Category Archives: Working Animals

Management. Why didn’t I think of that?

 

So that’s where the sheep are

Last Saturday we weighed the lambs. This involves sending the lambs through the chute into the scale. We set Al up at the scale. Poe, the Border Collie, rounded up the sheep and pushed the first 6 or 7 down the chute and then we closed the gate to the chute. I tied up Poe so that he could relax and I didn’t have to worry about what he was doing.  We sent that group of lambs through the scale one at a time with me moving around to do various things that took up much of my attention. Then I would release Poe. He would push more sheep into the chute and we would repeat the process. In all we did it 4 times.

The reason I tied Poe up each time was because once we closed the gate to the chute, pressure from him on the sheep wouldn’t help. Poe is very direct and very insistent. He likes to creep up and get involved even when I would prefer he didn’t. So we often have to have a discussion about patience.

It goes something like this:

“Liz, they aren’t moving fast enough”

“Poe, I know it seems like that but they can only go through the chute one sheep at a time”

“But Liz, really seriously, if I push harder on them, they will go faster”

“Nope, Poe all that does is create a traffic jam. And then you get more frustrated.”

“But Liz…”

“Nope Poe…”

 

This back and forth has been new to me because Jura would lie down and wait patiently for further instructions. I have sometimes forgotten that Poe doesn’t have that presence of mind yet and would often find myself reacting to a mess rather than preventing something from happening.

I knew this weekend that with the gate closed to the chute, the sheep wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. Poe would get frustrated and dive in on them. I would get frustrated and yell at him. None of that helps the sheep, the humans or the dog. And chanting “lie down, lie down, lie down” to keep him in his place doesn’t help me keep my focus on the other things I need to do. So instead of “training on the job” I chose management – tying the dog up so I didn’t have to think about him for a few minutes. While I did choose a strategic place to tie him – far enough away from the chute that he wouldn’t interfere with what was going on there just by his presence and close to a gate where they might want to escape, I wasn’t thinking about anything more than convenience.

On Monday,  we ran the sheep through the chute. It seemed more relaxed and orderly but I wasn’t really thinking about it.

And then today, we gathered the 35 sheep and lambs in the barnyard. Poe pushed them to the chute. I asked him to “lie down” in a spot that was about where I had tied him up on Saturday. It is far enough away that they are not feeling like he is breathing down their necks but still keeps them thinking the chute is a better option than others.

The sheep marched through the chute in record time. They didn’t bunch at the mouth as they are prone to do when the dog is pushing too hard from behind. I wasn’t chanting “lie down, lie down.” I was totally focused on which sheep were going into which pen. When they had all glided through the chute, I turned to find Poe, still glued to the spot where I had put him. Ready to move at a moment’s notice but still down. And I hadn’t said one word to him since I asked for the lie down. It was probably a first for us in the barnyard – a continuous lie down until the job was done without a single “reminder.” I am pretty sure that there might have been a few steps in one direction or another to make sure the sheep stayed in line for the chute. But if there were, he did it and then resumed his relaxed (for him) posture.

I inadvertently taught Poe a very important lesson when I tied him up the other day. I tied him because I knew I could not control him and focus on weighing the lambs at the same time. But what he learned was that he could just lie there where I had asked and that we could still get the job done. He learned self-control, instead of relying on me to control him.

People often discount the notion of management. “Well the dog doesn’t learn how to deal with stuff then. You are just avoiding the issue. He needs to learn how to do it and manage his frustration.” But for Poe, taking away the opportunity to “make a mistake” gave him the opportunity to observe that perhaps there was another way of handling things.

To me this is a brilliant example of how management can change everything. I only wish I could say it was *my* brilliant idea. I will just have to settle for the fact that sometimes I can be a good trainer in spite of myself.

