Champion of My HeartA real-time memoir about life with a fearful border collie, by Roxanne Hawn

Since we have no herding news of our own, after a long lapse in lessons due to non-stop work and family demands, today Champion of of My Heart looks at how someone else uses some clicker training in a herding context.

Herding is often taught using mostly pressure and “corrections.” And, when you ask about how clicker training might fit into the process, you’ll hear some grumbling about things like:

• The livestock are their own “reward.”
• Clickers make dogs focus too much on you and not on the task at hand.
• It’s a natural, much more dynamic process than teaching another kind of trick or easily segmented task.

So, when our pal Anna from Happy Healthy Pup, who recently relocated from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Atlanta, Georgia, suggested I talk to Astrid Smith from A Dog’s Journey … well, I sent and email and got on the phone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, it’s Monday alright. I made a few decisions these last 3 days (you know, like spending time with my hubby, pups, and family) that sends me into a new week behind on pretty much everything. Yes, I had some coffee (rare for me), but I thought we’d share a little Lilly-style mojo.

So … if you are feeling:

• Under the weather
• Under never-ending deadlines and demands
• Under the influence of negative people or energy
• Under the pressures of worries or emergencies

Then, Lilly and I send you our very best wishes for strength, patience, grace, and productivity via this new video showing … Enthusiasm Border Collie Style.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Bedtime Book for Dogs by Bruce Littlefield is dedicated to Littlefield’s Good Dog Wes and all Good Dogs in our lives. Check out our video book review.

The Bedtime Book for Dogs: Summary

The Bedtime Book for Dogs tells the story of a dog who wanted to play, but his friend was busy … so the dog uses a variety of talents to seek his own adventure.

Since Lilly has been known to get into dangerous scrapes while making her own adventure, you might be saying, “Uh-oh,” about now.

Rest assured all is well in the end, but I’m confident my friend Susan McCullough, who writes the Northern Virginia Dog Blog (which is often about the importance of scooping the pooping), would blanch at this Good Dog taking care of business at the local park.

As our friends at GoPetFriendly.com like to say, “There is no poop fairy.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The challenge of working 10-12 hours every day for weeks (possibly months) on end is that the pace leaves little room for much more than survival. That means, other than the usual daily dog training cues and rewards, not a lot happens. So, to keep myself on track and to renew my commitment to all of you who follow our dog training tales, here is a recap of what’s currently on our dog training dock / dog training wish list.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last couple of weeks, I had the chance to glean insights about Lilly’s recent herding lesson where (at least in my mind) things didn’t go so well. This slow-motion herding pressure video shows some of what I’ve learned.

Read the rest of this entry »

After taking a break, during which Lilly smiled and panted wildly but refused to drink any water, we took her back into the training pen. EXCEPT, this time I got the chance to be the shepherd. Goodness help us and the goats.

Clearly, I could not muddle my way through my first attempt at herding with Lilly AND shoot video footage at the same time. A friend who had hoped to meet us out on the farm for Lilly’s herding lesson ended up stuck in a meeting, so there is no video coverage of what came next.

I’ll do my best to paint the tableau.

Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s goat herding lesson video, Lilly works the goats in the larger training pen. Again, I don’t want to influence your impressions of what you’ll see, so I’ll let the video footage speak for itself.

This is the third chunk of video (about 2 minutes) from Lilly’s FIRST herding contact in her one-hour lesson. She did all the work in Monday’s video, Tuesday’s video, and today’s video … before taking her first break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our herding story continues this week with a video showing Lilly chasing and/or letting the goats go hither and yon. Yes, they ended up spread across three pens, so we asked Ben, an experienced herding dog for help.

Read the rest of this entry »

Between bouts of silly cold and small-ish snowstorms every 1-3 days, we finally squeezed in Lilly’s second herding lesson on Friday. The weather was clear, with temps in the 60s, which was great. So, all this week, we’ll be talking about herding.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re suffering a long, cold, windy start to the year here at Chez Champion of My Heart. Thanks to strategies we learned at a recent American Treibball Association event, however, we’ve been playing with the sport of ball herding.

Most nights, we work at home in the basement with a clicker and high value treats, but we also gave it a try outside in the “middle pasture” this week. This Remedial Treibball Video below shows our results.

Read the rest of this entry »

Following a break to rest and drink, Lilly entered the round pen for the third and final time in her 1-hour herding instinct test. The task of working livestock is one of the most mentally taxing things a dog can do. Lilly showed tremendous stamina of body and brain. Still, she went a little wild on her third try.

Read the rest of this entry »

We continue our tales of goat herding today, with perhaps the best video footage so far, of our brilliant/sensitive girl showing an inkling of skill and luck with her little herding instinct test flock of goats. She even rounds up a stray or two.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Wednesday, with full crate and dog-on-the-go regalia loaded into the Mini, Lilly and I trekked about 1 hour and 15 minutes east to Cathy Balliu’s Valdemar Farm in Fort Lupton, Colorado. That’s where Lilly’s history-making herding instinct test took place.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Sam (and others who are longing for dog training news), I wish, wish, wish I had the time/energy to work on new things with Lilly, but I just don’t with all the family medical dramas that have been brewing non-stop since summer 2009. We have high hopes for spring 2011, though. So, don’t give up on us yet. While I called it an update, it’s more like a wish list.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve nearly run out of BlogPaws Schwag to review. Thank goodness, though, we got this Hartz DuraPlay ball. It’s Lilly’s favorite ball, and we thought they were no longer making it because we haven’t been able to find one in local stores, and my emergency stash is depleted.

Read the rest of this entry »