Training Update

It's been a while since my last post...I've been kinda busy since I have sheep to train with regularly ;-)

My young dog Binx is coming along nicely.  We had a lesson about a week ago and Nancy says "he looks good".  He is coming in a bit tight at about 2:00 on his outruns.  I'm working on that by stopping him at about 3 o'clock, walking in toward the sheep and then giving him a "GET" to push him out.  I'm also doing some circle work to get more distance (though he is not too bad for his stage of training) and some flanking exercises to help square them up a bit better.  He seems to be taking well to the little driving that we have worked on.  Overall, I'm very pleased with him. I really lucked out with this dog...I adopted him from rescue before I knew I would like stockwork.  He is turning out to be a wonderful first dog for me...he's so very biddable, yet he never quits on me!

Rhyme and I are still getting together (I just got Rhyme 3 months ago.  She is trained through and has placed in Open and even ran at the World Trial in 2008....on the other hand, I am still learning how to "handle" an Open dog, and she's learning about my novice voice and lack of handling or whistling ability!)  She is teaching me a lot about sheep and now about trialing.  I have been working her very loosely when we train...just doing flank work and circle work and driving...she has to be reminded that Stop means STOP...not just slow down.  She can get "lost in her sheep" when she gets far away from me, so I do the foundation exercises close up to reinforce that she needs to listen for me.  This seems to be working really well for us so far.