Training Pups I

Maarten Walter

 

I have always dreamt of taking some young Aussies, all from the same litter, and train them under similar conditions and see how they differ from each other.  I’ve always had the theory that at least half of how an Aussie behaves as a stockdog comes from both training and how they’re brought up, socialized.  Last year I was given that opportunity.  Jubalee, Angus and Atlanta, were born December, 2001.  Dad, Roper, is a famous stockdog. Jamie, Mom, is a little bit of everything but mostly a wonderful dog.  In this article, and hopefully in some subsequent articles as well, I’ll share how they react to very similar training techniques and being raised in a very consistent, happy environment.

 

To make matters more interesting, with help of some good friends, two of the puppies were entered in the 2004 Texas Bluebonnet Futurity. This gave me the motivation to consistently train two dogs simultaneously.  And then, as an added bonus, there’s Atlanta, the pup that didn’t like the sheep, ran away from them.  These three pups are all going to get trained, simultaneously, and as consistent as possible.  It should be interesting.

 

In these articles I’d like to share some of the experiences we’re having, some good, some bad.  If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, is that learning can be had from both positive and negative experiences.  And that Aussies are all so different from each other, even when they’re from the same litter as these three are and even if they’re all raised pretty much the same way.

 

It all started when the three pups were about six months old.  We had some nice, dog-broke sheep, a nice, large round pen, and a group of friends with the rest of the littermates, six in all, and some spectators.  We spent an entire day playing with the pups that spring day.  Afterwards we drank some tea, ate some cookies and talked about what we saw that day.

 

The puppies showed a wide range of behaviors on that day.  On the bottom end of the instinct scale was Atlanta.  Atlanta would not look at the sheep; she ran away from them, she definitely was afraid.  Although she always was the high energy, fast moving, always playing pup, on stock she definitely wasn’t into it.

 

Then came Angus.  Angus definitely worked the sheep hard but just couldn’t get them to move very fast.  He barked at them and weaved back and forth behind them furiously, but the sheep just didn’t react fast enough for him.  That’s probably why he started barking, somewhat frustrated; just to get them to move.  He also worked very close to the sheep and frequently so close that he would cut one head out.  He needed a lot of help with a crook to keep from cutting through the stock at times.  Back then I thought he was lacking in gathering instinct, the ability to want to keep the stock together.  Back then.

 

Finally, there was Jubalee, the nice, sweet, pretty pup.  Given her personality I would have guessed she would be the softest on the sheep.  No way.  She dove in fast and furious.  The sheep moved off of her very quickly and didn’t like her at all.  Jubie was a very fast moving dog and, given half a chance, would dash in and out of the sheep, sometimes taking a mouthful of wool with her.  She also took a lot of handling to keep things under control.  This girl loved to play tag with the sheep. Perhaps lack of confidence, perhaps unable to relax.  Perhaps she has the most instinct.

 

This was their first exposure to livestock.  Obviously the three puppies were totally different from each other.  Something told me that they were going to change.

 

Three months later training starts.  While the pups are still way too young for formal training, they do seem to be ready for spending consistent time with livestock.

This time the livestock consisted of goats and ducks.  Luckily, again, the stock was used to being worked by an experienced dog.  I wanted to take as many variables out of the equation as possible.  This will give the dogs the confidence they need, cuts down on wrecks and generally make working them as easy and as stress-free as possible.

 

My plan is to concentrate on letting them work the stock.  No training, per se.  Not yet anyway.  My job is to keep them out of trouble, letting them learn on their own, with guidance from myself, on how to control and move the stock.  I do this in a round pen at first until we run out of room, then we move on to another field, about 20 meters by 30 meters.

 

There’s two things the pups will be asked to do.  First, circle the stock.  Not part of the flock, all of the flock.  If they are missing or lacking in the ability to gather, or group the stock, I need to make sure they get that right, straight away. 

 

Secondly I want them to fetch or bring the stock to me.  Obviously they first have to gather the stock before they can fetch them to me.  So a plan begins to develop.

 

I use a long stick to help guide the dog.  Since the stick is an extension of me and the dog has to react to the pressure of me and my stick I was curious as to how they would react to the pressure.  This has a big impact on fast they learn and how fast they progress.  I prefer of course a dog that gives (or bends) to pressure readily but then also comes back quickly to put pressure on the stock.

 

Angus was first.  Right away it was very obvious he was not giving in to my pressure, not at all.  He still worked the stock (goats in this case) very closely and as soon as I took pressure away from him he was glued to the goats.  Consistently.  Still barking furiously out of frustration, he couldn’t get the goats to move fast enough.  Goats are a little different than sheep.  Goats, when pressured too hard will quickly stop and refuse to move.  So a dog that works goats too close will get frustrated quickly.  That was obviously the case.  And, because Angus worked so close to the goats he also tended to split them quite a lot.  So we had some issues to work on right away.  My problem was how to get him to realize that things work much better if he gives in to pressure, both from me and the stock.

 

Then came Jubalee.  I could tell she was still quite intense on her stock, as she was when she was six months old.  She spends a lot of time checking on the goats when we’re not working.  I do not like to see dogs running along the fence trying to engage with the livestock, so I discourage that.  But Jubalee consistently would spend time keeping an eye on the goats so I took that as a sign that she’s quite interested. 

