December 2006 Oklahoma\u2014I’ve been reading your site and come up with a question or two. I trial my dogs as well as use them in the pasture. Trialing them\u00a0is not a problem at all, but when\u00a0I\u00a0get in the pasture and have to count on them they just won’t stick to it. I try to encourage them all I can (praise, hoot and holler, yip, etc.), but they just won’t do their jobs. Can you give me any advice? I\u00a0work them a lot in a\u00a0trial course,\u00a0and they do great on 3 to 5 head in a lot or in a pasture course if that makes any sense,\u00a0but it’s working the\u00a0herds of cows that my problem really shows with\u00a02 or 3 dogs on\u00a030 to 50 head\u00a0of half broke cows. My dogs have a huge presence and all of them have a great mouth. They go to the head or heels, but when I send them to the cows they go then say, “see ya,” and turn around and come back. If you have any advice please e-mail me.<\/p>\n
Some dogs will work well at trialing and in the pasture, most will not.<\/p>\n
If it is important to you to have a good pasture dog, one that will work out of your sight, one that can control the animals without you controlling the dog, that dog must be allowed to learn how to get the job done alone – not be told how to get it done.<\/p>\n
I like to start a young dog out in the pasture, not in a small pen. Let the dog learn to work.\u00a0Not run wild, but let it work.\u00a0If we use too much control, some dogs just quit. Even if you want to trial, the dog should learn the pasture first. After a dog learns to work and get a job done right, it is easy to put commands on it for a trial.<\/p>\n
Too much control will hurt a pasture dog.\u00a0With the dogs you have, send them then shut-up.\u00a0Just move around and let them see that they can work without commands. Move around, even if you have to be in the center of the herd.\u00a0Any place until the dogs realize you will let them do something.\u00a0The less you say, the better.\u00a0Saying nothing is best.<\/p>\n
. . . . I e-mailed you a while back and I had a question about getting my\u00a0trial dogs to work in the pasture. Well I really appreciate the advice. My dogs are working great in the pasture. I send \u2018em\u00a0and shut up and hey it works. At first it was a little unnerving, and they were a little uneasy but they have come a long way. I think the hardest thing was to shut my mouth, but I have no arguments; IT WORKED. I recently took them and lotted 380 head without a hitch. I send \u2018em and\u00a0sit in the truck and shut up and here they come pushing \u2018em right along no problem. I can’t put in words how great it has gotten mainly cause\u00a0my\u00a0jaw is still stuck to the ground. I’ve also realized that the trialing has gotten better. You really made me sit and think when you said shut up,\u00a0and I’ve come to a conclusion that I’m over handling my dogs. The problem wasn’t my dogs it was me, and I realize that now. THANK YOU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: December 2006 Oklahoma\u2014I’ve been reading your site and come up with a question or two. I trial my dogs as well as use them in the pasture. Trialing them\u00a0is not a problem at all, but when\u00a0I\u00a0get in the pasture and have to count on them they just won’t stick to it. I try to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stockdogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockmanship.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}