|
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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