It's all our guard dog's fault.
First, they started coming over the (admittedly too short) fencing - first jumping, then getting lazy and stepping over it, squashing it.
Then the more athletic sheep started following. Not too much of a problem. There's plenty of grass right there to make them happy.
Then the late summer scorch hit this week. The grass is no longer yummy. It takes way more to satisfy them. We could set out hay, but it's hard to justify it when we've got 30 acres for them and it's only going to be a couple weeks until we start setting out feed for flushing (increasing condition for breeding).
My flower gardens are much yummier. Soon the whole flock was coming over the fence, and not just the squashed part, tally-ho.
The plan is to top all the fences with electric wire, and that will be just fine, but it won't happen until this weekend. Meanwhile my poor flowers!
Today I hit on a plan that worked! I am making the yard a place to avoid by training Ted there when I got "volunteers." Funny thing, I'm not getting many repeat customers! But I've got close to sixty sheep, and they only are coming half a dozen or so at a time.
This means Ted has worked, today, already, about eleven times, and each time we work the sheep for about ten minutes. The sheep just stand in one place the whole time, pretty much, so they are not stressed - except they don't get to do what they were hoping to do when they sneaked out of the fence. Most of them prefer not to come back, once they are finally put away.
The first four times, Ted leaped up the second I moved towards the back door, as usual.
The next five times, Ted leaped up when I said, "Look, volunteers!"
The next two times, Ted just rolled his eyes when I said, "Look, volunteers!" and waited for me to actually call him out the back door.
He's still working with enthusiasm and physically he's holding out just fine. He's not even breathing hard. It's no just longer a big deal.
The last time, only two sheep ventured out, and I tried something fun. I stood on the porch and asked him to push them as close to me as he could. He actually got one of them to step up on the bottom step, then one of the other dogs realized what was going on and barked in the window and the two sheep exploded in opposite directions. I sure wish I had had video of that. It's very encouraging for his future as a Useful Dog.
Tomorrow a friend is coming and I hope to get her to get some video.
I still can only get him to take that inside flank every so often but Robin has some ideas to share when we go over there Sunday. He's also still blowing me off when the pressure gets really tough, but his default behavior has gone from "grab and ride" to "dive and chase." And I realized today I can work on this weakness and break my sheep from running, now that he's listening better.
First, they started coming over the (admittedly too short) fencing - first jumping, then getting lazy and stepping over it, squashing it.
Then the more athletic sheep started following. Not too much of a problem. There's plenty of grass right there to make them happy.
Then the late summer scorch hit this week. The grass is no longer yummy. It takes way more to satisfy them. We could set out hay, but it's hard to justify it when we've got 30 acres for them and it's only going to be a couple weeks until we start setting out feed for flushing (increasing condition for breeding).
My flower gardens are much yummier. Soon the whole flock was coming over the fence, and not just the squashed part, tally-ho.
The plan is to top all the fences with electric wire, and that will be just fine, but it won't happen until this weekend. Meanwhile my poor flowers!
Today I hit on a plan that worked! I am making the yard a place to avoid by training Ted there when I got "volunteers." Funny thing, I'm not getting many repeat customers! But I've got close to sixty sheep, and they only are coming half a dozen or so at a time.
This means Ted has worked, today, already, about eleven times, and each time we work the sheep for about ten minutes. The sheep just stand in one place the whole time, pretty much, so they are not stressed - except they don't get to do what they were hoping to do when they sneaked out of the fence. Most of them prefer not to come back, once they are finally put away.
The first four times, Ted leaped up the second I moved towards the back door, as usual.
The next five times, Ted leaped up when I said, "Look, volunteers!"
The next two times, Ted just rolled his eyes when I said, "Look, volunteers!" and waited for me to actually call him out the back door.
He's still working with enthusiasm and physically he's holding out just fine. He's not even breathing hard. It's no just longer a big deal.
The last time, only two sheep ventured out, and I tried something fun. I stood on the porch and asked him to push them as close to me as he could. He actually got one of them to step up on the bottom step, then one of the other dogs realized what was going on and barked in the window and the two sheep exploded in opposite directions. I sure wish I had had video of that. It's very encouraging for his future as a Useful Dog.
Tomorrow a friend is coming and I hope to get her to get some video.
I still can only get him to take that inside flank every so often but Robin has some ideas to share when we go over there Sunday. He's also still blowing me off when the pressure gets really tough, but his default behavior has gone from "grab and ride" to "dive and chase." And I realized today I can work on this weakness and break my sheep from running, now that he's listening better.
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