I have been going thru some of my old sheepdog clinic notes and thought that this one would be a good subject to approach.
I am so bad at being reactive instead of proactive when it comes to running my own dogs on sheep. I can see it with other people, but find it so hard to put it to action with myself. I can so understand what is being said and then I forget about so many things that I have been told. Shame on me.
Here are some of my notes from Carol Campion that have made me think about this again.
"You need to actually figure out the pressure, etc., before you ever send your dog. Then handle the dog to keep AHEAD of what MIGHT happen rather than playing catch up. A stop, or there, or early flank, those are the kind of things that dictate to the sheep what they will do rather than fix what they have done."
"Give the dog what he/she needs, be it a there if the sheep are easy or heavy, and a stop if they very light and need room. She lets hers pick where to turn in on them, but decide how much dog I need for the lift."
"Don't think of downing your dog at the top so much as controlling him as much as you are just maintaining contact. If left along too much at the top, or anywhere else and then you try to step in to help, you are too late. Need to be more proactive. Need to be in contact much sooner."
"You need to be more proactive, if you see a potential for a bad spot or a problem area, then be prepared for it and try to set up your dog sooner to be successful. Don't wait until the problem pops up."
Here is some more that was directly related to a run of mine with my Jag.
"Think of it as more contact with you(me) rather than control from you(me). She thought that I kind of left him to figure out stuff too much for himself. (Which I did) Then if it wasn't what I wanted I was behind on timing because my intervention and direction was needed earlier for precision work."
The above was so true of me when I was running Jag. I sure hope that I can improve on myself with my upcoming dogs.
No comments:
Post a Comment