He has a Mind of His Own

How often have I heard “He has a mind of his own” accompanied by a huge sigh or the gritting of teeth? Or “She’s so stupid. She doesn’t do what I want her to do.” Inevitably, I see before me a dog who is way smarter than his owner recognizes, who isn’t engaged in a battle of wills with his owner but has decided, lacking better information or something interesting to do, it is up to him to figure out the world. The dog who figures out how to get into the food cabinet, the dog who catches the rabbit, the dog who fearlessly follows the deer scent into the next county, the dog who pushes all the ducks at the local pond into a corner,  the dog who digs under the porch where the mice are living: All “have a mind of their own”. Aren’t they all exercising abilities on which we humans have relied for centuries? Aren’t they all using their brains to do amazing things that we can’t? Well, I hope we can all get into the food cabinet… but you know what I mean.  I am sure many of my dog training colleagues recognize the scene.

timoniumsheep2

State Fair in 1971.

When I was 11 (1971), I saw my first sheep herding demonstration at the Timonium State Fair. The Border Collie looked strikingly like our family dog, who at various times in his life had attempted to exercise his inner border collie by herding the neighbor’s cattle but was mostly content to watch over his three charges, my brothers and me. In retrospect (now that I have 3 border collies, 27 sheep, 7 goats…and a llama) it was a life changing moment. I can still put my hands on the horrible instamatic photos where the dog is barely a speck in the distance. It is one of the few stand out memories of my childhood. And I remember my mother being just about as excited as I was. I couldn’t articulate it then, but what struck me was not the athleticism of the dog but the self control, focus on his job and his partnership with his handler. I recognized that the dog wasn’t just a remote control device strategically placed by the human but an active thinking participant in the task: a dog fully utilizing his mind.

The dogs I had growing up and in early adulthood  had “brainiac” written on their faces. It might be that they all had herding breed in their heritage – dogs that because of their breeding for a job that requires close partnership with humans were better at reading me than some dogs. So they had that sort of intelligence that we self-centered humans easily recognize. I had a lot to learn about the intelligence of other breeds. Then in 2003 we got a mutt, Magic, from the shelter. He was a nice enough dog. I know I uttered the words “He isn’t the brightest bulb on the block. And he is hard headed and doesn’t listen to me”… Boy was I wrong. I just didn’t yet appreciate that he could read other dogs in a way that I still can’t, despite 10 years of tutelage from him.  Or that he, like a “real” dog, could actually catch a bunny. Or that he could read my facial expressions. Or that at most dog seminars, even at 9 or 10 years old, he would be the last dog standing, still ready to work and learn something new when three year old dogs lay exhausted in their crates, brains fried. I was the low wattage bulb.  Not he.

magicsnowBefore I knew these things about him, I took him to an agility class that I had started with a foster dog who was adopted out from under me. I had paid for the class, I might as well take the remaining four sessions, though I was doubtful much would come of it. And what happened next was magical. He lit up and he loved every second of learning the new things. We did agility just for fun for many years. I started to use him for dog-dog evaluations for a border collie rescue because he was just generally calm around other dogs. All I wanted was a neutral dog to see how the evaluated dog reacted. I quickly came to realize that I could watch him and know what was going on with the other dog. He was consistently right and interacted in ways that often calmed adolescent goofballs. But he also instantly knew when another dog was trouble. A brilliant mind.

The journey I took with him paralleled my work as a volunteer dog walker in a Pittsburgh city shelter. Everyone was focused on getting the dogs, cooped up in kennels all day, out for exercise. They would throw a tennis ball for a lab for hours and the lab would go back to the kennel just as stressed as when they started. Thanks to the burgeoning shelter enrichment movement, I very quickly realized that physical exercise was only a small piece of what the dogs needed. Often they needed three other things: to learn how to exercise self-control and self-calming, to open communications lines with humans and to use their brains. It was hard for many volunteers to see at first, but every time those things were put in place, the dogs were able to manage their sterile and stressful kennel existence much better. And they became better adoption prospects. Because I worked with every breed and mix, I came to see that every dog has her own sort of smarts, often exactly what we bred her for. Hmm, all those pet dogs with “minds of their own”… Perhaps they just have the minds we bred them for.

