The herding center that I've been starting to spend more time at is somewhat different in tone and clientele than what I am used to. For one thing, it is not really built around a particular instructor, their way of teaching, and their preferred breed/s. Perhaps because of this, there is a broad spectrum of people interested in fooling with herding dogs. There are Border Collie people and AKC herding breed people and people with indeterminate mixes and rescues . . . no working type Aussies usually, however, except mine.

One of the attractions, besides that it is close-ish to me, is the wide variety of options. For a reasonable fee, I can spend hours there, herding ducks, geese, pygmy goats, and sheep ranging from utterly placid to bug-eyed. It's a place where I feel no pressure to prove anything, and no time constraints. So that's where I chose to take Ty when I realized he wasn't getting what he needed with my previous approaches.

Ty is just over a year now. He's been working stock in little bits since he was four months old, from gathering hens to keeping goats out of feed bunkers, and occasionally an outing in the round pen. I'm crazy about this dog. He seems to have innate talent and tact with stock, he's beautiful and loyal and brave, and I have high hopes for him. But I have made mistakes with him.

I have accidentally put him on stock that was too tough for him when he was too young. I've asked him to work with strangers he was suspicious of. I've overcorrected him out of fear of him hurting sheep (which he never has). Ty is an intact male from a slow-maturing line, and his calmness and his talent have lulled me into not making alllowances for his needing a little more time to mature than some other dogs. My inexperience coupled with his particular ways of responding to stress has meant that it's been hard for me to tell when he feeling overpressured. The result of this potpourri of good and bad experiences is a very young dog who can be uncertain about whether he should be working stock or not.

So, I need a new approach. My sole goal for now is to help Ty be eager to work and relaxed. Rebuilding his confidence in his ability to please me and to control his stock are what's important now. To that end, I took him up to the herding center and tried him out with a few foolproof sheep in the round pen. He was uncertain at first. He'd gather them with a rush and then fade back to the fence, out of contact. I'd call him and he'd try again right away, but always with a sense of "I'm not sure I can handle this". We worked for ten minutes or so, and then I put him up. It was an unseasonably hot day, so it was better to work in short increments anyway.

After a break I tried again and he was better. But his confidence was still shaky. The person who oversees handlers and helps novices there suggested that I try him in a bigger area, and see if that helped him relax. She said it looked to her as if he needed more room.

So, after some rest, during which Bonnie and I had fun trying to make a bunch of pygmy goats behave, I brought Ty out to the 100 x 100 paddock. It was a bit scary for me to send Ty on such a long gather (halfway across is as close as the sheep would let the two of us get), but it was no problem for him. And yes, he was obviously happier. I was trying hard to put the slightest pressure needed on him to get him to square up a bit on his corners, and then immediately give ground as a reward. He responded to this by getting wider and more confident. He was acting like his old self, his talent was beginning to shine through again. Yes, he made mistakes. He occasionally circled all the way around me instead of keeping the stock between me and him, but I didn't bother to try to fix it. One thing at a time.

My agility instructor has always hammered home the training technique of "quitting at the top". If you obtained the objective you started out your session with, QUIT THEN. Don't wear a sore spot in your dog's psyche with your egocentric idea of "just once more to make it perfect ". So when Ty was relaxedly wearing behind his sheep, rating nicely with a smile on his face, I called it a day. A successful day.