HERDING MATCHES

By Dorothy DeLisle

The purpose of fun matches is to be able to practice your dog in a trial-like setting. If all goes well, all won’t go well. That is, the problems that you’ve been having that only pop up at trials where you aren’t allowed to do anything about them will pop up during the fun match where you’ll be able to work on training out the problems.

At trials, dogs are normally much more hyped than they are in training. A handler often finds himself essentially with a dog that has no resemblance to the dog he’s been working with. This can be most unnerving. Many a run has been lost because the handler did not know how to handle this foreign dog. A fun match introduces the handler to the new dog in a format where the handler is more relaxed and able to think. Just as importantly, it is a format in which the handler is able to work on bringing the dog under control.

Many handlers skip over the test level titles. They think these titles too inconsequential to be worth going for. But I’d strongly advise entering the tests. Even though your dog may be ready for the started course in practice, chances are he won’t be ready for it at a trial. Entering the tests gives you a chance to practice working your dog under trial conditions on a very simple course where you don’t have so much to worry about. The judge is even allowed to coach you through the course. Many a contestant has gone home disheartened with a Started NQ when they could have gone home happy with a green test ribbon. Enter the tests, put the mileage on both you and your dog, and by the time you finally enter Started, you will truly be ready for it.

A common problem is for a dog to blow the handler off. This happens because a dog very quickly learns that during a trial, he can get away with anything. To put a name to this behavior, he has become ring wise. Fun matches are your opportunity to take (non-excessive) corrective measures, to give your dog the shock of learning that he can be corrected during trials.

Not only do dogs behave differently at trials, but sheep do too. They know the dogs are wilder, and so the sheep get wilder. I’ve worked the same sheep in practice as I have in trials, and there can be a tremendous difference in their behavior. At a trial, draws are much stronger. It’s hard to recreate the unpenning at the hold/exam pen outside of a trial situation. Likewise, you’ll not be able to duplicate the full cross drive experience at home. If you are to train the maneuvers needed for trial situations, you must go to a fun match to do it.

Having said all this, the amount of bad handling that I’ve observed at fun matches over the last year is rather disheartening. People are running in fun trials and not doing anything when the dog screws up. Don’t they realize that this will only strengthen undesirable behaviors? Aside from that, a lot of what I’ve seen was rather harsh on the livestock and the welfare of the livestock should be our primary concern.

At an A course match, I watched dog after dog ran the sheep into the #3 corner. (The sheep were trying to escape out of a gate there through which they normally enter and leave the arena.) The correct handling in such a situation is to stop your dog. Few handlers even attempted to do this. Of the few that did, most didn’t even give the command until too late; even if the dogs had stopped immediately, the sheep still would have crashed. If the sheep are fleeing in panic across the arena to perceived safety, your best course of action is to not allow your dog to pursue them. Stop your dog and wait for the sheep to come to a stop. Only then, send your dog to bring them back. And only send him if the dog is capable of retrieving from that distance.

Realize that distance work is advanced work, and your started dog may not be up to it yet. Only started dogs with precise natural balance are capable of retrieving from distances. Yet, many dogs don’t have precise natural balance. Most honest started dogs will pick up the sheep then be unsure how to aim them. They don’t “see” the handler from that distance. Because of this, the sheep slip off the dog. The dog tries again, the sheep slip off again. This is the all too familiar figure 8’s that we see at the top of the Stonewall AHBA arena. Pretty soon it degenerates into something ugly. The handler should never have sent/allowed the started dog down there doing advanced work in the first place. They should have gone there together. Usually, by the time the handler gets there it is too late to fix the situation. The sheep have learned to outwit the dog, and the dog is frustrated. The best way to handle a figure 8 is to retire.

At another A course match I attended, the majority of the dogs greatly overworked the sheep. Few handlers made any attempt to stop this completely inappropriate way of working livestock. Not only does it overstress the stock, but the mental state they are put in makes them just want to escape and flee. You’ll never qualify when you put sheep in that state. The only dogs that were able to make it anywhere near the #3 and thus to the hold exam/runway, were those that were not overworking the livestock. The HIT dog wanted very much to overwork the livestock. But the handler kept the dog under tight control, downing it often. I hope the other handlers were paying attention to this and learning from it. While ideally, we want our dogs to rate the livestock on their own, if they aren’t doing it, then the handler must intervene and force the dog to work appropriately. I get my overly rambunctious youngster through courses by nearly constantly saying either “Halt” or “Slowly!”

A solid stop is crucial to good stock work. It saves many a situation. I get the impression that many of the dogs out there don’t have stops. Yet, the stop should be part of foundation training. A dog should not be advanced beyond foundation work (and trial level is beyond foundation) until the foundation is solid. For those of you who might think that this is just a pet peeve of mine or that I preach just because my dogs have solid stops out of motion, I advise that you look back at the requirements of the HT/HCT/PT/ JHD. They all require stops. If your dog doesn’t show a stop, it will not pass. This requirement is in there because dogs should not be in competition without stops. It is that important.

The key to a good stop is never letting your dog get away with blowing it off. It must be corrected every time or your dog will get slack. Sometimes a vocal correction is sufficient, sometimes it may require something stronger. It all depends on the temperament of the dog and the magnitude of the offense. I’ve watched a certain handler in practice give 10 stop commands without his dog taking a single one. The handler just keeps on fetching without even giving a vocal to indicate that the dog had done something wrong by not stopping when the command was given. Then, around the eleventh command, the handler suddenly gets very angry at the dog for not obeying. This is not the way to train a stop. But it is a good way to confuse your dog and make it loose enthusiasm for herding. Every time your dog does not follow your command, you must let it know that it has erred.

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