Jedi's 1st Herding Lesson (Sheep)

As I alluded to yesterday, Jedi had big plans for today. He got to go play with sheep! There is a local person who has the setup and wants to learn more about herding with her dogs. To do so she is bringing in an instructor from out of the area (since we don't really have anyone around here who does this). They've had two weekends of clinics so far. The first one was on a dock diving weekend so we couldn't make it. The second one was this weekend when we were in Oshkosh. When I learned that the clinician would be available for private lessons before flying out today I jumped at the chance to let Jedi give it a try.

We went over during my lunch hour and met our instructor, Ellen Schwab. I don't know a darn thing about herding, but she seemed to know her stuff and was good at explaining things to a total newbie. Because this was Jedi's first exposure to sheep, I was expecting (and would have been perfectly fine) to hand him over to this person and let them go to work. I don't know a darn thing about herding and figured I'd just get in the way. I figured out pretty quickly that this wasn't going to be how things worked, though, when she opened up with, "it's the humans we need to train." My first concern was regarding who would video (lol...), but thankfully the owner was there and was kind enough to grab a few clips for me.

My agility-ness gets in the way. I am far too comfortable being on the same side of my dog (sheep should always be between me and the dog) and in herding terms I "nag" and don't take the pressure off enough. You know, that's probably a lesson one could take away for agility, too. Should I really be "nagging" my dog to stay out on their line or should I expect him to stay there until told otherwise? I suppose that's how the mega-distance in NADAC works, but I digress... The instructor was great at giving me feedback to tell me to stop pushing, and when I needed to step in to move Jedi out on his circle.

I feel like we made good progress on the whole circling/gathering business, which I suppose is good for one's first session. I continually tripped over my own feet (and the sheep) when attempting to do anything that resembled a straight line across the pen. The little buggers knocked me down once as I was attempting this, and Jedi swooped in and said, "I got this" -- only really, he didn't, and he just scattered the sheep again. That's pretty much how it went. If I had half a clue what I was doing he did great. If I lost my sheep he tried to take control, which generally meant diving through them. He got a little vocal when he went for these dives, but he wasn't nasty to the sheep or a grabber. Good deal, I don't have to "buy" any sheep.

Jedi's turn was a bit over a half hour and he was done at the end of it. I think he would have continued to move the sheep if allowed, but he reached the point where when I took him away to talk to the instructor he just camped out on the ground and stretched out in an effort to find cool ground (poor Jedi, there was no pool or other water source in which to wallow). The instructor pointed out, though, that he never stopped "working" and continued to drill his laser eyes into the sheep because they kept moving around behind us. Overall he listened so well. We worked on a lot of stopping where I'd ask him to stop and sit, then touch him, then release him to work again. He was really good about that, but if the sheep started moving again the stopping was done.

It was a lot for me to take in, but I enjoyed it and I believe Jedi did as well. Because winter is coming, this is the last time they plan on having anything this year, so now we have to wait until spring to do it again. Hopefully it fits in with our schedule and we can participate in the full weekend. This will allow Jedi more time to settle into the work. The instructor really liked him and said he's a really nice dog. I just think it's fun to watch them do what they were bred to do. I imagine he would have done ever so much better with a more competent handler.