Week 22

Star made good progress on sheep this week, and just as important, he retained his lessons from day to day so that we could build on them. By week's end, he was performing little gathers, balancing the fetch nicely and calling off with "that'll do."

This week's lessons:

1. Clean flank


2. The "bubble"


3. Keeping it together


4. Using your God-given talent

Here's an excerpt:

Star showed me new confidence today and when I practiced his flanks, he did so with greater speed and enthusiasm, while staying off his sheep at a nice distance. When I flank him come-bye, he goes to balance then defaults to away-to-me to recover if the sheep pass me, so we continued to do almost everything come-bye today and I used a new exercise. I walked counter-clockwise with my body against a fence, the sheep to my left and Star to their left. This way, to head the sheep and stop them from passing me, he had to choose to flank come-bye, and he did so willingly. Interestingly, if I came off the fence at all he would flank all the way around away-to-me to stop them. Clearly though the exercise helped him and in the second session he was more willing to go whichever direction was more appropriate to hold sheep to me without any pressure from me.

Next week I will be introducing a new member of the BorderSmith pack and another contest! This contest will be a little messy, but worth it. I traded wool from shearing my sheep to a crafts store in town and got a gorgeous, ceramic wall haning, which I will ship for free to the first prize winner. Second place will receive a 6 month subscription or renewal to The Real Time Canine.