Today's weather was just as nice as yesterday. We worked on building on what we learned previously and progressed into a marked shed. In the morning session each dog worked on it's weakness so not every lesson was the same. If there was a recurring problem it would have been the tendency for the handlers to push the sheep on to the dog as they were trying to set up the shed.
Penny Ohanjanian and her dog Moss work on keeping the sheep in a line as they set up the shedOther than that, each dog had something different to concentrate on. Some dogs were still pushing hard on the sheep and ended up too close to them and causing them to be unsettled. One dog had a problem with anticipating the call in and actually worked on
not coming in when there was a gap. Most of the time it was the handlers that learned what they could do differently to get the shed done.
Shannon Fritz's dog Ben comes into the gapI got a lot of tips on handling Lad. Just like yesterday, it wasn't about the hold, it was about coming through the gap. Several times I would get excited when taking 1 or 2 sheep off and I would forget to keep him flanking through. Instead I would give him his hold command. Scott reminded me that Lad isn't very good at holding them and pushing them away from the other sheep so I needed to manufacture the hold by not relying on him to work the sheep by himself. I needed to tell him exactly what to do. I also learned how to let/get the sheep to line out and work parallel to my dog instead of pushing the sheep into a ball and over him. By the end of the lesson, Lad was took a single better than he had ever shed before.
Lad takes his best single ever for me...
In the afternoon, we worked on a marked shed. Out of 7 sheep, two were marked. We had to shed off two unmarked, regather them and then shed one collared off. I was proud of both Lad and I for being able to get the sheds done without terrible difficulty using the tools we learned in the morning.
Tomorrow I will be switching to Hemp for the International shed since that is where he needs the most work.
Penny Ohanjanian and her dog Moss work on keeping the sheep in a line as they set up the shed
Shannon Fritz's dog Ben comes into the gap
In the afternoon, we worked on a marked shed. Out of 7 sheep, two were marked. We had to shed off two unmarked, regather them and then shed one collared off. I was proud of both Lad and I for being able to get the sheds done without terrible difficulty using the tools we learned in the morning.
1 comment:
Love it. I learned SOOO much at the shedding clinic last summer!
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