# Pen size



## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Terrasita mentioned on another post about pen size. Thunder and I found out that is VERY important in relieving pressure off the stock (or the dog). The smaller pen didn't allow Thunder enough room to keep off far enough to allow the stock (or Thunder) to settle into a nice drive. 
The extra distance because of the big field and lack of speed from the ducks had him looking like a champ.
Watching his natural balance, drive, and all those other words I'm still learning :-D was a thrill to watch.
Terrasita could explain this much better....obviously! :-D


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Actually you did pretty good. Both the stock and the dog feel the geographic pressures. If you watch any of the classic BC training, its all out in a pasture with sheep that aren't going to run off from pressure from a dog and there are a lot of them--at least 20-50. [ Bob, incidentally, Robin told me today that there is an article in the Working Border Collie Magazine about a GSD and she is going to bring me a copy. Of course, I'll copy and share.] I think when you go to different facilities, they don't have stock that will park it out in the pasture for just any dog and I think its a breed thing too---i.e. woolies. So folks start in these little bitty pens so they can control the situaiton. They do have value but its really minimal. Everyone loves to talk about the dog reading the pressure and should know how to manage fight and flight zones. Trouble with the small pen is that the dog can't get outside either zone and it creates chaos. 

Low and behold, you get him out in the pasture in the right stock and wallah---rate and balance. My ducks will fetch, drive and instantly honor the dog's pressure. This is what you need in sheep for effective training and they are usually impossible to find for our dogs. So, hence training in small pens. Most of herding theory comes from the dog/stock relationship out in the open w/o fences.

Today, we unclipped the long line. There are no stock sticks and pushing the dog out. Thunder truly understands outwork/flanks and redirects himself when he's too tight. Sandra even commented on that today. We just calmly walked around the pasture and it was Thunder's job to keep the ducks balanced to Bob. If he was too tight, he would move off [dry work off stock w/ his tug and marker training], flank around and start the fetch all over. Very calm and very smooth w/ little to no interference from me and Bob. It was like a Sunday stroll. Today was a milestone. He circles stock. He has flanks. Today he developed controlling the stock on his own and managing a fetch line with rate and balance, on his own. Waaaayyyyy cool. 

The reason it was possible was because we had no fences, good stock and a dog that wants to do what's right. He had room to get the distance on the ducks with the flanks and there were no fences for the ducks to run to or to keep him from really reading and and being in the right place. I didn't expect him to understand the free standing pen but he did. I really enjoy watching how Thunder processes and applies information I give him. We had a driving session in the round pen on the long line and I'll be darned if he didn't put that altogether afer an hour and apply it out in the pasture to fetching. 

For Annika, my little male corgi is HUGELY aware of geographic pressures. Puppies go through a zillion stages until getting close to Age 3. Khaiba got to a point where he wouldn't work in small pens [close contact]. He moved cattle at the nose as a year old dog. I chose to put him up for awhile when he hit what seemed like a fear period. Between 14 and 28 months, I worked him every now and then. At 28 months, he's back with the issues with geographics fading fast. He's coming into true mature confidence. I've already laid the foundation for herding and obedience and its just recently I pronounced him ready to really train. 

Terrasita


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Terrasita said;
"I really enjoy watching how Thunder processes and applies information I give him."


That was very interesting to me. Thunder has accepted you as part of his pack and honors your commands without resistance. He's realize you not out to dominate him or try and control hi but to work "with" him.
I do recall the first time you put a rake in front of him to show him a "gate". :-o :-D No contact or even the threat of contact but his body posture showed he wasn't going to allow that. 
That was one of the first training days and made us see that he was going to work with you but not for you. Not using the "normal" physical training pressures in herding has worked wonders for him....and me! :-D


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## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

We use a 90' to 120' pen. When running 12 sheep, one dog, and two people, it gets very crazy in there.


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## Annika Friberg (Mar 27, 2009)

> For Annika, my little male corgi is HUGELY aware of geographic pressures. Puppies go through a zillion stages until getting close to Age 3. Khaiba got to a point where he wouldn't work in small pens [close contact]. He moved cattle at the nose as a year old dog. I chose to put him up for awhile when he hit what seemed like a fear period. Between 14 and 28 months, I worked him every now and then. At 28 months, he's back with the issues with geographics fading fast. He's coming into true mature confidence. I've already laid the foundation for herding and obedience and its just recently I pronounced him ready to really train.


