Okay, not Miss Daisy but Driving Billy just didn't sound right. :-)First, don't you just love that picture of Zac? Cold day, hot dog, bet you can guess what he was looking at.
Today i got Bill back over to Denise's flat field to work on his driving some more. He did really well! I'm not sure what it is about the flat field as opposed to my rolling pasture but i find it helpful at this stage of training, where the dog is just about to get the hang of driving. The sheep at Denise's are lighter and less dogbroke as well. It's interesting to me that there's a lot of pressure on this smaller field, but for some reason it doesn't interfere with the drive training and is even helpful. The dog can set up and start the drive and with just some little flanks, he learns to control the sheep and guard the pressure without overdoing it or running around to head the sheep. The dogs seem to really enjoy it and it makes sense to them. Today, Bill was driving very nicely, falling in behind and pushing, holding pressure on the sheep to keep a line, and even taking his inside flanks without a lot of extra calls and cues. I loved the hold he had on his sheep and the confidence he was showing. We started the day working on only 2 lambs and he handled that extremely well, pulling them out of corners and off the fenceline, showing good method and presence. I'm still trying very hard to not do too much with this youngster, only 17 months old, but it's sure tough when he's looking so good!
1 comment:
Beautiful! Both Billy's progress and the pic of Zac.Love the fact that you can see his breath in the pic, very cool. I didnt realize, Billy is just about the same age as Bear. Dont know why I was thinking he was much younger.
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