Shepherd partnership training

The shepherd partnership training with LGDs continous to be an incremental success. Some days better than others. Even though its been raining almost two weeks straight, I continue to partner and train with them at least twice a day. One of our dogs is a bit ahead of the training than the other. I think its partly due because of her love for cheese and some play time as added benefit to the training. The (watch me training) call has been highly effective for brining attention. Some items noted from our partnership training:

• Watch me grabs the girls attention and all eyes now focused on me
• They are less likely to ignore the next set of communication from me
• Rewarding them with cheese or loving pets further strengthen bonding
• Positive reinforcement (Yes, good) has been highly effective, even when one does something not desired
• It's important to not force the training and let it become organic. I set space aside for them but if we (dogs and I) arent motivated, I just take a walk with them around the pasture and they enjoy the moment

With some of the above noted, I can further state the partnership has been a success especially since now one of the dogs likes to escape. Particularly by jumping/climbing over the fence. She now will stop and acknowledge when I call watch me. Followed by a Yes, good Ginger and she bolts over to me. This is a small milestone but highly successful for us especially given the instinct of our breed of dog, Great Pyrenees.

We have patched areas where there have been holes in the fence and added some Premier1 electric nets to places where it was easy for her to hop out. I'll write more in a later post about how to effectively keep LGDs, particuarly Great Pyrenees in a respected area guarding livestock.