In 2006 I took my fear aggressive border collie for a sheep herding lesson. I couldn’t do classes with him – too stimulating and scary. Much of his life was constrained by his fears and I was looking for that something that would grab his attention. The moment he turned onto sheep, there was probably no turning back for *me*. Though it turned out his fears, his aggressive responses and my mistakes handling those issues, made him an unsuccessful sheep dog, he had a lot of natural talent. Watching him read the sheep better than I could was a sight to behold. He “knew” what I am still learning. Watching him, started me on a journey of thinking about human working relationships with dogs. My dog trainer friends in 2006-8 or so were bored with my long missives about self-actualized behavior and my lingering doubts about much of the training around me. It seemed to entail disengaging much of the dog’s brain to achieve robot like obedience. Even positive reinforcement training can turn a dog into a robot if you don’t appreciate the mind within the animal.

Fast forward to yesterday. My brother does dressage with horses. I was describing to my brother, how Jura, my herding dog, is really thinking for himself now that he is three. He has natural talent on stock, what they call in the biz “stock sense”. He can read the sheep and situates himself in such a way that he covers the problem – often as, or before, I see it coming. For example, when moving the stock back to the barn, there is a yummy patch of clover to the right. He naturally puts himself between the sheep and the clover while still moving them forward. Usually if I issue a command to do it, I don’t put him in quite the right place and it looks much messier. He listens, but I am sure he sometimes wonders how I can be so sloppy. He also knows exactly where to stop when he has driven the sheep to the

jurasheepbuttsbarnyard gate. They are comfortably held to the gate until I get up to open it. He has learned from experience the sweet spot and I no longer even need to ask him to stop. Every day something comes up where Jura has to think for himself. Sheep have minds of their own and he will always be better at noticing their intentions than I am. I can send him out on a blind gather – where I can not see the sheep. And he does all the things he needs to do, on his own, to bring them back to me.

So, there I was rejoicing in the wonder of my dog thinking for himself.  Almost everyday he amazes me with something. And my brother laughed. His horse thinks for himself, often to a dressage trainer’s dismay. If he is to get the horse through the dressage tests, the horse must NOT think for itself.

Given my personality type, Dressage and Competition Obedience to me are mystifying. In my most cynical moments I think, “I could go get one of my husband’s robots if I wanted something to do exactly and precisely what I want it to do”. I realize that there is much more to the sports than that, but I also see people who exercise a level of control in those sports that is soul sucking and mind numbing, definitely for the dog, and likely, though less recognized, for the human. I have often heard the lament “my dog seems bored with training”. Well, yes! Doing the same seemingly meaningless (to the dog)  thing over and over is boring. Learning something new might be more interesting. No dog has ever asked to do sits and downs  and walk in precise formation around a course UNLESS the handler and dog have such a good relationship that doing the activity is about the relationship – not the activity itself. Far too often I see dogs that are doing what they are told to do without enthusiasm and a handler that is completely oblivious to the dog’s state of mind. They are happy that their dog is obeying them. And it barely occurs to them that perhaps their dog is “bored”. I am pretty sure the typical tracking dog, herding dog, hunting dog would consider doing her preferred activity on her own but show me the video of an obedience dog doing his routine on his own.

Agility – which relies mostly on the dog’s athleticism and not on thinking for himself – can also be mind numbing for the dog in the wrong circumstances (though plenty of dogs like to make up their own agility courses). Sometimes I see agility dogs who are nervy and unhappy because, while their physical needs are being well met, those brains are going to waste. They are a bundle of nervous energy – not because they need a physical outlet but because, like the shelter dogs that would play fetch for hours and still not de-stress, they need to use those brains. And I have seen people dip into herding with their dogs, trying to exercise the same level of control over their dog that they do in obedience, often squelching some of the dog’s natural ability. It is probably true that humans have the capacity to make almost any activity mind numbing so I probably shouldn’t pick on Obedience and Dressage.

