Day: June 10, 2015

I have been putting up a lot of photos of Fate’s herding training lately, but that is only half of her story in her new life. Fate was meant to be Maria’s dog as much or more as mine, and we didn’t expect to be teaching her sheepherding. But it would have been almost cruel not to.

But the other good news is that Fate and Maria have bonded powerfully and have formed a very beautiful connection, more I think, than either of us could have imagined. Fate is an awful sweet creature, she loves people just as much as she loves to work with sheep. Border collies do not have to be one-dimensional, and Fate is note, any more than Red is.

We do our herding lessons in the morning, then I go to my study with Red, Maria takes Fate into her studio – it lifts the heart to see this dog bounding after her. Fate spends the day with Maria, Maria works on her art, goes for walks in the woods with her new dog, the two of them always seem to be laughing and smiling at one another.

This lifts my hear more than anything, this is what I hoped for and wished for. I was worried that Fate would choose one thing or another – many of the legions of know-it-alls out there assured me that would happen. But Karen Thompson – yes, she is my dog guru in a sense, I admit it – reminded me that this was up to us, not the dog. That’s the thing about training, the human has to take responsibility, not cede it to the dog.

Fate spends an hour or so a day with the sheep, about 15 hours a day with Maria and she loves both, she runs to the studio and looks for Maria constantly when they are separated. Fate and I are doing well also, but it is working out in a lovely way, Red remains my dog and companion, I couldn’t ask for more, and Maria is getting the dog she has always wanted and then some. She is no slouch at training either.

I had a thrilling moment this morning, Fate was out in the pasture with the sheep and they started to scatter, and I yelled “come bye,” the command for a border collie to do a clockwise outrun and turn the flock in a direction. The danger, since I don’t have a small pen or fence or space to work in, is that herding becomes a scattered chase. That is not happening.

Directionals are a key to controlling the sheep, and I have been marking Fate’s behavior – saying “come bye” when she goes around them in a clockwise direction, she got it this morning and went around the sheep and turned them towards me, as she is supposed to do. Once I can get her to slow down or walk up or lie down with the sheep between us, I will almost be there.

Fate is moving almost faster than I can teach She has that professional demeanor about her, she is full of instinct, bright and responsive. She has a lot of presence, like Red, she doesn’t need to bit or charge or nip. That takes a lot of poise for a puppy. She is strong and confident, it is joyous to see those instincts emerge. Sometimes you have to curb them, sometimes you have to let them go. Tricky. I have to work on the directions, “come bye,” and “away to me,” and there is lots more work to do in other ways, but I never imagined she would be at the point we are at now. Got to keep it slow and steady.

Fate had the best lesson yet, each day seems a quantum leap from the day before. She went out into the field, turned the flock, kept them together.  She beat back a rebellion from Liam.

I let her run with them for a few minutes, I don’t want to wear them out or have her lose focus and get into chasing. She has not yet grasped “come bye” or “away to me” fully, or perhaps I should say I have not yet clearly explained it to  her. Otherwise, she is on fire, especially given that she turned 15 weeks this week. She was lying down from about 50 yards,  and quickly, she has trouble holding the position, patience will come a bit later.

The “lie down” command is critical now, because if I can get her to drop down or slow down, we avoid the chaos of a rodeo rather than a training session. And that keeps the sheep from running too fast for too long.

Fate is beginning to grasp “stay” better and she held a stay from a long distance for more than a minute. When I get a dog to stay for three minutes, I’m satisfied. She has stopped eating the sheep poop, a sign she is getting comfortable out there. Liam stepped forward to challenge this presumptuous puppy, as he often did with Red (and sometimes still does).

And that was the remarkable thing to watch, Fate just went into the crouch and stare, she advanced very slowly, got into Liam’s face without charging or biting, she backed up the entire flock step by step until they turned and tried to run, but she went into an outrun and headed them off. You could not ask for more than that during the second week of training. Susie, one of the ewes, charged her and ran over her, Fate backed up, turned and got right back into her face. Susie backed of, I could see Fate’s confidence – already quite strong – growing.

The morning is the best time for us to work, the sheep are rested and so is she. And so am I. I am getting a good workout, too. This is a thrill for me to be doing with a dog like this, Karen Thompson has done it a gain, paired Maria and I up with a dog that is so right for us. What a gift that is. We’ll go out again this afternoon. I have to figure out the directionals, but not until next week. And I want to go slowly and keep the lessons on a very high note, as this morning’s was. I also want to make sure Fate is strong and long enough to outrun the sheep. I don’t want to put her in a position where she can’t physically do what she wants to do.

Although so far, I haven’t found anything that she can’t do physically or mentally. Great fun. Fate is fulfilling her destiny, I can see that, nothing gives me more satisfaction.