Cowboys are totally cool

Today was an amazing dog day. Spent the day with Elvin Kopp from That'll Do Ranch http://www.thatlldoranch.com/ learning some really strong foundations that are useful for all working dogs, not just stockdogs.
This man (Rancher?Cowboy??) is such a down to earth, confident, natural dog person that I was drawn to him immediately. He spoke about eliminating mechanical training and challenging our dogs and the human stamp that people have put on them as pets. Of course that's everything my fellow canine aficionados and I discuss all the time, so I nodded wisely during this lecture and took lots of notes.



We got to work with him twice in between talks. The first time, in the enclosure with no sheep was all about the basic relationship between dog and handler. How to properly give corrections that match the undesired behavior, not applying too much pressure and causing submissive behavior but also how to properly follow through with correction when your dog challenges you. JC was focused and intent on working as usual, but he did provide me with ample opportunity to correct him which I was able to do easily with as little as a soft 'hey'. I was especially proud of him as he seemed to be one of the better behaved dogs while working in the training enclosure. Of course when tied to the fence he was teh only dog that whined the entire time until I had to get up and bring him back to my chair to sit with me so, it all balanced out in the end.



Because I was only attending the first day of the three day clinic, Elvin wanted to work my dog on sheep before ending the session. That was a real learning experience for me. I felt for the first time like I was able to control the situation between dog and sheep and keep it balanced and even more so, control my relationship with my dog while we are both working. I used gentle but firm voice corrections to bend JC out further when he got too close to the stock and released pressure by stepping away from him when he did bend out. We finished by having JC come to me rather than go to the sheep when I released him from a lie down command. THAT took more than a couple of tries.

One of the suggestions Elvin made about training was to record daily what you have accomplished and what you plan to work on next; approaching each training session knowing where you are and what you want to do.
I hope that's what I'm doing.