Now, some of my dog trainer friends are probably feeling their hackles rise. There are a whole lot of good reasons to participate in these activities. In the hands of a handler who understands their dog’s needs, all of these activities can enhance the dog’s life. They provide an outlet for the athletic dog. They can be relationship building. They can improve communication. They can be fun for both the dog and the human with the right attitude. Achieving precision in a partnership can be fun. Don’t get me wrong. I have had agility runs bring tears to my eyes when dog and human are in sync.  But rarely are we taxing our dog’s brain  except in the earliest stages of learning the behaviors. So you will never catch me saying “Don’t participate” if you and your dog are having fun, but always think about what else you are doing to appreciate and exercise your dog’s amazing mind. The best handlers I know give their dogs many other things that exercise their brains.

Most of us have have gotten very far away from the tasks that drew humans into working relationships with dogs – hunting, herding, vermin extermination, guarding – and it is so easy for us to look at our dogs and not fully appreciate that they have “minds of their own”. After all, most of them are cuddly looking, astonishingly adaptable, often at great cost to themselves. As dogs became pets and companions and fellow competitors in things that, let’s face it, really only we humans care about, we have dumbed down their jobs. They are no less amazing, just because we can’t see it or find ways to utilize their smarts in our everyday lives. One of the things I love about the “nosework” movement is that it shows owners just how much their dogs know that they can’t.

When I have an owner complain that their dog “has a mind of its own” or that the dog is “stupid”, I try to suppress the smirking grin that begins to emerge on my face. To me it is an irresistible challenge to help the dog show his people just how smart he is and just how wonderful it can be to live with an animal that “has a mind of its own”.  I have never had a dog disappoint me yet. They are all willing partners in this endeavor to train their humans. Sometimes we have to teach the human to talk dog. Most dogs are darn good trainers of their people, once someone opens the door enough to give their people the tools to understand. Often they have already trained their people well, only the people don’t realize it.

Meanwhile back on the farm, I thank dog for the fact that Jura has “a mind of his own”. My life would be so much harder if he didn’t.

Jet – Musings on the Working Animals of FFF Part 1

For those of you who follow me and the Farm on Facebook, Jet is a frequent character in the saga of the farm.

jet

Jet

I am not a cat person and I don’t play one on TV. I like cats well enough. And when the stray came to the door when I was a teenager and stayed for the next 15 years I was happy. Teen age girls and cats… But between life circumstances early in my early adult years and a very allergic husband in later years (as well as dogs that would consider a cat a snack, not a companion) I never really got to know cats like I know dogs. This became apparent when I was interim director at the humane society. There I was, darn good at understanding dogs and all their moods, but patently clueless as I helped staff restrain cats. I noticed over time that, while I was always on call to help with the dogs,  they asked for help less and less frequently with the cats. It was probably self-preservation on the staff’s part. I respect and admire felines but I don’t have that almost instant communication that I feel with most dogs.

When we bought the farm, I realized that  if I was to protect our barn from order Rodentia, that a cat was necessary. I approached Lowell Humane Society and suggested that if they had a cat who just couldn’t live indoors because of house breaking problems, fear, or whatever, who was willing to live in a barn that I had a job for him or her. I didn’t care what the cat looked like (though a long hair was out because of the inevitable grooming challenges). I didn’t care whether or not the cat was friendly as long as I could catch it once a year to get it to its annual vet visits. It could pee and poop anywhere since it was going to have 75 acres to roam. All it *needed* to do was be a mouser and stick by the barn. What they came up with was Jet, one of the most mentally sound animals I have had the privilege to know.

So, why did they give me Jet? Well, she had bounced in and out of the shelter a few times because she refused to stay inside. Absolutely, adamantly refused. Knowing Jet as I know her now, I can see why she was completely unsuited to the typical American indoor cat life. She is a lovely social cat but she has a mind of her own.

jetrafters

Jet retreats to the rafters when the goats first arrive

For her first two weeks last fall, I kept her locked in the barn. I wanted her to own the space – and that she did. She rubbed on every conceivable surface. None of the pasture animals had come in yet and she had not met them. At about week 2 or 3 of her tenancy, I had the two little bucklings neutered and tucked them in the brand new barn to keep them safe. Jet retreated to the rafters for TWO days. She sat on the farthest ledge from the bucklings (who by the way were mostly sleeping it off) and stared at them. I am quite sure she was there for almost two days because her food was untouched and her litter box was amazingly clean. My first thought was “oooh boy, this isn’t going to work out, cat has to be able to adjust to the farm animals.” After all, her sole purpose at the farm is to keep the barn rodent free. Abject terror of barn animals was not a good sign.

