Well, we had another herding lesson today, but this time I did not video the whole thing because I got to actually do the handling for a lot of the lesson.

First off when we got there Robin said that Lizzie has told her she wants more room to work, so we were going to the big ring. Whoooo, hooo, PROGRESS. We got in the big ring and we got stressed out Liz, running around checking out every inch of space and rolling, A LOT in a LOT of sheep poo or pee, who knows what it was, I just know that she was stinky and filthy. Robin said she thinks dogs do that because sheep are prey animals, and the dogs might be camoflaging their scent, smelling more like sheep so they can get closer to them??? Sounds like a good explaination to me, as good as any I would come up with. I just know Lizzie enjoys stinking and is very offended when I work hard and make her smell good. So after a few minutes in the big ring which did not seem to go so well, Robin said, well, how about we go back to the small round ring. LOL. Well, so much for progress and feeling like we were moving along.

When we got to the small round ring again Robin said she thought it would be a good time for me to try my hand at the herding. Anyway, I should have got video because I am sure it would have been good for a few laughs, and I am positive it would have made anyone else who has tried herding feel pretty good. There is a lot going on when you are herding with an inexperienced dog, especially when you are inexperienced yourself. The first big challenge is staying on your feet, you are supposed to sort of walk back wards and the sheep follow you, you walk back wards so you can watch the dog and guide them. Then while you are trying to do that there are BIG SHEEP. Those sheep are big. They get in your way and they do not want to move and apparently I am a pretty easy mark for the sheep. I have been told many times to just move them-shove through to where I need to be, to hold my ground, to not let them get me spinning in little circles, all things that are easier said then done when you are me. Then you need to watch where the sheep are going and where the dog is, when the dog moves up too far forward you need to dive through the sheep and move them out of your way so you can get where your dog is going and put your flag in front of them or let them know they are too far forward. Of course as the dog is rushing in the sheep are butting into your knees, and usually about that time the dog rushes in for a cheap shot at the sheep which makes them all stampede whildly into your knees (they like the knees), and this all happens as I am backing up and trying to stay standing. Then when the dog gets too far ahead you need to change your direction and quickly back into the center of the ring, there is a lot going on. You need to get a sort of dance going and my dance is still looking like a funky chicken, not a very pretty dance yet. I do think I did pretty well, as evidenced by my survival, and I remained standing, LOL. I do think I did slightly better then last time I tried, so I will take my successes where I can.

SIGNS OF DOING GOOD;
Robin suggested we aim for our first trial run, just the beginning level run, but she said we could really do one now but she wants us to go in and look GOOD -she felt that we could aim for the trial in our area the end of January. By then she is thinking we might be able to go in there and really look like we know what we are doing. So that would be fun.

WE GOT OK'D FOR PRACTICING ON OUR OWN! Yippie, we got the official OK to come and rent the sheep and practice on our own. She said what we need to do now is just the practice what we are doing, so she felt we could not mess ourselves up too badly right now by practicing on our own, so that is exciting. She showed me how to get the sheep out of the little holding pen if I am there practicing and how to get the sheep back into the holding pen when I am done. Did I mention sheep can be big animals and they do have minds of their own? LOL.

We got homework:
1. practice walking backwards, YEP that is really our assignment. Seems I throw like a girl, I run like a girl and I walk backwards like a girl. So the secrete is to step back and put your toe down, then put your heel down. Toe, heel, then pick up your foot, toe goes back and hits first on tip toe, then you set your heel down. Girls apparently shuffle their feet backwards and the heel is down first. Problem with that is that you can not feel something behind you until you trip ;-), convinces me to practice that skill.
2.teach Liz to follow me, meaning she has to stay behind me, using the flag to keep her from going ahead. I think that is to teach her to respect the flag and to get used to following something, because that is something she is not really comfy with. Not sure how that fits in with my agility training, where I try to teach her not to be behind me.

It was a full day, we were up and out of the house early to get to herding, then we went to the beach and played in the ocean ;-), that was MARVELOUS and we had the whole place to ourselves, we went to Andrias, my favorite seafood fast food type of restaurant, and then home to get ready for agility class. A HUGE day for Liz.

I brought Breeze so we could run over the dog walk a few times and so she could play in the ocean. I do not know what happened but at herding I parked way away from the ring so Breeze could not hear us working. I left her in the car in the shade, and left her some chewies. Well, she did her seperation anxiety panic and chewed through all sorts of things she pulled into her crate. She got a really cool Spiffy dog collar-Liz skull and cross bones one, she got two long lines and chewed them in half and then chewed all the tails off my water wubba so we did not have that to play with in the ocean. Bad little Breeze.

Written By: Cindy Jacobs (Cyd)

As the pups are soon to be 12 weeks old, I was looking back over some of the video I had taken and never had put up.  German Shepherd Puppies are smart, I believe the breed is rated #3 of all dog breeds.  They are quite fun to watch.

When you start feeding your pups mush to move them to puppy food, you notice there are always pups that try to hog the full meal.  You then look to other means to start feeding the pups to give all an even chance for food.  This video clip was done when the pups were 8 weeks, two of the pups had already gone to their homes.  I remember when doing this I would often laugh, and seeing the video clip almost a month later I laughed again.  Hope you enjoy the clip, puppies are sure fun and funny to watch and see just what they will do.

