Cattle Dogs!

This past weekend, I took the pack up to go herding again. TeeVee showed considerable more promise than he did during his instinct test. No eye, but he wasn't as afraid of the stock. I'm still not sure how much of him is herding and how much is just chasing...but he was more focused and interested in whatever he was doing.  He also had some nice downs and except for at the very end, I was able to call him off the stock.

Which brings me to Miss Clementine. As I've mentioned before, her drive on stock is unbelievable. This drive also brings out her full cattle-dogness. Bark. Bark. Bark. Chomp. Chomp. On Saturday, she refused to listen to me or our trainer. She broke every stay and pretty much just ran around grabbing hind legs whenever she could.

She's also been breaking her stays in agility class.. at trials, she's ok (so far), but since she is now comfortable in class, she thinks its FUN to not listen to me half the time. Don't believe a dog can give you the finger?  Yeah.. you need to spend more time with cattle dogs. She's also been just running around in class taking whatever obstacles she wants. Now, sometimes my cues might be off..  that is the obvious answer. But when my dog just decides to run off course and climb on equipment piled in the corner?  C'mon now!

I've decided to reinstate NILIF in my household in an effort to combat these problems.  Every time the dogs go outside, I make them wait while I open the door all the way, before giving the release word. Then they tear off to go chase squirrels (HANKS!). I'm upping the ante on this a bit. Instead of just opening the door.. I'm walking past them, halfway between the Hanks and the dogs before giving the release word.

We're also going to work a lot on our 2o2o contacts. It's time to make this more of a challenge so I can get to the point of running past Clem without her stepping off the contact. Hopefully, this will pay off when it comes to the stock as well.