I’m always going on about the basics, I think people get sick of hearing it.
But it is so important.
Sometimes the basics are boring and repetitious, doing the same thing over and over until we nail the right position, get our timing right or understand how to apply the correct amount of pressure when needed. Pressure, Position and Timing are the big three and once we understand these we will be able to progress further and understand how to get a good response from the dog.
All dogs are different, as are all handlers. Both are similar in that if they have been doing something wrong for some time, its hard to get them to change and learn a new way.
That is why it is important to get it right early on. In saying that, some traits are hard to fix (in the dog, as well as the handler) but we need to understand how to manage them as best we can.
There is no point casting miles if we don’t have good flanks and stops, or working obstacles if we don’t have good off balance work.
When we neglect the basics, somewhere further along the track we will become unstuck and things will go wrong.
Perhaps we haven't quite grasped the position needed to enforce commands, deal with a dog that is slicing or cutting in or know when to take the pressure off to give the dog some relief. So when these things occur later on and we don’t know how to fix them, the dog continues to do the wrong thing and it gets a lot harder to fix.
Other than demonstrating the correct way the trainer cannot do it for the handler. The handler must work it out and feel and see how the dog responds when they get it right. It’s an Aha moment, and sometimes a Wow moment and it just feels right.
Then at the other end of the scale we must also move forward in order to progress.
We may have gotten to the point where things are going well, the dog is balancing in the small yard nicely, recall is great and flanks looking good. Time to move on.
We have to take ourself and the dog out of that comfort zone in order to progress.
We might move to a bigger area, perhaps we might add more sheep or use sheep that have a bit more run in them.
So then things might fall apart a little. The dog panics, we cant gain control, and things get chaotic. The key is to keep calm and try to let the dog work things out before we intervene too much. If we can work through it then great.
But, if it is all too much and we can’t settle things then perhaps we moved on too soon. So we go back a step and try to work out what areas are not quite right.
As much as we would love things to be always calm, quiet, and controlled, this is never going to happen. If a young dog never experiences or works sheep that may split, run or even hit fences, then when this happens down the track (Often on the trial ground) it is a shock to the system, this is when the dog just tries to take over but they have no idea what to do.
Young dogs at some point need to see what ‘real’ sheep do, and learn how to cope with it. So part of the basics is allowing the dog to try and work things out when the sheep split or simply wont comply.
This is done in a a progressive manner, so as not to over face the dog. If we panic or yell every time something goes wrong or try to stop a dog which desperately just wants to gain control then we are doomed to fail. It is best to allow the dog to work out how to gain that control himself, then things will settle and we can move on.
If the dog sees us as a calm leader then after a while he will calm down himself.
Imagine if you became lost in the bush with a group of people and the group leader panicked and started running around yelling at everyone. You would quickly lose trust in your leader and probably elect another one, who could control the situation and work out how to fix it.
However, when we are training the dog, using commands for the first time or fixing some training issues, then it is really important to have quiet sheep.
It is too hard to teach a dog to stop with sheep tearing around everywhere. Later on when we have better control, we may test our commands on wilder sheep, or bigger areas, but only when the dog is ready.
Understanding the basics gives us the knowledge to know when to move forward, as well as understanding when we need to go back a step.