Video Clip Click Here

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

Last week I traveled to Lake Tahoe to give a half-day presentation on Control Unleashed at the Entlefest.  I realize this requires some translation.  The Entlefest is the annual national breed club meeting for the National Entelbucher Mountain Dog Association.  An Entlebucher (Entlebuch Sennenhund) is one of the four Swiss Mountain dog breeds.  Many are familiar with the two bigger members of this group, the Bernese Mountain Dog and the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.  The smaller members, the Entlebucher and the Appenzeller, are much less common and less well known.  The Entlebucher is rather low slung and powerful, and was specially bred to gently but firmly herd prized Swiss dairy cattle without knocking them off the numerous cliffs.  Entles in the US do not do much herding, but enjoy lives as pets, obedience dogs and sports companions (there are a few very fast flyball Entles).  The question most often answered by Entle owners is, “Is that a Beagle/Rottweiler mix?”

I was honored to be asked to present.  CU author and developer Leslie McDevitt personally recommended me to the NEMDA members who inquired many months ago.  Committee members Linda Planting and Leelee Stefanki were very patient with me as we worked out scheduling, programming, and accommodations.  I was even more excited when they asked me if I could add another activity for the afternoon of the same day:  Judging a European-style working temperament test for the dogs in attendance.  I will write about that separately.

Along with able assistant Jett Wyatt, her Aussie, Kiva, and my Border Collie, Mellie, we drove the 600 miles from Portland to Lake Tahoe the day before the presentation.  It was tiring and I’m very grateful to the nice policeman who decided not to ticket me for speeding near the Lava Beds National Monument.  We were hoping to arrive at the lake before dark so the dogs could have a good run, but we didn’t quite make it.  We stopped in Carson City to buy a good flashlight and the dogs got a short ramble on the beach before we collapsed.

The presentation started at 8:30, and I spent the first 20 minutes arranging the participants so that their dogs were in the most restful spots possible.  A very big part of CU is learning to set up your dog’s environment to reduce arousal and stress.  Instead of allowing participants to put crates in rows along the tent walls, I had them spread crates out to minimize strange-dog proximity stress.  Then we got started.

We had anticipated about a dozen working dogs, but in the end, nineteen dogs’ owners wanted to participate.  I decided to arrange things so that every owner got at least one participatory slot.  I selected six dogs to work all the way through (three sections), and then divided the rest into thirds and assigned each third to one of the three sections.  The owners’ questionnaire responses were invaluable in helping me to select which section would most suit each dog.

I talked about theory for about 15 minutes and then we launched into the first working section, which was about body language.  As each dog entered the “box” (the working space in CU), the audience called out their guesses about how each dog was feeling.  I was thrilled that so many members readily identified sniffing and lip licking as signs of stress.  We added some more signs for them to recognize and apply:  stretching, shaking off, yawning, and so on.  The last demonstration was possible because one of the applicants for a working spot had an elderly dog who’d gone blind.  We had her interact with a stable younger dog so that the audience could see what the younger dog did when the older one inevitable was unable to recognize early body language and continued into the younger one’s personal space bubble.  The older dog handled herself fine and I hope the lesson was clear:  Dogs are communicating by tiny body language signals all the time!  A lot is happening before there is a growl or snap.

We then moved onto demonstrating the Give Me A Break game.  This game is hard to visualize from reading the book.  We had the usual range of dogs who were Velcroed to their owners to dogs who needed really long breaks.  The audience was getting good at telling sniffing for information apart from stress (displacement) sniffing.  All the dogs shortened their “breaks” on their own and the owners started to feel the value of allowing the dogs to choose attention rather than trying to compel it.

Last we examined the Look At That game.  Probably the best known of the CU games, it’s a very useful one.  We supplied distractions to suit each dog as best we could.  I ran around one dog who sometimes grabs running children.  (She was great, very hard to distract!)  We brought in Mellie to tug, walk, or run near some of the other dogs.  We banged a crate door and dragged a chair for one dog who startles at sudden noises.  Finally, we worked with a formidable titled athlete who is obsessed with tennis balls.  We showed how we could get him to “LAT Tennis Ball” as a way to get him to leave it alone.  After five minutes, he was looking at the ball as Jett and I rolled it back and forth between us just a few feet away.  His owner was impressed and could see how to expand this result to a more normal situation.

With this dog I also detoured for a few minutes to show how to teach a good Out with a tug.  He is a mature, powerful dog who has spent 6 years being very hard to get toys from.  In five repetitions I had him releasing his tug extremely readily and was starting to put a cue on it.  Once I recovered my breath (we were at 6200 feet!), I could see that quite a few audience members were busy taking notes.

We wound up when the lunch crew was busy setting up tables.  Our tent had become the lunch tent!  People had lots of questions and I finally had to defer so we could give our hardworking dogs a break before the afternoon activities started up.  We were thrilled to notice one of the attendees playing Look At That dog in the parking lot.  I’m certain he’s on the way to agility success with his beautiful, athletic young Entle boy.