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Lilly’s Herding Lesson #1, Part 3

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.

Walking Away & Sniffing

As I said on Monday, I have thoughts and theories about how the lesson went and why. So, for now, I’ll simply report that this pattern of working the goats, then sniffing or wandering off repeated.

If you’ve come to our herding stories already in progress, you can catch up via these posts:

Lilly’s Big Year

Lilly’s Herding Instinct Test, Part 1

Lilly’s Herding Instinct Test, Part 2

Lilly’s Herding Instinct Test, Part 3

Lilly’s Herding Instinct Test, Reflections

Lilly’s Herding Lesson #1, Part 1

Lilly’s Herding Lesson #1, Part 2

Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related. I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

Candy Blakeslee - February 2, 2011

What I like most about these videos is your positive talk to Lilly. The herding expert says nothing (well, at least that we can hear) however, you just keep up the positive comments. That is exactly what I would do!

    Roxanne Hawn - February 3, 2011

    @Candy –
    Cathy does tell Lilly she is a good girl pretty often. I’m not sure you can always hear it if the wind is blowing, but we both do try to just be relatively quiet and let Lilly think her way through the work. Being a jabbermouth from birth, that’s hard for me, so I do keep up a fairly steady banter with her. One of our early dog trainers told me it was a darn good thing I had a dog with a BIG vocabulary. He meant is as a compliment.

Pamela - February 2, 2011

I have no way of understanding what’s going on. But I did see a dog making a decision. Whatever her motivation, Lilly chose to walk off. And making decisions is not something many dogs get to do.

    Roxanne Hawn - February 3, 2011

    That’s an interesting perspective, Pamela. It’s funny that you use that language because “good decision” is one of the phrases I use to praise Lilly when she clearly makes a good choice. I do think that Lilly was choosing to disengaged. I have theories on why … as you’ll see in the coming days. I hope I’m wrong.

Aly - February 2, 2011

I agree with Kenzol and Kristine.. I think partly she couldve been overwhelmed and partly that she isn’t used to listening to her own instincts.. I’ve seen a few dogs get instinct tested and many of them are always confused at first – wait, you mean I’m ALLOWED to chase these things? Also, she’s probably a bit fearful of Cathy since she doesn’t know her. What happens when you go out and stand with the goats?

    Roxanne Hawn - February 3, 2011

    Aly, you’re asking the right questions. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post and the one planned for Friday.

Christine - February 2, 2011

I’m finding the comments to be as interesting as the video and post itself! I look forward to seeing how things continue to go…

KenzoHW - February 2, 2011

It can be part of her learning process. If you have been doing a lot of obedience with her, she is used someone tells her what the do. When they act out of instinct, sometimes it makes them confused they are doing the right thing. I see dogs starting on tracking doing exactly the same. They take a pause, after which you can encourage them again to engage.

Living Large - February 2, 2011

I’m just amazed at the commitment you have to this, Roxanne! Good job!

Kristine - February 2, 2011

Huh. That’s interesting. Do you think she may have been overwhelmed? I’m looking forward to reading your personal thoughts. After all, no one knows Lilly as well as you.

Vicki Cook - February 2, 2011

Wow – this is really interesting! I came upon this just today, so I went back to look at the other parts. It looks like this is something that could really help her because it builds on her innate herding instinct. I’ll be curious to see the rest of the series.

    Roxanne Hawn - February 3, 2011

    Thanks for dropping by, Vicki. I’m glad you had time to catch up with our stories about herding. Hugs to you and Bunny Jean.

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