|
K9
COMMENTARY
BY
DONALD McCaig
| MANNERLINESS, DOG TRAINING AND TRAINING A DOG PACK
|
Dear Trainers,
Ms. M. writes: "There are trainers
who prefer to train in
drive, where the dog is not largely calm."
I have never understood "Drives" and assume that they
are
trainer dialect - useful but not necessarily true.
Similarly we sheepdoggers might say a dog is "kind to
his
sheep" or "Over-runs at the top" or "keeks". We usually refer
to a
dog's enthusiasm for its work as "keenness".
In a started dog this keenness might be evidenced by
all
sorts of wicked behavior - busting up the sheep, free-lancing,
pushing too hard. If the dog isn't cheating to get his own way, these
wickednesses are generally tolerated.
Our mantra is: "It's easier to slow a dog down than
speed one up."
Some less keen dogs can be brought into keenness as they
mature (Shay McMullen's Lad was such a dog) but the top trainers
don't have
time for them and most become family pets.
Keenness is not an antonym for excitablity (what we
call
hyperness). A sheepdog may be so keen we will work himself to
death
(most would) but he must work calmly.
An up-down, bouncy,
desperate, hyper dog unsettles sheep and makes
the work
harder. We might deliberately excite a sulky, overstressed or
outfaced dog temporarily.
I want a calm, implacable,
keen, experienced, sheep savvy,
trial savvy, quick thinking, athletic, good
listener who off sheep is mannerly
anywhere I chose to take him.
What is miraculous
is how our dogs become what we ask of them.
Donald McCaig
======================================================
Dear Trainers,
My dogs
may be the wicked beasts everybody hates to meet.
They're not on lead, not
heeling and unless I'm startled from my
reverie, generally I'm not paying
any attention to them. Walks are
dog time.
If I do
meet another dog or human on the walk I'll walk mine
behind me because I
don't want to scare anybody or any dog but if my
pack had their druthers,
you bet they'd investigate the stranger.
Other people's loose dogs don't
seem to be anxious to run up
to my five or six so they're not a
problem.
MAD gatherings are also
dog time - where they get to meet all
kinds of dogs that aren't Border
Collies. Good life experience. I do
keep one eye cocked until the doggy
acquaintances are made.
At sheepdog trials, morning and evening there are
dozens of
loose sheepdogs running around, making acquaintances and playing.
In
twenty years I've never seen a fight. Ruffs, sure. Warning growls,
yep. Bitch snaps, yes. Not one fight.
One of my favorite trials is the Grass Creek Trial on
the
banks of the St Lawrence. The trial is in a provincial park with a
long sand beach and at dusk after the civilians leave there'll be
forty or
fifty sheepdogs lunging and chasing through the shallows.
Lovely.
Donald McCaig
=========================================================
Dear Trainers,
Mr.
friend M. writes: "Donald, I love you dearly but some times
you can be so
thick-headed. Of course you are training all your
dog to do all
the very things you go to such great lengths to
insist you
don't train for. It is just that as a person well-versed in
good animal husbandry practices
you do the training as
naturally as you take your next breath."
M.'s right. I am
thickheaded. Certainly I've been unable to explain
this issue clearly. I am
reluctant to say much about pet dog training because,
although
I've read the books and watched it done by some of the best,
I haven't
done it myself and wouldn't know how to. When my friends
have problem
pets I send them to B.M. (who has batted, thus far, three for three).
I have too much respect for
dog trainers to call myself one.
Though M. and I have
many of the same goals - i.e. a dog that can go
with us anywhere and do
everything that needs done, we approach the job,
I think, rather
differently and I have advantages dog trainers don't have
with most of the
dogs they train.
Border Collies are one of the easiest dogs to train.
M.‘s Chows said a
lot about her as a dog trainer - my Border Collies
could make any trainer
look good.
Second: My dogs and I inhabit a dog savvy
culture - each sheepdog trial
is like a MAD gathering. Nobody
at either is likely to be stupid about dogs
and nobody at either hesitates
to correct an ill-behaved dog. I'd guess that
for most of you, the majority
of your training time is spent with people
who know far less about dogs
than you do. Almost all my dog training time
is spent with people who know
as much or more than I do.
Mannerliness - broke down by real dog trainers into
distinct skills - stay,
heel, don't jerk the leash, retrieve and so forth -
is trained incidently
by sheepdoggers.
- The dog is taught to stay by being told "Stay" or
"wait"
and verbally corrected if he moves too soon. Gradually the dog
stays
longer.
- The dog may pull on a leash: once. The dog may hump
another male:
once.
- The dog is taught to ride the back of a four
wheeler by being told to
jump up, told to stay and corrected if he tries to
jump off when the
4-wheeler starts moving.
As a consequence, my mannerly dogs are - I'd guess -
much less precise
and more contextual than yours. June's recall means
"return to the vicinity of"
not "front and finish". June's stay is
contextual: not very reliable if I
am working other dogs around her but
when she and Luke were at my feet in
Oxford International airport, they
didn't budge an inch.
In a recent post a trainer told how her dog was on a
down stay at an
obedience competition when another dog crawled all over it
without her dog
moving. My dogs would move.
The main difference between my single breed/ single
task training
and yours is, I think, work. Our dogs have an (inchoate)
genetic concept of the work
from the instant they "see sheep". We need no
further motivators.
Your multiple breed/ mannerliness training has as its
first purpose teaching the
dog what work is and motivating him - however
this done - to do work until
the dog begins to understand work's inherent
satisfactions.
Thus we sheepdoggers
are always teaching the whole
(though imperfect) work,
whereas you start with elements
and
build to the whole.
- The goal is the same: to get the
work done.
Let me give a current example. I am competing in the
Bluegrass Trial next
week and that trial has a five hundred yard fity yard
outrun. 4 year old
Luke has trouble finding his sheep at that distance and
4 year old June may
well decide at three hundred or four hundred yards that
the sheep she
hasn't spotted are nearby, cut in and cross the course (major
deductions).
Consequently we've been
training on a wet, grassy five hundred yard field
on ewes with new lambs.
