for a working Border collie) and have to be encouraged to walk up on the sheep and get them moving. Not so when we have real work to do. He is much more apt to put pressure on the sheep, facing down a balky ewe or lunging at a lamb to force it to move away from him. Last night he came away with a fluff of wool in his mouth–a first for him in a year and a half of work. (That is not encouraged, but the lamb was not injured in any way, and I was glad to see him get a little pushy at this age. He’ll learn finesse soon enough, right now he needs to learn to take charge when he needs to.)

So here’s the question: is Willie braver, more willing to take charge when we have real work to do because he understands that the exercise has a goal, or because I change and relax my standards, and am focused on the goal myself, rather than on Willie doing it perfectly? It’s hard to say. I’m a pretty benevolent handler, I rarely raise my voice (don’t have to) and have never touched him except to pet him, but I am nothing close to perfect and I know my voice can change if I get frustrated. So is his change in behavior because of mine? Or because he knows we have a job to do, and he is as goal oriented as I am? My guess is that it’s a little of both. It’s always seemed to me that Border collies know when they are being ’schooled’ and when you have a real job to do. I’d love to hear other thoughts on that… from BC folks or from those who work dogs in other functional jobs…

Scottish handlers have always told me that what a dog really needs is to do real work as much as possible.  Will and I have the usual problem, common in the states, of a small flock (24 at the moment) and a small farm (14 acres), and a limitd amount of work. Someday maybe I can retire and get more sheep, and Will and I can herd to our heart’s content.