I like to start a session by just walking backwards and letting Bess bring the sheep to me. This lets her feel in control and builds her confidence. It's rough on the knees sometimes, though.
I just keep moving, letting her bring the sheep to me, not saying much, if anything, for the first few minutes. I just position myself so that she has to keep moving to keep the sheep between us.
Sometimes it's all just a blur.
Here I've been putting pressure on her to try to get her to stay away from the sheeps' hindquarters. I move towards her as she circles around the sheep, telling her to get back. I'll also say things like "Hey!" and "Ach!" to get her attention if she starts coming in too tight. I'll only do this for a few moments — certainly no more than 30 seconds at time at this stage. When I get what I want, I pull the pressure back and let her work on her own again for a little while. Too much pressure can make sheepherding scary with a sensitive dog like Bess.
So she gets to have the sheep for a little while, even if what she's doing isn't really right. Here she's crossing between me and the sheep. She noticed she was doing wrong shortly after this picture was taken and corrected herself with no input from me.
Here I'm applying pressure to get her to stop on balance, and I'm introducing her to the words "lie down" as she stops and lets the sheep move forward with out adding more pressure to them. This is a hard concept for a young, keen dog, so I don't insist that the dog hit the deck at this point. I just want her to stop, which she did here.
We finish up with a little fetching, and that's a wrap. In about five minutes — or maybe less — I've showed Bess that she can control sheep, she can listen to me and I'll help her control them, that she can control them from a distance, and that she can have fun doing it.
That'll do, Bess. Good girl!
All photos on this page are ©2000 by Lynn Zimmerman. The text is ©2000 Bill Fosher. Please don't use them without permission.