 

Well, I wasn’t disappointed when I started working her on goats when she turned a year old.  Her speed and intensity kept me on my toes.  Even though she, like Angus, tended to split the stock at times, her behavior towards the goats was totally different.   Things moved much faster with her.  She responded much better to my pressure.  Probably much of that came because she has more power than Angus – meaning the goats moved off of her faster and therefore she wasn’t so worried about her abilities to move them.  But her intensity caused other problems – diving in, cheap shots (biting at inappropriate times and places) and just generally getting way too excited about things.  I know, they’re just puppies so I couldn’t correct them too much for that.

 

What I could do is use my long stick to show her what was correct behavior and movement and what wasn’t allowed (diving in from the side for instance).   Of course I had to work much faster and harder with Jubalee.  But the principles were still the same.  Flank correctly, get to the balance point, fetch if possible and go back to flanking.

 

Both Angus and Jubalee got the same amount of time in the round pen.  Perhaps five to ten minutes, three or four times per week.  No stress, no yelling unless they did something really bad like hanging on to something.  I followed the basic pattern of training in the round pen.  I walk forward, putting pressure on the dog to correctly flank around the stock.  Then, when I was comfortable with their ability to complete the flank I would square up to the stock and take away some of the pressure on the dog by walking backwards.  This would cause the dog to get to the balance point and begin to fetch.

 

Neither Jubalee nor Angus was rating the stock once they got to the balance point.  This is perfectly normal for pups at that age, I think.  Of course if I didn’t want the goats to run me over and trample me.   I’d have to somehow fix the fact that the pups were bringing the stock way too fast at me.  I did that by again putting pressure on the dog with my body, my voice, my crook, my hat, anything.  If I didn’t get a response I would make them flank again, by using myself and the stick, until they got to the balance point and then try it again.  I didn’t expect much success with that maneuver but its something that they need to learn.  And as expected, Jubalee responded much easier to my pressure and the stock responded much better to her than to Angus.

 

Jubalee and Angus were both quite different in their reaction when they got to the balance point.  Angus would immediately start wearing, going back and forth behind the stock, probably too much.  Sometimes he even would wear through the flock, splitting a goat or two out.  So I constantly had to watch for that.  Probably a good thing for him would have been to work a larger group of stock, especially lighter stock that would move easier off of him.  But meanwhile almost every time that he would begin wearing closely behind the stock I had to turn a corner myself and push on him to re-flank and try it again.  Unfortunately, Angus just wasn’t responding well to my pressure.  A couple of times I worked Angus on ducks.  Since they moved off of him much better he really looked like a champ on ducks.  He also barked less since the stock was moving so much better for him.

 

Now Jubalee would also come in like gangbusters from the balance point onto the goats.  I put her on ducks a few times too, like Angus.  Unfortunately, things got quite wild and out of control.  She’s so fast and would often grab a hold of a duck and well, you can guess that there’s some yelling after that.  So ducks and Jubalee didn’t mix too well.

 

On goats though Jubalee responded pretty well to my pressure at the balance point.  Lets say at least half of the time she would check with me before moving straight onto the goats.  I would take that opportunity to give her a word like ‘steady’, lean forward a little or put some pressure towards her with my body or stick.  That was enough to cause her to steady up for a few steps.  This was more than enough for me. As soon as she then got close to the stock again or if the stock reached me we’d do another turn where I’d turn into her, walk at her, putting pressure on her and moving her off-balance.  Her reaction was then to flank around and head towards the balance point.

 

Doing complete circles around me and the stock is something that I really want to stop as soon as I can.  Angus loves to circle all the way around.  Jubalee understands that circling is a good way to get to the balance point, so she wasn’t so easy to break from doing complete circles.  I think many Aussies tend to get into the circling game.  Its an escape from pressure on them because we always yell at them when they get to the stock, they like to run and its still instinctual, gathering up the stock into one small group.  I noticed that as I was putting pressure on Angus to back off the stock while fetching, he would begin to run in a circle around me and the stock.  This is some thing I have to be aware of and not let it get too far out of hand.

 

Meanwhile, I haven’t mentioned much of the third pup, Atlanta.  Working her was totally different.  She still was quite shy of the stock so she needed lots and lots of praise, some prodding and just make the whole session a fun game.  I know this gets very tiring after a while but since I promised myself I’d work all three pups I continued working Atlanta as well.  Lo and behold, Atlanta really started coming around.  After a few sessions she was able to gather the stock up quite nicely.  Not with any great intensity but quite nicely.  I thought at the time she’d make a nice chore dog because she really is easy on the stock, circles nicely and listens well.  For many chores that’s all you really need.

 

A month or so of this type of work and Atlanta started getting quite keen on her stock.  At least much more compared to what she was like as a six month old pup.  I was very careful though to not put any pressure on her. I let her make some mistakes, didn’t use a stick at first with her and never used a loud voice.  All positive reinforcement.  We’ll give her more of that as she gets older.  I haven’t found the point where she’ll quit on me; I don’t want to find it, really.  Since my expectations aren’t real high for her I’m working her very easily.  As that happens her confidence level really goes higher and higher and she works better each time.  After a couple of sessions I even noticed her thinking about gripping the goats.  And unlike Jubalee, with Atlanta I strongly encouraged her to grip the stock.

 

Well, that’s where we are now, the puppies are fourteen months old.  In the next article we’ll see how Jubalee changes because she comes into heat.  Also how Angus changed drastically because I figured out how he responds to different types of pressure.  And Atlanta – we’ll just have to see how she turns out.