The ewes are rank and hard to move.
Three weeks
ago they intimidated about a third of the open trial dogs
- utterly defeated them.
At five hundred yards, I can't see how many sheep I'm
to gather, nor their
composition. Might be four, might be five, might be
two lambs, and might be
none. And in the tall grass I can't see the
watercourses the sheep are
being asked to cross.
At the Bluegrass trial, a dog's failure(s) to bring
the sheep in a straight
line from where he picks him up to the handler's
feet can cost 1 to 19
points.
But when Luke and June picked up their sheep and the
sheep drifted off
line, I didn't correct the dogs or insist they bring the
sheep properly
because - I didn't know if they COULD bring them properly
and off line is
much less important than the dog bringing these sheep,
whatever the
difficulties.
If I do nothing, my dogs will learn to read and move
these
particular sheep - a lesson they will never forget.
If I insist they take my commands and they fail to
bring the sheep
they will have lost confidence in their ability to do
their work and
failed to please me. Not a mindset I want a week before a
major trial.
I am training on some rank Dorpers at five hundred
yards. The field is wet
natured - full of small streams which I can't see
because the grass is too
high.
Both Luke and June will bring these tough sheep but it
is very hard to keep
the sheep on a (desirable) straight line and the dog
has everything he can
do just to bring them. (It was particularly hard for
Luke because a loose
sheep guarding dog joined the four sheep and Luke had
to bring four sheep
and a fake-playful obstructive dog.)
Generally I am letting the straight line go because
keeping to it may put
more pressure on the dog than he can handle and most
sheep are easier than
these Dorpers. But: June and Luke must bring them.
After they get more
experience with the Dorpers I will ask more of the
dogs.
I think the real dog trainer's demand for
precision (sit/heel/come etc)
isn't just to win obedience competitions. I
think it teaches the dog what
work is and work's satisfactions.
We sheepdoggers are much less precise.
DONALD MCCAIG
======================================================
Dear Trainers,
From time to time a city
dweller suggesst that a dog that is
unruly in urban settings would do fine
on farms or ranches.
Around baby lambs?
Foals?
Diesel tractors,
corn pickers,
rattlesnakes, coyotes and bears?
Would the clean air and
visible stars of the countryside work
a miraculous transformation on the
beast?
Would its unruliness amuse a farmer who has to run from
daybreak
to sunset to meet his payments?
Would the farmer - likely no dog trainer -
enjoy cutting out time for dog training?
Unruly is unruly and useless is useless, town or country.
Donald McCaig Yucatec Farm
Williamsville, Virginia 24487 USA
====================================================================
Dear Trainers,
Ms. H. writes: "I have read posts
from trainers on this list saying
they don't believe in the value of the
stand-for-exam exercise."
I am one who thinks the stand for exam exercise is
merely a vestigal
remnant of the show ring.
I, not my vet, nor his vet tech, hold my dogs during
examinations. They
have never been trained to stand-for-exam, yet they
remain still no matter
what the vet is doing to/with them, including Luke
last year whose
boutulism triggered his Lyme teeters so he was not only
part paralyzed but
in such pain he shrieked when I lifted him onto the
table.
- Since I'm a sheepdog trainer, not a dog trainer,
I don't housebreak my dogs
- I live in a house where dogs don't
shit on the floor.
- I don't train my dogs to walk off lead. They were
born knowing how to walk off lead.
- I don't train my dogs not to pull on a lead - if
they are on lead there's a reason
for it.
- I don't train my dogs to come when called. Why
wouldn't they?
- I don't train my dogs to heel. They walk behind me
when meeting dicey
circumstances.
- I don't train my dogs to sit: the down and
down-stay do
everything a sit does better.
- And I don't train my dogs to stand for exam because
why wouldn't they
- do that if I asked them to?
- I also don't train them to ride the four wheeler.
They do what I ask them to.
I do train my dogs to work sheep. Although they are
four years old and
competing at the highest level at sheepdog trials, I
train them at least
twice a week. At this stage training refines our
conversation.
I'm not bragging on my dogs.
As those who've attended sheepdog trials will
attest, my dogs are not
uniquely well trained, nor uniquely mannerly.
All the dogs are mannerly.
They live in the world with us. They must do
difficult elegant work. Why
wouldn't they be mannerly?
I believe most working
sheepdogs will stand-for-exam - even when confused
and hurt. Why wouldn't
they?
Donald McCaig
==================================================================
Dear Trainers,
It will surprise nobody on
this list to learn that Donald
McCaig is not a dog trainer.
It would surprise few
sheepdoggers to hear that Donald McCaig
is an A
minus sheepdog trainer if that.
I have seen better
assistance dogs, better hunting dogs,
better coursing dogs, better agility
dogs, better obedience dogs than
mine. I've seen faster, fatter,
sweeter,more loving, prettier dogs.
But I will take my dogs anywhere. I hope to take them
one day
to a "Pozzy" gathering. I hope to take them to one of Mr. H.
seminars. (I must add that nobody nowhere, no time trains or handles
my
dogs but me.)
If my dogs are being unmannerly, I will
correct them. I don't
think about that, I do it; wherever they are and with
whatever force
is necessary. If someone objects I will correct them
too.
If, on the trial field, I am
being foolish or unreasonable, hasty or thoughtless,
my dogs will
correct me by failing to achieve our common goal.
If my
training mistakes make them unmannerly in public I will travel
fretfully or
alone. I have learned from those on this list and have a lot
more to learn about dog
training.
I hope I will never let my
ego, attachment to a particular theory,
or friendship
with another trainer or group of trainers interfere with
the promise I have made my dog:
"If you try to
understand; if you keep with me; if you value our
mutual work more than food or
drink or comfort or safety -
if
you do your uttermost - I will take you where few dogs ever
get
to go. I will show you your best possibilities and, to the
best
of my ability, I will train you to achieve them. I promise
you a
rich, fascinating, rewarding, understandable life
and, whatever befalls
me, I will care for you to the end of your days.”