It's good to hear. We were supposed to go out today but this area has been pounded by rainstorms and apparently their pens were a muddy mess. So we've postponed for another one or two weeks and I'm pretty happy about it as I don't think it'll hurt for my dog to come into some more maturity.

As for pen size, my people explained to me that they work with the small pen if they need more control over the dog - there was a very pushy aussie working when we were there - but that they try to move into the larger pen as soon as possible. And I could see the aussie (which was charging into the sheep and grabbing at them in the small pen) actually settling down and circling once they moved into the larger pen.

So when IS it appropriate to work in the smaller pen? If the dog is still unfamiliar with basic commands, then you have to be able to work in close range with him, don't you?


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Actually, Annika, the stock dictate where you can work. A friend of mine has a working line bouv. Several years ago she went to a seminar where Marc Mesa brought his own sheep [woolies] and unloaded them in the pasture. This dog had very little experience and a lot of push. These sheep settled in the pasture for her and calmly worked. None of the sheep I've worked will do that. Different breed of sheep and different experience I guess. It really screws with training. Depending on what your goals are, there is a lot that you can get done with pen/arena training. At this point in my training life, I want more so that means take it to the pasture.

I've been able to do good training with the sheep available to me. However, two years ago I decided that I was done with arena/pen training and run away sheep. That's when I started taking the ducks to the ball fields. I have a little 1 foot ex-pen [call ducks] and I do a lot of work with the ducks not moving. Keep in mind that all my dogs have good outwork and don't let stock escape---even the youngster. So, I'm not going to lose the ducks. Thunder has very little experience. We have trained his flanks and he has an awesome down in motion. What he needed was to develop his own sense of cover, rate and balance. Couldn't get that done in the round pen---too small and sheep really to flighty. This is a repetition exercise. Some would say, yeah you can do walkabouts in the round pen. Sure my trained dogs can do them and I started my bouv when she was a baby puppy of 10 weeks in a 10 x10; but it still isn't ideal for me. There is a lot of debate amongst herders how big the pen should be--10 ft, 30 ft, 60 ft. If the stock is calm and not in panic state with the dog, the larger the pen size is my standard rule. At first I thought Bob and I could back Thunder up until he got the hang of it. Well, you have no idea how fast those little ducks can run down hill. One recoverery and I quickly went to--its his job to cover them. He did. Sure we had a couple of splits until he started figuring it out but these ducks were trained by my corgi. They come correct and honor the dog's pressure. They flock tight, fetch, drive, etc. They stop when the dog stops. I think this was the second time we worked him out there. Before, he had about 5 sessions in the round pen. We said from the beginning we didn't want rake/stock stick or body pressure. We tried teaching move off the rake with marker training but I decided that it was still agitation to him, which means he was fighting it. So we tossed that out. Thunder will grip to punish errant stock but again GSDs are bred to do that. So we kinda alternated with doing line work teaching his flanks and to calmly moving around stock on the perimeter of the pen to fetch the sheep to Bob and would stop him once the sheep reached Bob. Meanwhile, I'd been trying to figure out some the bird dog triangle training to apply it to herding. I haven't quite put that altogether but Bob and I started working with a move off command using Thunder's tug. So before the pasture, he had flanks and that the path to the sheep is around and we were working on move off. His control [stop and recall] was already there with his prior training. One of the mistakes in herding is to train control with the stock present as a new exercise. I worked my youngster for a year with marker training before I really turned him loose on stock---hence that drop dead snappy lie down [platz]. You can't effectively teach something as a new impression with the ultimate distraction. I decided it needed to be ingrained in the dog first. I also like tug work for building control in drive. Too many herders shut down drive instead of training to be in the picture while the dog is in drive. 

Okay, so we had a dog with mechanical flanks and stops. But I like a natural dog. Some folks like to tell the dog everything and direct the fetch line or drive line once they set the dog on it. I don't. The pen was too small for a dog of Thunder's presence to really rate/fetch. All we were getting was nice circling. He needed room to get outside the pressure. I had already tried him on the ducks to see if he would work them and knew we were good to go. With Bob and I moving in relation to the stock, Thunder took everything he had learned that day and previously and started to work to control the line of travel on his own. We just walked and turned. If he came in too close and split them, he had a way of taking himself out to do a flank to put them back together and start moving them too us all over again. Sure if we were incorrect in our movements, it would have destroyed it but this is why I say, you must learn to move in relation to the dog and the stock. Its THE most painful part but when its right you can really go on with the training. I knew from the first session that Thunder had instinctive rate. He really put it together in this session. 

