by
Nancy Hebb
Stock dog training clinics offer beginning and trial handlers, farmers and suburbanites, Big Hats and want-a-bees alike, opportunities to broaden their knowledge and experience. They can be fun, rewarding social events as well as “awesome” educational short-courses for owner and dog alike. To get the most for your money, however, it helps to come prepared. The following checklist is designed to help clinic participants do what they can to insure a smooth, worthwhile experience.
1.
Wear and bring the Right Stuff!:
Sheep and cows stink. Manure
not only stinks but is slimy. Fields
are rarely as smooth as golf courses. Livestock don’t respect clean clothes and, especially
when wet, sheep can crave close physical contact with humans. So, wear clothes and footwear that can splash through and get
splattered with wet or mushy stuff: Rubber boots for dew-soaked mornings or
rainy days; a pair of old tennis shoes or work shoes for when it warms up; jeans
or other long pants. A spare change
of clothes, socks and footwear could prove worth their weight in gold if you get
wet or take a tumble into a puddle or pile.
Rain’s wet; sun’s hot; snow is
cold: Dog work won’t stop for
a bit of climatic adversity. A rain suit can protect you from wet and cold.
Again, warm or dry footwear and gloves can make the difference between
misery and enjoyment. A hat with sun visor, sunglasses, and sunscreen are equally
valuable in good weather. Bug spray
is handy (farms have flies). An
umbrella is an asset in sun or rain.
Take a load off: Bring a
folding lawn chair or other seat.
Much of the value of a clinic comes from watching and listening as each
dog is worked and each handler is assisted.
Questions and answers often elicit information that’s as valuable as
your own turn working your dog.
You’ll want to be comfortable the entire day, so you can
concentrate on everything that’s happening.
Grrrrr: To avoid getting your
dog over-excited, you should have a way to confine him away from the work areas.
A crate, chain, or secure area in
your vehicle should be used to restrain him away from the action until
it’s your turn. Barking dogs are
a real disruption at a clinic, and having yours out of sight may help prevent
that problem. (Occasionally,
instructors will tell you to let a dog watch; that’s the exception to the
rule.) Be aware of where the sun is and provide shade for your buddy.
Bring a pail or bowl for water (and water from home if your dog has a
sensitive stomach—well water differs from farm to farm), leash, and if
you’re staying away from home overnight, food.
A first-aid kit for your dog is something you might think about keeping
in your vehicle (talk to your vet for ideas).
Simple remedies for minor accidents like bee stings or scraped paw pads
can mean the difference between worry and enjoyment (for you as much as your
dog?).
“And where’s YOUR #2
pencil??”: Clinics are
educational events. While you
won’t need your #2 for a quiz at the end of the day, it’s not a bad idea to
have a notepad and pen for recording important ideas, questions to ask at the
end of a dog’s turn, and so on. Some
clinics provide note-taking material for participants, most don’t.
Besides, you might want to write down an address or phone number, details
about other upcoming events, and so on. Still
cameras are welcome just about everywhere, as are audio recorders.
Video cameras, however, are not allowed by many instructors (often
because what’s recorded might be taken out of context or misinterpreted).
ASK,
2.
Timing is everything.
The
difference between being comfortable and relaxed or hurried and harried could be
as little as ten minutes or as much as half an hour.
Know where you’re going, then allow enough time to get a little bit
lost. Seriously, plan to arrive
early to get yourself and your dog settled, check in, and enjoy some down time
before the clinic actually starts.
If
you’re like so many U.S. citizens (I’m guilty) who need 500 cc’s of
intravenous caffeine or the equivalent before the brain kicks in for the day,
give yourself time to enjoy some java
from your thermos, soak in the environment, and socialize. (If you don’t know
anyone, just ask someone, “How’s
your dog bred?” and you’ll be welcomed….share your coffee and you may make
a friend.)
During the clinic a running
order may be posted, or someone will line up the next few dogs to run.
Allow enough time to go get your dog and be ready when it’s your turn. Lunch may be
available on the site, off-site, or brown-bagging may be encouraged.
Again, a timely appearance back at the work area after lunch will be
appreciated by all. It may be easy
to lose yourself in chatting with friends during the break, but you don’t want
to miss something important by arriving after a couple dogs have run in the
afternoon.
3.
Farm
etiquette.
Park in designated areas. (I once parked on the shady side of a barn only to realize I was blocking a sliding door behind which a tractor needed for that day’s work was parked. Oops. It caused the host’s worker some lost time, searching for the owner of my vehicle.) Keep your dog on leash unless there’s an area designated for off leash walks. Clean up after your dog if it messes (carrying a plastic baggie in your pocket isn’t a bad idea). Farms may be covered with manure, but it’s usually in expected areas: Even farmers walking up to the house from the cow barn don’t like to be surprised by stepping in doggy do.