Donald McCaig
========================================================
Dear
Trainers,
Ms. D. writes: "For my own
goals, I've printed off an old
criteria I found on an assistance
>
dog website, standards of behavior for program-trained assistance
dogs.
It
> includes Controlled Unload Out of Vehicle, Approaching the
Building, Controlled
> Entry through a Doorway, Heeling through the
Building, Recall, Sit
(next to
> food without sniffing it, with a
shopping cart passing, with someone
> approaching and touching the dog),
Down (food dropped on floor,
adult and child
> approaching dog and
child touching dog, someone stepping over the
dog--this will
> be
hard with a Terv!), Noise Distraction, Restaurant Behavior, Drop
Leash
> while Maintaining Control and then Recovering Leash, Controlled
Exit
from
> Premises and Reload into Vehicle . . ."
When I read this, I remembered last weekend in
airports: one wheeled
crate, the second bungee corded on top. Luggage
inside the crates. Two
mannerly dogs on string leads (If I'd needed
anything more substantial
than a string lead I'd have been in deep
trouble.)
From the rent a car, via the rental car bus (crates in
the front
doorway, dogs and me in the rear doorway) through busy Ontario
(LAX
North) California airport to the ticket counter. A down stay,
leads
dropped while they called the supervisor and moved me to another
line
and yet a third line. People stepping over and/or schmoozing the
dogs.
Lines of people and luggage on both sides. I debungie the creates
and
take the wheels off. I never pick up the leads.
No, no. You have to go through security first. Put the
wheels back on,
rebungie. Dogs, all the while on a down stay w/o any
further
instruction from me except, once when June rose to accept a sudden
pat
and I insisted on the down. Maybe fifteen minutes.
Then to security for another ten minute advance
through that line.
"Oh, no sir. Move over here." Another ten minutes, dogs
at my feet
with people on both sides, big suitcases and a nice cop who came
to
schmooze June, explaining" I just love my job."
Then under the rope with one dog while the other stays
fifty feet
away. First dog gets a body search, then back to disassemble
the
crates again, send my bag through the sniffer, put the dog in crate
which is dragged across the floor to a mysterious belt.
Recall second dog to me for body search & etc.
Then I get to go through security and wonder of
wonders, my suspenders
don't set of the buzzer.
June has flown before. Luke, never. In their usual
week at home they
might see four human beings.
They have never been trained to sit, heel or stand for
inspection.
Since Luke is crate protective, before the trip I had him
carried
three times in his crate and once in the tractor bucket.
They acted appropriately not because I insisted on it,
nor because
they'd ever been trained to do ao (how do you train a dog to
sit where
he won't be mashed by a rental car bus's folding door?) but
because we
have been through plenty of other adventures - some pleasant,
some not
- and the dogs read me and understood that I'm not bullshitting
them -
it's important they be mannerly whatever the horrible
circumstances
and provocation.
I'd also like to believe they trusted me to
bring them safely back to
their ordinary doggy lives.
Donald McCaig
======================================================================
Dear Trainers,
Ms. L.
wrote: "The conversation turned to crazy border collies. I
remarked that I > haven't seen any crazy border collies at herding
events.
Many just > hang out until
it is their time to work. At that point, the dog
> "activates" and goes
to work. Everyone was pretty impressed and were
> asking me how the
handlers "did it." Not wanting to get into
> details, I remarked "It's a
different culture. . ."
Ms. L. has done a better job of explaining this than
I. My
previous attempts have unwittingly offended fine trainers who thought
I was
denegrating their skills, hard work and concern.
I'll give it another shot. Sheepdoggers don't
train for mannerliness,
they expect it and nurture for it.
Let me offer a non-sheepdog
example. Last month I was having dinner
in Greenwich
Village with C. and their 14 mo old Border Collie
service-dog-in-training Peep.
We ate outside at a crowded sidewalk cafe
with Peep under the table at
C.'s feet.
While we ate, she didn't say a word to him. When he
got up or
wanted to wander, she silently tugged him back where he should be
and
returned to our dinner conversation.
She paid no attention to
Peep unless he moved when firmly and calmly
she returned
him to where he should be.
This was his first outing
at a public restaurant and by the end of the
evening Peep had learned that
staying at C.s feet in restaurants was
part of what being in restaurants
meant. It also means not reacting to
other people's advances, not accepting
treats from strangers and so forth
but that'll come later.
C. wasn't teaching a
simple skill, she was teaching a meaning.
A sheepdog example. At 8
weeks old Shay McMullen's Nell came to her
name when called 100 percent of
the time. She was almost always off lead
and walked with adult dogs twice,
sometimes three times a day. While they
were trained she was chained to a
fence. When she yipped she was told to
stop yipping.
Nell went to every sheepdog trial Shay went to and
visited with
other dogs and children and grownups. Sometimes Shay gave
Nell's lead to a
child and asked the child to take her for an hour or two.
The grownups made nothing of her, did not pick Nell
up, never spoke to
her unless she was doing something annoying, never
ootchy-cootchyed
her and never let her jump up on them.
In the fascinating,
rewarding dog-rational world she would inhabit,
Nell was not expected to
whine, lunge, bark, pull her lead or act up.
The first couple times
Nell slept in a motel, she slept in a crate.
Afterwards she slept beside
the bed. Her longest car trip thus far has been
nine hours: two motels,
ice, snow and a thirty mile an hour wind. Since
she was nine months , twice
a week she's been trained for sheepdog work.
She's a hard headed little
thing and dead keen.
The main thing Shay has taught her (nobody else has
ever worked Nell)
has been that they are a team, that they must do this
work together.
He has also convinced her that he knows what he's doing and
what
he is teaching her is important to her.
When Nell was a year old she started doing chore work,
fetching a big
group of sheep at moderate distances.
Nell is fourteen months old and almost ready to enter
her first
sheepdog trial. Because Shay has run an open dog, Nell cannot
compete in
Novice/novice:the most junior training class; her first trial
will be in
pro/novice (either dog or handler has run open).