Control is a funny word and I'm sure everyone has their definition. I believe that the dog MUST be in control of the stock. I define the job. He controls the stock. I have a library of trainnig tapes. Look at all the BC training with 5-6 month old puppies. Where are they? Out in the pasture. What is puppy doing? Running, dashing about, occasionally pulling wool and trying to figure out how to move them and contain them or prevent escape. No different from any other herding breed. What's the common denominator? Sheep that don't panic and run. Some people operate with the presumption that the dogs have malice in their hearts. Reactive frustration aside, herding dogs HATE chaos. They want order. They want acknowledgment from the stock that they are in charge. Now what is order? In a word, containment. The stock is grouped and held. I watched Thunder move on a 360 inside circle to contain the duck while they sat in the middle of it. To a dog, good stock is stock that will go where he tells them without fight or flight. The dogs have stock sense, you have to set up the situation to further develop it. 

I've been working my corgi on ducks exclusively to train her basics on ideal stock. When I'm done with the training, then we will return to sheep. After last week, I know that Bob and Thunder will spend a lot more time on ducks in the pasture before we return to sheep and then it will be a bigger area. You can't be afraid of letting the dogs make mistakes. They do want to figure it out. Sure you have to protect the stock, but people go overboard with this and treat stock like they birthed them yesterday. For me the hierarchy in the pen is 1) handler; 2) dog; 3) livestock. 

Bob did say something really important about working with the ducks. He said it slowed everything down enough that he could see the big picture, analyze it and react accordingly. With sheep everything is going too fast. I've been working them so long, I hadn't thought of that. 

Small pen work is a valuable skill. I do a lot of ranch stuff and send dogs into tight spaces with stock. I've just decided that its something I want to develop later. There are more ways than one to skin a cat. Nothing is per se wrong. You just have to be aware of the effect on the dog and the stock and make adjustments. My corgi works out in the open and all he has is a stop, change of direction and recall. Like aunt Khaldi he is a covering dynamo and the gravy is instinctive rate and good balance. I use the small pen to see what I have and then we book out into the open as soon as possible. 


Terrasita


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## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

terrasita,

i love your posts on herding training techniques, strategies and philosophy, i really do! 

and i'm immensely proud of bob and Thunder for proving to the world that a well trained/bred/Sch3 GSD can also (and here's the headline) HERD. what an epiphany, lol.

keep it coming, would you please? (BOTH of you).


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Well..................one of the ducks WAS missing his pin feather when we finished but all the meat was nicely intact! :grin:  :grin:  
Still amazes me to see this killer schutzhund dog pick up a duck and hardly ruffle it's feathers.


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## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

so it's true about , ummm, "older" ppl, ie, they don't need a much sleep as us young 'uns, and that's why you're still up?

i have an excuse--i'm working 2nd shift...lol  

but i still want some video of Thunder working while you're "meditating" haha


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi Ann and THANKS. I can be overly detailed to a fault. Its one of the reasons it takes me all day to train. I want the right stock, right set up, right size pen and then I'm not happy until I see some results. Bob and Thunder are great to work with and Bob and I have a lot of FUN. We put our heads together and come up with a plan for whats best for Thunder. I try to recap each session to keep us focused. GSDs are my first love and passion and I don't have one to train right now. Thunder is a great fill in and reminder why I love GSDs so much. As I've said before there is no need to water down the breed. A good balanced dog can do it all.

Terrasita


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

ann freier said:


> so it's true about , ummm, "older" ppl, ie, they don't need a much sleep as us young 'uns, and that's why you're still up?
> 
> i have an excuse--i'm working 2nd shift...lol
> 
> but i still want some video of Thunder working while you're "meditating" haha


 
I worked 2nd,3rd shift the last 20 yrs before I retired. Still got the late night habit. of course 9:30, 10:00 am DOES come around quickly now that I'm retired. :grin: :grin: :razz::wink:


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## ann schnerre (Aug 24, 2006)

i've gotten up no later than 5 a.m. for most of my career, so i'm still getting used to this shift--i'm finally able to sleep in til 7 a.m. most days, but can't wind down enough for sleep til 12:30-1 a.m. (or 2.. ). sucks. then i'm so logy that i don't get anything done around here.....ah well, would you like some cheese with the whine???

and i NEED my beauty rest, lol..


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

5 am!!!! Do clocks even register that time? :lol: 

..........and trying to swing your body clock around for weekends REALLY sucks!


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