If it’s hot and your dog needs to be cooled down, make sure you use
only the designated tank of water or hose to wet him down.
Around our place, for instance, if a dog jumps in the sheep tank, I have
to empty it and scrub it out. Not
fun.
Don’t introduce your dog to
stock outside of the clinic work areas.
Livestock are a farmer’s income. Even
the stress of a dog bothering them from the other side of a fence might make a
difference in the farm’s bottom line.
Dogs should be near stock only when it’s their turn during the clinic
or when a host or instructor asks an advanced dog and handler to help move
stock.
4.
Reasonable expectations.
A
clinic won’t give you all the
answers, no matter what your questions! If
you are a relative beginner (or a totally inexperienced handler), the value of a
clinic will lie in gaining an overview of a particular instructor’s ideas and
philosophy as much as laying out a path for you to take with your own dog.
Watching all the dogs – each at a different training phase, with
different personalities and problems – might give you ideas on how to deal
with situations you’ll encounter with your own dog in the future.
If
you’re relatively new to stock work, approach the experience with an eye to
learning about a process and philosophy. If
you focus too much on specific training techniques, you’ll have a harder time
understanding the Big Picture. Unlike
other types of dog training (obedience, or whatever), stock work doesn’t
follow a prescribed set of exercises, or a pre-ordained process,
to get the desired behavior from your dog.
The overall goal is to help the dog discover and learn how to control
livestock, working with and for a person.
How you reach that goal will vary according to what the dog’s doing,
the stock’s doing, and you’re doing at any particular time!
What’s right for one dog who’s diving in to bite sheep, for example,
might not be what’s right for another dog who seems to be doing the same
thing. Learning to read those differences is the biggest
lesson to be learned before you can progress as a trainer or handler.
An
experienced instructor can see what’s motivating each dog: S/he can read the
livestock, read the dog, and see a thousand influences affecting how the dog’s
reacting during a training session. Part
of the beauty of clinics, for participants at all levels of experience, is that
watching a gifted trainer work with a bunch of dogs can help teach observers
about the dogs themselves, how they feel pressure from livestock and people,
what motivates them to react in certain ways, how their innate qualities both
positive and negative will require adjustments in training methods and process.
(I
personally think advanced handlers could, if open to it, learn more about dogs
themselves and how to handle them from watching a super trainer work with 20
young dogs than 20 advanced dogs, because that’s where the basic differences
and needs lie. Those differences
and needs will still be there when you’re fine-tuning a trial dog; how to
approach them to the best advantage lies in those basics back at the beginning.)
If
you’re a newcomer to herding, pay as much attention to the sheep as anything
else. The goal of training your dog
is to handle sheep correctly. You
won’t understand the why of what’s being done with the dogs if you don’t
understand what sheep do and why or how sheep should be handled. There’s no point in “preparing” your beginning dog for
a clinic, really: The point of the clinic is to help you work through your
problems and give you guidelines for a training progression. What might help you better prepare, if you’re just starting
out, is to watch a trial or a good dog working livestock on a farm and try to
educate your eyes to what is desirable and what’s not.
Because you have to take into consideration a third live entity, the
livestock, herding training is unlike any other type of dog training.
The better you understand what the goals are for moving and controlling
livestock properly, the more sense the process of training the dog will make!
If
you’re a more advanced handler, try to avoid pigeon-holing your dog or your
problems. Many times, we think we
have one problem but in actuality there’s another more basic glitch that’s
preventing us from making progress in training. Don’t question the clinic instructor’s assessment of what
you have to work on. 99.9%
of the time, the clinician’s ability to view you and your dog
objectively will pinpoint where the weakness actually lies.
It might seem totally unrelated to what you thought you needed help with.
And if you’re open-minded, the instructor can go a long way toward
helping you solve the problem over the space of a weekend clinic.
Your turns. Don’t
expect lots of time to be spent on your particular dog.
Most clinics are designed to use all the dogs present to impart knowledge
to everybody entered. Unlike
private lessons, where the focus is your dog and you only, a clinic is a
combination of everyone’s turns, molding them to benefit everybody.
If all you want is
5.
The direct phone line.
Don’t ever hesitate to ask the instructor(s) a question. You’ve already paid for their answer, so speak up! Some of the most valuable clinic information comes from discussion and question and answer time.
It
might be tempting (and less daunting) to direct a question to
the person next to you, but the answer you get won’t be the one you
want (even if it’s “right”). A clinic is set up to teach a particular instructor’s
methods and ideas. Go directly to
the top. And remember that for that
weekend, the instructor’s word IS the top.
For those of us with a few or many dog, trials, or clinics to our
experience, it might be tempting to offer a comment or answer a question on the
sidelines, but we should refrain. Absolutely.
Only one person should be offering comments, assessments, advice or
answers, and that’s the instructor.
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