People training dogs …and vice versa

I have been pretty sick for the past week with my head in a fog. There may have been a significant positive come of of that. The fog can filter out a good many irrelevant thoughts and sensory inputs. Anyway, when our shelter pup first joined me, I was amazed at her herding skills. Following my hand signal she dashed maybe a couple hundred yards and brought a runaway pig back to me. A problem developed in that, over time, she seems to be as likely to herd the pig away from where I wanted it to go.   Well, yesterday, I figured it out.   In all cases she is herding the animal to me….and not to where I want it to go.   If I want her to herd a pig into a pen, I need to get into the pen and she will bring the pig to me.

Dogs are incredibly smart.

It just takes skills to know how to train them.

I like one word commands and hand signals.

No is usually the first word command that I train my dogs with.

The first night we had our new puppy, she woke me up three times during the night.  I pointed to her bed and she immediately jumped back into it. I did whisper "Get into your bed".

Im in the same boat! I feel like me and the dog are in a sports team practicing our moves. Were also training to herd on command. The little guy is small but his ancestors were originally used to herd cows in the mountains of the Welsh country side. I am also small and my ancestors used to farm the Welsh mountains but I think Iv started my training a bit late and I have alot of catching up to him to do. Im not sure who learns more, the dog or me!

Hi Sam,

I have learned that as it is reasonable and possible, it is easier for me to adjust to the dog than to demand that the dog adjust to me.

John F Dean wrote:Well, yesterday, I figured it out.   In all cases she is herding the animal to me….and not to where I want it to go.  

I think a lot of herding dogs are like that. Mine is the opposite - he's a drover not a herder by nature, though he will herd if persuaded. He's also obsessed with putting critters back where he thinks they should be if they dare to wander.

These days we don't have any livestock but he thinks it's his job to get as many of his family together as he can. In particular he gets obsessed with the woman next door to talk with me. If ever he achieves that particularly well, he tends to sneak off and attempt to find my son and bring him over too by claiming that he's escaped so my son brings him back. Whereupon he sits there grinning from ear to ear and you can almost hear him saying "Well that's three of you..." while plotting who to fetch next.

Sam - is yours a Welsh sheepdog? We should start a fan club... ;)