After spending time working sheep in Tennessee, we drove down to Erin’s house in Texas. All of the dogs were worked, including Ukulele and Mr. Poof.
I had 4 spaces working the Sara Jo-Gahm, who had a lot of herding champions with cattle dogs before getting into border collies.
I struggle a lot with micromanaging, and these working sessions were focused on me allowing my dogs to find their lines and flow.
I worked Rory on cattle and sheep, but her clinic spot was spent with sheep. She was in kind of a weird phase, where she was a bit more sensitive to pressure than she had been previously. So, no verbals until she is pretty reliable. If she came in tight, I needed to pressure the stock until they back off again, not the dog itself. It is my job to open the side i want them to go to and carry responsibility for. Then it is my job to hold the sheeps heads pointed toward me until the dog settles on balance, correcting only if the dog offsets the balance.
Chunky, Fiddle, and Mazikeen worked cows.
Did the x pattern, fetching to the corner, then I needed to hold my side of the line without using overreliance on verbals to set the line. If the dog keeps approaching the stock to try to push them out of the corner by cutting them off with pressure at the dog
It was a great experience, and I can’t wait to visit Outline Australian Cattle Dogs again!
Clarjo Farms 