The Pro-novice course is a shortened, slightly
simplified version of the traditional
sheepdog trial but it is difficult
enough and Nell will be competing against the best
handlers in North
America running their own young dogs. Nell will gain
experience: probably
she won't win any ribbons.
In August, Shay and Nell
will travel with a half dozen other dogs twelve
hours to
Canada for three weekends of trials: different sheep/different
courses/
different sleeping accomodations. Of course Nell is mannerly.
Why wouldn't she be?
- If you honestly believe - or many in your
particular dog culture
believe - that "high-drive" dogs (whatever they are)
- are harmed by being mannerly;
- If you believe that only a dog's owner should
correct an
unmannerly dog,
- If you believe that off-lead dogs are
unpredictable, in peril and
- likely to do all sorts of wicked things,
If
you believe lunging, barking, tugging, jumping up dogs are "normal"- and that mannerly dogs are unnatural or
"repressed", training a dog
- to mannerliness is hard work.
- If the other hand, you expect them to be mannerly
and accept no
substitutes and everyone in your culture feels the same way,
- mannerly dogs becomes so commonplace nobody remarks
them.
In twenty four years I have
never been praised at a sheepdog trial
for having a mannerly dog. Might as
well praise him for having four legs.
Donald McCaig Yucatec
Farm
Williamsville, Virginia 24487 USA
==================================================
Ms. M. writes: "However, I
find that since dogs unlearn things,
a person must always be training on a
constant basis. Thinking
for your dog constantly and watching for any or
slight deviations is very demanding.
Few people have the consistency to
give constant commands and
enforce them
24/7. Everything I do with my dogs is a command to be
enforced if
need be. When you experience being in control to that degree,
it is a whole new world and the
result is amazing."
I am interested in how different dog cultures
see their dogs, how these
visions are expressed in training and ultimately
how the dogs morph into to
the visions we have of them.
In the dog training world the vision of a desirable
trained dog is often
expressed as the owner's ability to
instantly stop undesirable behavior.
The
typical example is DOWNING a dog running into a busy street or as Ms.
McD.
wrote in a later post,
"I need my dog to DOWN the first time, every time
>whether it is to gain control as she is running toward something she
>shouldn't, whether it is to make her less threatening to a little
>kid who wants to meet her, or whether it is to make her settle down,
>already, if she is doing some perpetual nest-building/circling at
>3AM."
Sheepdog culture
wants a dog that understands its work and
while human control plays
a very important part in some of
that work, a
desirable trained dog is expected to "think for itself".
Our parallel explanation to
stopping a dog running into the street is
perhaps Geoff
Billingham's "When I wanted to gather the hill"
(A thousand
acres of rough land with sheep scattered everywhere),
"I'd send
Jed and go back in the house for my breakfast. By the time
I was done, she'd have five
hundred ewes in the steading waiting for me."
Working farms and sheepdog trials are (relatively) dog
safe. Nobody is
likely to run over your off-lead dog at a sheepdog trial,
no other dog will
attack it and no human will fondle it.
I dislike thinking for my dogs and I don't
want to watch them every minute.
They have their lives to lead and I have
mine. When I take my five
sheepdogs on their 30-45 minute evening walk
through wild land, I'm
generally daydreaming. I count 'em when we get back
in the car.
I want my dogs to be mannerly off-lead in other
people's homes, around
strange dogs, in offices, motels, libraries and
parks. When traveling I
want to turn them out OL at rest stops, behind
billboards and interstate
gas stations.
Urban venues test the farm dog's ability to think for
itself. While I have
had my dogs off-lead on Manhatten, Washington DC and
San Fransisco streets
(the most dangerous) I haven't Ms. M.s desire to
"give constant
commands and enforce them 24/7." It's easier to carry a
couple lengths of
string in the back pocket and leash them until they're
somewhere safer.
Donald McCaig
==================================================
Dear Trainers,
H. writes:" One of the
things that really makes me cringe hard
is when someone announces that she
aims to join the team and
do SAR, and has an
obedience-titled dog "<snip>"
Because what I invariably see is a dog who is
thoroughly convinced that his
job in life is to pay attention to that
handler"<snip> "That relationship
is well-established, and as close
to immutable as such things get. That's
the relationship that gets high
scores in the obedience ring"<snip>
"I also see a handler who thinks she has all the
answers, and rewards the
dog for looking to her, discourages or punishes
initiative, *almost always
with no awareness that she is doing so.*"
I have winced when OTCH
handlers brought their dogs to sheepdog
clinics. I won't see this team at a
trial because obedience competitors
rarely get that far and when they do,
they've made a profound mental change.
Note: I
am not claiming that sheepdogging is "better" than formal
obedience nor
that I and my sheepdogs could walk into an obedience ring and
clean up.
We'd be a hopeless giggle.
I am
saying that Formal obedience competitors and sheepdoggers see
different
dogs and that our dogs - always courteous to people who seem to
know what
they're doing - are willing to become our images of them.
What interests me is the distinction between mannerly dogs and
obedience dogs. My two or three years acquaintance with (some of) you
and
(some of) your dogs: especially Damian, Tug, Mel and Wrap; has taught
me a
lot.
What the dogs I've mentioned have in common with mine is they are
all working dogs. Each of them does jobs a human being cannot do;
jobs its owner
doesn't control and may not have deliberately taught it.
Vicki Hearne liked to
complain about Obedience dogs that were
unmannerly outside the ring.
Vicki'd say, "I train Real Obedience."
The dogs I've named have helped me
understand what Vicki meant. You
teach Real Obedience Too.
The
sheepdoggers goal is not "obedience". The word is never used.
High praise
is "He sure knows how to listen". Or "That gyp is biddable."
The
sheepdoggers goal isn't mannerliness. No top sheepdogger would
refuse a
sheepdog merely on the ground that it nailed tots every chance it
got. So?
Keep it away from tots. He might worry that the tot biter would be
wacky on sheep too.
Sheepdogs are mannerly
because of: (a) sensible puppy rearing practices
and (b) it's more convenient
for the handler.
Why walk a dog on a lead
when you can walk the dog off it?
