Saturday, January 14, 2012

Bonny continues to progress in the field, she is doing short outruns now of 20-30 yards. The routine is to send her, have her bring the sheep to me, then call her off, walk a little distance away with her, and send her again.

This has been complicated by her tendency to blow me off -- yesterday was particularly bad. So we still need to work on her recall and I have to get into her head more.

I've been putting flank commands on her when sending her, but she frequently takes the wrong flank, usually an away when I'm trying to make her take a come by. This may be a natural tendency to favor that side, or it may be that she's going to their heads when they happen to be pointed that way. When I'm positioned right, I'm between her and the sheep. And if I'm trying to get her to go one way or another, I'm looking at her and the sheep are behind me, so I can't tell which way the sheep are facing and whether or not she's going to the head.

I think this is largely a matter of inexperience. I'm too fixated on her to be aware of what the sheep are doing.