I changed our training focus with Moss and he is doing great. I’ve backed off on drilling “lie down.” It wasn’t getting better and he was just getting sulky so we work on wearing and keeping back from the sheep. We have been doing basic obedience “drop on recall” away from sheep with a clicker. I am seeing some real improvement here.
Yesterday I was concerned because we had a group with several lambs and some mothers with lambs. Now lambs are cute but not the brightest eggs in the carton. They sometimes take off running for no apparent reason. And mother sheep are fierce when it comes to protecting their babies. These should be old enough to be weaned but there are some late bloomers in this flock. I got a couple of lambs out but the others were fast and wily so I went with what we had.
Sure enough, one mother was stomping and charging at Moss but he was staying back and not rushing around like he used to do. Within a matter of minutes all the sheep settled down and calmly walked around as Moss pushed them around the pen.
I had taken my camera and tripod out to try to get some video of this momentous event. Unfortunately the film was freezing up when I played it back. I’m hoping it just needs fresh batteries although it didn’t tell me that.
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