Most
handlers have at least a handful of dogs and some have
a dozen or
so. If every dog isn't mannerly, ordinary dog maintenance
becomes a pain in the ass.
Twice yearly, for maybe two days when my bitches are
in season, I
have to walk them separately from the dogs (Six walks a day
instead of
three). It's a PITA.
Sheepdog mannerliness is pretty easy to teach because
the handler
is the giver of the reward the dog craves more than steak or
sex or - in
fact - life itself. The handler gives the sheepdog WORK and
because the
sheepdog craves WORK he's willing to "Stay" outside the barn
for ten
minutes while the handler gets the feed, or "Get behind" in the
motel
parking lot or "Hush" when the housekeeper knocks to service the
room.
Formal (Unreal) obedience was not designed to produce
mannerly
dogs. It was designed to prove that show dogs can be trained. Some
of its
exercises are unnecessary in the real world some are, I think,
dubious.
But when T. insists that attaining a CD is reasonable
test of a
training method, I think he's right. Despite its faults, Formal
Obedience is
the only test of pet dog mannerliness there is.
And in your hands, it does
promote mannerliness. Sheepdogs are
taught mannerliness as an offshoot of
their work experience; I believe
your dogs are taught mannerliness as an
offshoot of the obedience
exercises you
teach.
Donald
McCaig
=====================================================
Dear
Trainers,
I'm a sheepdog trainer.
Consequently when I say to Shay that we
should go out and "train" this
afternoon, I mean we'll either shed off ten
sheep to work or work with the
whole flock. Usually Shay and I video each
other and debrief afterwards.
Presently June is working on shedding and
"Steady"; I've changed Luke's
whistles so he moves sheep to new commands.
Luke does no shedding. He's too
good at it and likes it too much. (I'll
explain that problem in a separate
post).
Every morning now I take Silk out - the 12 year old
dog that ran
back to the car in a confusing situation - and Silk does a
little easy
chore work. The work makes Silk feel better about herself,
higher ranking
with the other bitches, and this undemanding work is
restoring her and my
tattered bond.
I appreciate those who said: Silk's done enough, let
her be. I
think that until Silk is physically unable to come with her pack
(and she
will give unmistakable signals of that) she should accompany us -
for her
sake, not mine. Silk is, I think, the nearest thing to an autistic
dog I've
ever known, and she needs more stimuli than she wants.
None of my dogs are "trained". All of them, until they
are too
feeble - generally the last six months of their lives - are "in
training".
I am "in training" too. Presently I'm training my body signals
to
be so precise, thoughtless and identical that June cannot mistake
them
while shedding. I'm slurring Luke's new two note "Go right" whistle
because
he takes the second tone better than the first and eventually I
want him
going right on the first tone alone.
I am considering a new
whistle - or learning finger whistles - to
improve my range.
My dogs are mannerly:
they are welcome, off lead, anywhere (except,
of course at AKC events). I
don't have any particular method of training
them to be mannerly - I expect
mannerliness and our routines encourage it.
I correct unmannerly
behavior.
The 8 year old rat terrier presently staying with us
is becoming
mannerly - though she is notorious countywide for fear biting -
the county
vet hates her and knocks her out to trim her toenails.
We keep her because when others tried, Trudel ran into
their
basement, slipped under the furnace and bit anyone who approached.
They put
food down for her and fifteen days later her owner came for her.
She shits
a lot for her size.
The first time I asked Trudel to join our dogs for the
afternoon
walk, she said "No!" ran upstairs, got under a bureau and bared
her teeth.
So I got the welder's gloves and brought her out and she took a
walk with
the other dogs. Nothing personal.
It's fun for her to walk with the other dogs
that come when called
and lie down and stay so now she will reliably come
when called and sort of
sit and stay for a few minutes. I haven't trained
her to do any of these
things:
"mannerliness comes from a mannerly
pack and from clear communications".
Donald McCaig Yucatec Farm
Williamsville,
Virginia 24487 USA
===========================================================
Dear Trainers,
The
experienced Ms. B. writes: "However that does not mean
that even the
youngest puppy can learn to not pull."
Like Ms. B. I have genetically trainable dogs. I doubt
my
rather casual approach would work with every breed.
By eight weeks, sheepdog puppies should know their
names and come
(more or less) when called. While they still chew, they will
not be chewing
people or tugging at their socks or cuffs.
About this age, I take my
pup into the yard, make sure his buckle collar is
tight and
chain him with a light chain to someplace he can't strangle himself.
Then I go in
the house until he gives up when I'll come out and release him.
A few days go
by and I repeat this. By the third time, he has accepted chaining
and learned that he can't bite
through his lead.
Before he's three months old I'll walk him back and
forth in the
yard on lead, correcting him with jerks whenever he forges.
Probably two
lessons should teach him not to pull.
Since the rest of the pack
knows "Get behind" (the walk behind me
that's the sheepdogger's makeshift
pack heel) a dozen times giving the
command and turning into the pup (while
the other dogs are hanging back)
teaches the "get behind".
Some sheepdoggers don't bother
with a "down" before the dog is on sheep
but I need an instant voice and
whistle recall and a don't budge down/stay
for safety walking country
roads.
A clappy dog will go down as
you are thinking about uttering the command.
I may need to physically push
an upright dog down.
(For safety
purposes a sit/stay is as good as a down/stay.) The down is easy
to teach as
is the "stay at my feet". The out-of-sight "stay" is so easily taught
during chores I don't teach
them until the dog is working..
By three months he'll also have learned crate manners,
car manners
and most "Don't be a dope" manners. He will have (mostly)
housebroken
himself.
At five months or so, I'll take him off-lead to sheep.
If he isn't
interested: okay. We'll try again when he's older.
The day he drops his tail
and begins circling sheep, his training
begins. Though he'll need more
experience, his training should be completed
by the time he's three.
Donald McCaig Yucatec Farm
Williamsville, Virginia 24487USA
=======================================================
Dear Trainers,
I can't train the dogs you do, nor
the dog owners you train. I am a
sheepdog trainer: period.
