I had committed to attending working dog training days in Macarthur, about an hour's drive away on both Saturday and Sunday. The plan was to take both Sarah and Jess so both could start training.
This plan was disrupted by two things - I was still feeling ill with gastro and Sarah had decided to come on heat on Friday.
Despite feeling like crap, I decided to go to the training with just Jess, the braincell. And I'm glad I did.
It was a GREAT two days. Cost $200, but well worth it. The trainer, Barry, breeds and trains working dogs so has a wealth of experience. And any future training days I want to attend are free. There was a good proportion of practical experience with some theoretical. The dogs (some of them bred and sold by Barry) went through exercises to go back, get over, to bark on command, to run on the back of sheep, to work both yard and paddock.
Jess surprised me at how well she went. Whilst she didn't have the command skills of most of the dogs (the ability to sit or stay on command), she certainly had the ability to round up the sheep and was not nervous of them. This was all instinct, as she hasn't been trained to go around them. But with the aid of a simple garden rake, I was able to get her to go back (run around anti-clockwise) and get around (clockwise). I was also able to get her to walk (it's a relative term) behind me instead of pulling me along behind her.
Barry had three orphaned lambs (only a few days old) in the shearing shed, where we had the training, so I helped out at lunchtime by feeding them. Whilst I was doing this, Jess slipped herself out of her harness and came around to see what I was doing. She suffers from separation anxiety, if she's not with me she frets!
I was a bit dubious about the paddock work. The idea of letting Jess off her leash in a paddock, albeit with a flock of about 10 sheep, filled me with dread. It's not like she will sit or stay on command, but Barry was encouraging and said to let her go. So off she went, around the sheep, working them across the paddock. When it was time for her to stop, she decided that it wasn't ... and took off towards the second paddock, the one full of ewes and lambs! She was almost there when Barry's yelling at her distracted her and made her turn around. I ran off in the opposite direction, and she gave chase. A few minutes later and I managed to catch her. Barry had said that to get your dog to come to you, you should not look it in the eye and should kneel down. Yeah right! Not with Jess! I had to put both arms in the air, deepen my voice and stare her out. That's when the penny seems to click into her brain, you can see the "oh, shit, I'd better stop now or else" look come into her eyes.
But we had a second go at working her in the paddock. I let Stevie, a teenage girl, work her whilst I stood off in the distance. She worked really really well, moving from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock behind the flock and pushing them across the paddock. One of the flock took off and took refuge between the fence and the donkey. Jess took chase and I was worried that she was going to end up with another broken leg care of Macka the donkey, but Stevie managed to catch her without too much hassle. It was the end of the day and she was tired.
On the drive home, Jess fell asleep straight away. She missed the rabbit I clocked doing 59km/hr beside the car, the large roo that jumped over the road behind us or the smaller wallaby that crossed in front.
(you'll have to look closely to pick the roo out)I'll be attending the next training weekend in August with both Sarah and Jess, providing they are not in heat! I'll also take Caitlin, if she's interested - she'd find it fascinating.
No comments:
Post a Comment