I’m working every morning, training Bud to come to me, and to move around the sheep, not ever into them.
He tried to push Lulu around this morning, and she lowered her ears and ran him out of her pasture. He learned a good lesson there, it was a bit intense but necessary, I didn’t see him move towards her.
Otherwise, the training is going very well. I took a short video this morning – I meant it to be longer, but pushed a wrong button somewhere. But it is helpful.
I am working on “come” from a long distance, aided by treats I give him at some times, and not others. He has to guess. I use a high and repetitive and enthusiastic voice to get his attention and reward him when he comes.
This is hard for him, he did not have any recall when he came, and we are getting a good one. At the same time, I am teaching him to see. He has a lot of prey drive, and I am beginning intensive calming training.
That is, five or six times a day for four or five minutes, “sit,” “stay,” “come” and eventually lie down. When a dog obeys all of these commands in my book, then he or she is trained. Until they do, they are not fully trained.
Stay and lie down will be the difficult ones for Bud, they are submissive commands, and a dog as dominant and full of himself as he is will balk. Patience, patience, patience, on my part.
But this video will give you a feel for how well he is doing, how eager he is to learn, and how day by day, he is learning who he is. Red’s presence has been immensely helpful.