I have seen sheepdogs successfully trained
without one word of
praise. I can name the dogs and introduce you
to the trainers. My dogs get
an "attaboy" now and again when they are
learning new skills and are unsure
what I want.
I have never given
a dog a food reward. I expect my ratio of
corrections (some form
of "don't do that") to praise is perhaps 2000/1.
I think those who have met
them will attest that my sheepdogs are
useful workers and mannerly in
public. A skilled dogman would see that my
dogs believe their lives are
interesting and significant.
Whether your model for
handler/dog communication is the
"ask/answer" model or the "command/obey"
model, I believe every
communication from human to dog is also a
correction.
"Sit" means "Don't just
stand there, sit" or "Don't jump up, sit".
A sheepdogger
might say "Come-bye" meaning "Don't continue walking up,
flank clockwise".
Every command is also an implied reproach:
"You're wrong to be
standing: sit."
That ordinary commands are also corrections can be
painfully
apparent with young sheepdogs and inexperienced handlers whose
rapid fire
(and often inappropriate) commands can cause the dog to simply
quit or blow
the handler off - because the command/babble finally becomes
for the dog
one message: "NO!!!!"
I do believe that at some
magical point in the training process
handler/dog communication turns into
something far more complex and
beautiful. When Ginger Rogers and Fred
Astaire danced it didn't matter much
who was leading.
Donald McCaig
==========================================================
Dear Trainers,
Dr. E. was kind enough to try to
explain "Primary
Reinforcers": When I said that sheepdogs are indifferent
to food she
noted:
"Food is A primary reinforcer -- chasing something
that moves is ALSO a
primary reinforcer for many dogs. Retrieving something
is a primary
reinforcer for some dogs. . . ."
And: " . . .food is only one primary reinforcer and
not always the
BEST reinforcer for a particular dog at a particular time.
Using food for a
dog for herding would be ridiculous -- it is not an
appropriate reinforcer
for that dog at that time. . . ."
I am not fond of behaviorist learning theory: the
language is ugly
and the theory is neither predictive nor particularly
useful. Many
behaviorists can't train, many non-behaviorists can.
Sheepdogs don't chase: they run to a fleeing animal's
head and turn
it. This distinction is so important that when an unready pup
is first put
on sheep, trainers may say, "Put him up for a month or so.
He's just
chasing."
Indeed, later on in training, they must be taught to
chase
("drive") and for many driving is a conceptual stumbling block.
The earliest satisfaction a sheepdog gets from his
work is circling
the sheep and holding them to the handler. This is already
a modification
of heading (which in turn may already be a modification of
hunting
behavior), and is from the start a fairly complex social activity.
The dog
may be unwilling to hold them to anyone but its handler, its first
time on
sheep may be effected by the sheep, time of day, weather etc.
Finally its
ability to start working is linked to the dog's sexual
maturity. I wouldn't
try a pup that still squatted when he peed.
Some dogs "see" sheep and start working. The
indifferent pup can
usually be egged onto his work by exciting him,
whirling the sheep around
and, failing that, tieing him outside the ring
where he watches other dogs
work.
But when he decides (and for some it seems like a
deliberate
decision) that he is a SHEEPDOG within, literally, a split
second the pet
dog that had been sniffing sign or watching other dogs will
drop his tail,
go into its crouch, eye the sheep and become a sheepdog.
Emphatically he
won't "chase". Ever afterwards he will be a sheepdog. He
will never revert
to what he was before.
And that moment is as simple and primitive as
sheepdog
satisfactions get. Thereafter the dog's character, circumstances
and native
abilities will determine its satisfactions which may become
very
complicated indeed.
If there is any unalloyed "Primary reinforcer" for
sheepdogs it is
"the work" or "training for work" a notion so vague it
lacks explanative
value..
I prefer to think that, in sheepdog training, looking
for "primary
reinforcers" is a waste of time.
Donald McCaig
Yucatec Farm Williamsville, Virginia
24487 USA
========================================================
Dear Trainers,
T. quotes Ms. T.
approvingly: "Untrained dogs to me are
boring . . .you can't say much to
them that's meaningful. Nor can they even
say much back." and T. goes on to
add, ". . . untrained dogs are not boring,
just vewwy,vewwy quiet . . .They
make me want to train them so I can find
out what they have to say!"
We are boarding an 8 year old rat terrier (Sweetie)
whose home
training was being kicked and cuddled. Sweetie is such a fearful
beast the
vet knocks her out to clip her toenails. We board Sweetie because
nobody
else will.
When she first came here, she was housebroken. I (and
the pack)
taught her to come when called, stand quietly while I clipped her
foul
weather gear, ride in the car, walk with us off lead and stay at my
side
when a car passes.
I train sheepdogs and what training time I have goes
to
sheepdogs. I have only taught Sweetie the minimum so she can walk with
our
pack and live on a remote farm which is about as dog safe as anywhere
can
be.
When I walk into the living room where three of my
dogs and Sweetie
are snoozing, she looks up at me. Her eyes follow my every
move.
Sweetie doesn't understand the world she lives in. I couldn't
take
her - on lead - to a city, or airport. The conference room at Hutto
with
all those people and strange dogs would panic her.
You remember that
boy without an immune system who had to
spend
his life in a bubble because he couldn't survive in the real
world? That's
Sweetie.
Last Sunday morning, in the Wingate Inn parking lot,
there were
eight or ten dogs (many breeds) being taken off lead to the
weedy lot
behind to stretch out and empty. Cars might arrive at any minute
but the
dogs' owners were alert and would see them coming with enough time
to get a
mannerly dog to safety. We owners were relaxed - just talking dog.
One eye
cocked on our dog's doings but mostly trusting the dog to go about
its
business.
Nobody else's dog paid any
attention to me. Why should they?
They'd seen ten thousand
bipeds and dozens of parking lots.
They were free to go
about their life, free to ignore me, free to continue
to
explore a world they find comprehensible and interesting.
Because they are
trained.
Donald McCaig Yucatec Farm
Williamsville, Virginia 24487 USA
=======================================================
Dear Trainers,
Lord I
hate an untrained dog. One untrained dog is five times the
work of my five
dogs. I've been wrestling with this Jack Russell (who
by the way is a
pretty nice dog).
