I woke up and
leisurely packed the trailer and got ready to move. Roger called me
about 10 and said to come on over. I was
almost ready to go so I was there in no time.
Rachel Vest was here already working
a dog which I didn’t know until I parked and set up the trailer. I took Dare down to the pens and she was
there along with Chris Caldwell. Chris
is judging this weekend so he didn’t have any dogs with him. We worked Dare on pressure on the nasty assed
goats and then we worked one of Rachel’s
dogs. Then I switched to Dually who is a
piece of work. Chris, Roger and I were all in there trying to get him to go
around the goats without picking a fight everytime. Dually was very bitey and
divey. But Chris worked him for a while
and Roger worked him and I worked him and he eventually after a long time
stopped diving and and slowed down and
worked nicely.
Another thing we did, that Roger is promoting , to get used
to pressure is to use a big pole and get the dog to stay put while you bang the
pole down on either side of him and the rear eventually being able to bang it
pretty violently. You start it much less vehemently. The dog should learn to lie there and just
take the pressure. Dare was fine. Dually kept trying to bite the stick. Apparently I was supposed to lay him out flat
for that. Tomorrow is another day. The
pup was fine , but we didn’t get too violent with it.
We went out to dinner en masse tonight. JoeSheerhan and
wife, Chris Caldwell and wife, Roy Sage,Rachel and STeve,Roger and Kathy and 2
other people I didn’t’ really get to meet. The food was basically a Chinese buffet with some
sushi and hibachi grille too. It was ok.
Curious about the pole thing. It seems like that would desensitize a dog to your pressure, too. I wonder if that would make a dog less likely to move off of YOUR pressure as a handler. Sometimes you need your dog to move off of pressure. Did he do that exercise in the presence of the goats? How does the dog transfer that exercise to stock in his mind? Did you see Roger work a dog that had been trained with that method? If so, was the dog responsive to his pressure? Maybe I'm missing something.
ReplyDeleteHehehe "nasty goats" (couldn't help but laugh). Do they leave horns on their meat goats? We don't for that reason
ReplyDelete