Kleinen Wiese German Shepherds

Posted By Bill Wilson on May 19, 2009

Last fall (2008,) Sandy and I had a talk about Aiko’s herding training.  Sandy felt that she couldn’t give Aiko enough time with every thing else she had going on, so I agreed to take on his training.  There were several obstacles that I needed to overcome if we were going to make meaningful progress.  1. Aiko is Sandy’s dog and she has a stronger relationship with him.  2. Aiko is a three year old intact male and a little full of himself.  3. Aiko had developed some bad habits from his intermittent training.  On the plus side,  Aiko is very good natured and although he can be a little rough when excited, he doesn’t have the intent to hurt the sheep.  Aiko is very intelligent, very eager to please, loves to work, and has a strong attraction to sheep.

At the time, Aiko was doing OK with his boundary work in the field and barn work.  He under stood the task and showed excellent natural talent but without the working relationship with me, he would frequently give in to the temptation to break in and grab a sheep just to have some fun.  The grip (Aiko is a thigh man) was just too self rewarding for Aiko and his little indulgences were preventing from focusing on his work.  I wanted to take away the grip without putting me in an adversarial position with Aiko.  I decided that over the winter we would do barn work with a muzzle and long line, just to keep him honest.

I like barn work for teaching basics.  It’s a close environment that isn’t overly stimulating so that the dogs learn to relax around the sheep.  I also think that the dogs respond better to doing light work rather than just mindless obedience exercises.  While wearing the muzzle, Aiko had to learn to use his body to control the sheep rather that going for a grip.

It took almost two and a half months, but one day things clicked for Aiko and his attitude changed.  He became more relaxed and more interested in the whole flock rather then singling out individuals.  The lambs were born about this time and Aiko is very gentle with them.  After about two more weeks, I removed the long line and Aiko just kept improving.  The muzzle came off shortly after that.  My relationship with Aiko has steadily improved through the whole process and we have become a super herding team.

Next we head out to the wide graze . . .

Category: Herding - HGH
Tags: A-Litter, Aiko, German Shepherd, Sheep Herding