When a
hill shepherd or Montana rancher goes out to check his sheep
he doesn't
take anything with him but his dog and - sometimes - a
crook.
The dog
is probably not wearing a collar. He may work sheep all morning
miles from
home.
Thus,
the sheepdogs cardinal sin is leaving the work and going home
because
without the dog, the man's day is finished too.
The first time the dog does
this the unvarying rule is to leave
work yourself, follow the dog to
whereever it has got to and return it,
no matter how, to exactly where it
left its work.
Twice
and he'll shoot the dog.
I once
had a sheepdog runner in for training - it was in the winter
and I could
track him through the snow. I used all Bill Koehler's
methods with the
sheepdog rule and I can't tell you how surprised that dog was
when I
popped up three miles from where he last saw me to return him to the
same
spot he'd left, do a few exercises, praise the dog and take him home.
I
lost fifteen pounds going after that damned dog but, in the end I
broke him
of running.
This
Jack Russell is a better weight reduction program than a home
gym.
He's a little better than he was and he is learning that if he runs
back to
the house on a walk or veers off trying to jump in a car, he
will not be
rewarded but, on the contrary will be returned to just where he
was when
he left. He is also learning that I will bring him back every time
and
that he will tire before I do.
He
leaves us tomorrow but he'll be back and I'm training for the
next time.
Donald McCaig
================================================
Dear
Trainers,
I have six
sheepdogs/several intact/ in the house including one
dying of cancer that
can't run around with the others. Shay, who works for
me has a sheepdog and
a three month old pup which are here during the
day. Seven veri-kennels in
the sun room are our sole kennels.
Two weeks ago we added a rat terrier to this mix
because its
elderly owner had nobody else willing to take the dog while she
visited kin.
A friend broke his leg skiing so we took his ill-trained,
desperate
sheepdog (Scott) for the weekend so the friend could attend his
brother's
wedding.
The rat terrier has been pack trained from previous
visits and is,
though not mannerly, acceptable - except for her barking at
every
disturbance which I don't want to discourage (too much) because her
owner,
an elderly widow living alone, depends on it.
So here comes this 2 year old sheepdog intact male
into the pack.
High energy, sheep crazy, I couldn't open the door without
him taking off
for the sheep in the far pasture. Sometimes the guard dogs
drove him off
but usually I had to catch him. And, the owner had told me he
was in the
habit of occasionally taking off for the tall timber and staying
away for a
day or two. Our nearest neighbor is two miles away. Unreliable
recall, stay
- unreliable off lead. (Leash tugger - but I soon sorted that
out). No
relation to the other dogs. Marked in the house. Whined in his
crate.
Dishonest eyes. Other than that Scott's a pretty nice dog.
It was not a fun weekend. I worked Scott on sheep
morning and
night, ran him until his tongue was on the ground, to burn up
some of his
energy and get a handle on him.
After six sessions I could
call him off the sheep - which is better than
this fat old
dude trying to dive for his leash - but I certainly couldn't trust him.
His owner
picked Scott up Sunday night and this morning things are just
about normal ( the rat terrier
goes home Wednesday).
The disruption one dog
caused made me think. A mannerly, healthy pack,
with a routine of work,
feeding and adventure is like having one dog -
my main problem is remembering
the name of which one I want to call.
- When we have a sick dog or a bitch in heat, its
like having two dogs -
- exactly twice the management.
- An untrained dog is like having four dogs - double
the management again.
- That one untrained dog took as much thought and
time as seven other dogs
- put together - including two trial dogs that are
trained nearly every day.
- It gave me an insight to what life must be like for
so many of your clients -
- every damn day - and what a difference you make to
them.
I expect we'll get Scott
back again. With one leg in a cast, his owner can't work him.
And if somebody doesn't train
Scott, his life (and his owner's life) will be hell.
Donald McCaig
===================================================================
Dear Trainers,
While sheepdogs are trained
on sheep individually (there are rare instances
when you want
another dog) mannerliness training takes place, off lead in the
context of a culture or a pack.
Until stock training starts,
the trainer/handler is the pack leader which is slightly
different, I think, than the
alpha male. Sure I'm alpha but I never, never have to prove it.
So anyway I tossed Peg and
the Gang of Five in the car and drove them to the River.
I chose a
swimming hole with minimum (human) distractions and as I cooled off,
some dogs
swam and though Peg only put her forepaws in the river, there were no alarms.
Thanks to you and this list I
have better tools to understand what happened.
First off: Although Peg only
got her name four days ago, she's a 3/4 year old Collie
mix who had
been somebody's house pet. She will come - after a fashion, sit - after a
fashion
and seems safe around strangers
and children.
When I picked her up, she
was enormously relieved to be in a dog stable enviornment -
her first day
here she didn't want to go out of the house to pee. I've trained her five
minutes
every morning, off lead: that'll do, sit, stay, and by the end of the week,
Peg's started
to meld with the pack . Last weekend, when I visited M. her dogs
clustered
around us while Luke and June hung out by the gate saying - pretty clearly -
"Can't we get in the car?"
I explained it wrongly -
saying my dogs weren't used to play. What was
happening was
that M. pack owned that yard and my two wore the
wrong gang
colors. No biting or fighting - and if they'd stayed they
would have
been integrated into M. WESTSIDE RANGERS
but for the once my dogs wanted
to get back to their own pack - soonest.
Same thing with Peg at the
river. It wasn't training kept her from doing
anything
wicked or running off, and though she knows who the pack leader
is she hasn't fully signed
on.
She went where the pack went
and did what the pack did and everybody had a
mild
adventure (something lacking, I think, in much dog training) and everybody
came safely home.
I expect that Peg's "That'll
do, here", her "Sit" and perhaps her
"Stay" will be better in
tomorrow's session.
