Three steps forward........one back !

Although we should really be practising our freestyle ready for the semis, i still find time to practice Pogos sheepdog work and go for lessons. The last few lessons Pogo has been doing well and since the arrival of the new ducks i have been doing a little most days with her. So going for a lesson recently with Andy i was hoping that she would at least show she had been doing some homework. All started well when she went on a short outrun and stopped when she got to the back of the sheep, but perhaps we should have stopped there as after that for the rest of the lesson she really seemed to have the devil in her.
Its lessons like this that make me feel such a beginner which makes me sympathise with those new handlers on my workshops which have not done freestyle before. It can feel at times like you are out of your depth and your doing things not quite knowing if its the right thing to do. Of course Andy Nickless is very supportive and can see some progress in our work. I do think that the ducks have helped our practice but i think now she needs regular work with the sheep as she gets so excited when we arrive for our lesson. Its like with freestyle the more you can get the dog say working with a prop or in this case the sheep the more relaxed the dog is with it. Fingers crossed this last lesson was just a blip in her progress.

Not a good lesson

Well no matter what dog training discipline you do you must have had one of those sessions where you find yourself saying"why do i bother". Then following that you wonder why you are doing this and basically feel rather glum. Well this was the feeling i had after Pogo's last herding lesson with the sheep. I even stopped on the way home for some well earned comfort food, some might say i should have more bad sessions if i actually ate something as everyone is always telling me i don't eat enough!
The previous two sessions Pogo had done well but this time she was just wasn't listening at all and it felt rather like a step backwards. Now if i wasn't a dog trainer of other disciplines i could see how people give up but after the initial glumness i looked at things from Pogo's point of view. At the moment there is at least a few weeks between seeing the sheep, so if she saw them on a regular basis progress would be much better. Also my ducks have been too young to work her with and we have only just started to condition them to be worked so Pogo really has not had much work since the last lesson. As we all know if you don't keep things going on a regular basis then faults can creep in which in the case of Pogo is not stopping when told.
It is easy to forget how far she has come from never having seen sheep at four and a half years old to being able to round up a group of sheep or ducks and be able to move them around, perhaps not good enough for trials but good enough for a farm dog.
On the positive side Whizzy loved her second attempt at sheep work and is getting stronger although her attention span is not more then ten minutes at the moment. Since the lesson we have had small training sessions with both dogs on the ducks and they have been really good so fingers crossed its just a blip.

The four duck-a-teers have arrived

For quite a few weeks i have been trying to find some young white Indian runner ducklings as this breed is very good for sheepdog work. As the name suggests they run and don't fly plus they flock together well. After a few frustrating false starts i contacted a lady who had some 5/6 week old ducklings which were a bit older than i originally wanted.
We chatted on the phone and i agreed to have two white crested runners and two coloured ones. Duck breeders love people who want ducks for sheepdog work as drakes are hard to get rid of, you don't want females in case the eggs break inside the female.
As we were both going to be at the same event that weekend i arranged to pick them up there. When i first saw them i cannot say i was that impressed as they looked quite scrawny but you can see that they are going through a bit of a moult. The little black and white who is the youngest has not started to moult so is very cute and its going to be interesting to see him grow up.
The information on the breed does say they can be very skittish and nervous which these are especially compared to the other two ducks i used to start herding work with. I have also now made an enclosure where they cannot see the dogs at all as the others bonded a bit too much with the dogs as they could see them whenever the dogs went out into the garden. Hopefully over the next few weeks their feathers will grow and i can get some nice pictures of them plus of course start working them with the dogs.
If you have viewed the online video of our first attempts at duck herding you will have seen Whizzy having a go. When i went for my last sheepdog training lesson with Pogo i let her have a go with the sheep. As i thought at first she was scared of them but as i got them moving she got into her stride. Im not going to say she is the next big thing in sheepdog work but for a 50 % poodle she did quite well.