Clinics
We ran a series of 1 day clinics over a number of months focusing on a specific aspect of a trial run for each one. With a limited number of handlers we had plenty of time for questions, discussions, and a ton of work for each handler. We are able to address individual issues and challenges as well as strategize how to pull together a complete run. Starting well and finishing strong. Lots of worn out handlers and tired dogs... ahhhh but lots of learning as well. The series will start up again soon.
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Dave will travel to your site for clinics and lessons as well. We can tailor a clinic to suit the hands in your area or start with the basics and work from there. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Back to Basics
Where it all begins and ends. So often our dog’s first step on a flank is towards their sheep or last step is falling into their sheep. Either one applying pressure to the stock which can upset them at the pen, move balance on a lift, or collapse that crack we were hoping to exploit for a shed.
So here we go Back to Basics. We’ll spend a day working on the first and last steps of a half flank, a stop, and then in the afternoon, apply this to shedding and penning.
Penning
We will start the morning reviewing video of pens... discussing and analyzing what works and what works not so much. Most of the rest of the day we will be penning. We will be using skills we learned or polished in the Back to Basics clinic with plenty of opportunity to work and begin to feel things come together. Last part of the day will be reviewing video of our own work.
The Drive Away
We will work on strategies for turning the post and successfully making that first drive panel. Reading sheep, draws, flanks, pace, and the all important turn/setting up for the cross drive will be discussed. Understanding how a judge looks at the turn, how to avoid things going wrong, what to do when things go wrong, unwinding. Lots of work will be done by both you and your dog.
Reading the Fetch and Cross Drive
We will start out reading pressure and learning how to move stock back online during a fetch in the morning then take these skills and translate them to the cross drive in the afternoon. This will also help us when we have the opportunity for a dog leg fetch. Lack of skills, training, and understanding of these tasks cost us a lot of points during a trial.
Shedding
The shed starts long before we get to the shedding ring. We need to understand how the start of our run affects the finish. We need to finish strong.
We'll watch video in the morning of excellent sheds, talk about how to approach the shedding ring, how draws from the ring determine which direction we will shed in, how things can go wrong, and how to try to keep things right. Moving sheep and setting the shed up will be a lot of the discussion.