Donald McCaig Yucatec Farm Williamsville, Virginia
24487 USA
=======================================================
Dear Trainers,
If you watch a great trainer with their dogs, you'll
see that when
they're talking to the dog, they're not talking to anyone
else. If
President Bush was landing on their front lawn while they were
talking
to a dog, they would continue talking to that dog. I suspect that
until
that particular conversation was completed, they wouldn't notice Mr.
Bush's
helicopter.
The world consists of trainer and dog.
There's no room for anything
else. One's lover, children,
disabilities, political beliefs, income,
shock collar, human kindness,
clicker or hopes for resurrection are
inconsequential: it's you and that
dog.
Soren Kierkegaard titled a
book: "Purity of Heart is Willing One
Thing." Every dog understands that
from birth.
Donald
McCaig
==========================================================
Dear
Trainers,
I agree
with Mr. L. that dogs know, the moment they see a trainer, WHAT he is.
Many of you
will have had the experience of being way from home and simply
looking at an
untrained dog and having it go ballistic. Dogs used to being invisible
don't like to
lose their magic cloak. And I agree one has to take on the job with one's
entire being.
Any dog I take on knows I
will train it. Whatever excuses, tricks, threats
or brute
force it uses, I will train it. Like Mr. Leigh I will use rhetoric to explain
my
absolute
determination to civilians. But I don't think much about that sort of thing and
sheepdoggers
don't talk about it. I can't remember the last time I heard a good trainer
talking about being "alpha".
They don't talk much about having two legs either.
What is, I think, more
interesting is when the alpha male has to shrink.
I have a big
presence and my first recourse is a big voice. I regret this
but that's
how I walk through the world. Consequently I have had
sheepdogs -
real tenderhearts - I could not get quiet enough to train.
I sent these to good woman
trainers.
After the dog was started
and had confidence in its work, I could finish the dog.
One cannot
dominate any dog around a trial course. Shouts are violent,
violence is
mind clutter and violence makes it impossible to listen or think.
At an open trial one
barely hears the good handlers - unless something is going very wrong.
And there's the sheep. Sheep
are prey animals and sometimes at western trials they've never
seen a man off a horse (the
centaur?) before the trial. They are "man shy".
At two stages of work, the
pen and shed, handler and dog ask sheep to violate the sheep's
deepest
genetic knowledge. At the pen we ask them to willingly walk into a
(possibly
fatal) trap and at the shed we ask them to separate, knowing full
well that predators sort off a
sheep before they kill and eat it.
Consequently, the sheepdog
trainer has two jobs: of course the dog must
know he's
boss but, at the same time, he must reassure the sheep (and sometimes the dog)
that the
extraordinary is ordinary, a trap is not a trap and that a sheep sorted off
from its flock
won't be killed and eaten (and
that the dog - a predator - ought NOT eat it).
Top handlers (men
and women) swell and shrink as needed
Doanld mcCaig Yucatec Farm
Williamsville, Virginia 24487 USA
===================================================================
Dear Trainers,
When I
asked why repeating commands was vorbotten, Ms. M.
wrote: "Object lesson:
refraining from repeating commands has nothing to do
with dog training, and
everything to do with instilling good habits in the
people who will go
forth and work with these dogs."
And V.
agreed: " For my students I don't want them to say:
Sit, sit, sit, sit,
sit, good dog when he finally sits.
because then the dog learns that the
command to sit is NOT sit, but:
sit, sit, sit, sit, sit."
And G.
wrote: "Somehow, I think the well trained dog can tell the difference
between the relaxed obedience
aro und the homestead and the "real" work when it counts."
And Ms. H."there
is also when the dog is working with you, you're really in the zone,
and
you need a bit "more" of whatever s/he just gave you . . ."
Let me start out by thanking those I've cited and
others on this
list for so generously sharing their experience and knowhow.
Since I come
from a different dog culture often the only way I can
understand or think
about what sheepdoggers do is by comparison with what
you do.
When companion dog trainers first see a sheepdog
trial, it often
strikes them how many times we repeat commands. But
generally (not always)
it's because circumstances are so fluid and what we
wanted an instant ago
is not what we want now. If we wanted a right flank,
maybe we want a deeper
right flank now.
Perhaps we want to insist on a command the dog may not
wish to
take. When I'm spotting sheep (holding them at the top of the
course for
the next competing dog) during the first run, as the competing
dog comes
around behind the sheep and takes them away from my dog - who
brought them
there, I'll be muttering "lie down, lie down, lie down" to my
dog who is
already lying down. After my dog understands that other dogs are
going to
take his/her sheep I don't bother repeating the command.
Ditto if I'm walking my dogs on a dirt road and I hear
a car and I
bring them to my feet while the car passes: "Lie down. Stay.
Lie down.
Stay."
That said, on the trial field or during urgent,
difficult work,
there are times when I want my dog to take every command
instantly and
exactly as given.
The dog who hesitates or ‘sleazes’ or
refuses one command
will probably lose a trial and on the farm he may cause
a ewe to attack him
or get a lamb trampled or knock me on my sorry ass (I'm
still hurting from
the last time we loaded ewes. One took the legs right
out from under me.)
- But . . .The most important command a sheepdog has
its name.
When I want a dogs back in the house or to me on a walk, unless
my
- need is imperative, I use its name: "Ju . .
.nnnhh".
- When I want the dog to slow down on a fetch
or
drive I'll say "June!" or "June! . . . .June!"
- Contrarywise when June is stuck, either locked onto
a sheep or unwilling to
walk up on it I'll say" JuneJune. JuneJuneJune."
- When she needs a correction it might be mild
"Juuuu- nuhh!?!?"
- or more severe JUNE!!!!.
- If Ineed to lighten up on her, after several harsh
corrections and, for come
reason can't let her work w/o commands (the best
way of lightening up) I
might say, sweetly, "juney, come by . . ."
Her name which when printed
is always "June", can sound very different and have entirely
different
meanings to June. Uniform spellings, dictionaries and moveable type made
our modern
technological culture possible but like all changes, something was lost
too:
tonal subtlety, immediacy and
local understandings. Commands aren't words; they are
meanings.
Donald McCaig Yucatec Farm Williamsville, Virginia
24487 USA
=================================================================
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