However, after due consideration of the invasion of the bucklings, she came down from her perch and decided that she could at least reclaim most of the barn as her own. Shortly thereafter,  as I started bringing animals in and letting her out I worried that she might take off. After all, she was pretty freaked out those first few days.  I brought the rest of the goats  in at night because the weather was getting cold.

Goats react to their first sight of Jet

Goats react to their first sight of Jet

They were pretty stunned. None had seen a cat before – but she clearly had decided that ruminants were not going to ruin her fun. And so she stared them down. By the way, staring seven Nigerian dwarf goats down is no mean feat. Ask Jura, my herding dog. They definitely give you a run for your money. Soon, if she was out and about when we were bringing the goats in to the barn, she could stop them dead in their tracks just by standing her ground.

After the first snow, I brought the sheep and the llama in. By this time, Jet was swatting curious goats who stuck their noses through the fencing into the aisle. The sheep took her aback for a few days but she and Joe, the llama, seemed to develop an almost instant bond. She would sit on a post that put her at lljetjoeama level and they would sniff each other. Sometimes they “hang out” together for quite sometime. Theirs seems a most companionable relationship.

One day, one of the little goats got into the aisle and she swatted him on the butt. Clearly, the aisle was her sacred territory. No ruminants allowed. I happen to agree with her. She would go into the areas with the sheep and goats and wander through. Occasionally a sheep or goat would try to butt her, and she would scoot along. But she always left with her dignity intact.

Meanwhile outside the barn, she was getting to know Jura, the herding dog. He is just a little intimidated by her. They have developed a little game where he circles her at a distance. She looks all huffy. But when in close quarters, they ignore each other. She is cautious about showing herself when the other dogs are loose but she knows what a leash is and is frighteningly bold when she knows that a dog is on a leash. If there is a dog on leash, she strolls along as if there is no dog present at all.  I suppose that is a “city cat” thing.

As lambing season rolled around, all of her sheep companions who had been quite content about

Kiwi approaches Jet

Kiwi approaches Jet

having her around suddenly started to turn on her. Momma hormones are a powerful thing and they would butt at her whenever she got anywhere near their lambs. But Jet continued to hang out, usually in a sheep inaccessible place, and commune with her ruminant companions. Sometimes I found her lounging in the barnyard with the ewes and their lambs, in a corner where she could quickly escape should one of the ewes suddenly determine that a sunning cat was an imminent danger to her offspring.

At night however, Jet disappeared into the woods. I struggled for a while about whether I should crate her at night. In the end, I decided that she might have a short life (we have fox, coyote, fisher cats and all the rest) but that she was not a cat to take to confinement. Her life, however short or long, would be a good life. As long as she kept the barn in order, I would have to accept that she had her own ideas about how she spent her free time.

Just about every human who has come to the farm has had to commune with Jet. Like my Border Collie Rose ( who prefers schmoozing men to herding sheep) she seems to think that people were created to entertain her. She has pushed lambs out of my lap to take her rightful place. And she has designs on finding a way into the house even though two of the dogs would eat her at a moment’s notice.

Jet sometimes accompanies me on farm chores like a dog might. The other day Al and I walked a good 800 feet down the driveway to repair a spot in the fence. She walked all the way down, hung out with us while we made the repair and then walked back with us. She follows Jura and me out to herding practice. She has even tried it herself.

Jet tries her paw at herding

Jet tries her paw at herding

The sheep aren’t quite sure what to make of her. And she really hasn’t perfected her outrun. But, in keeping with her personality, she is always up for trying new things.

Because she is such a companionable cat, I have worried about the spring transitions and how she might get lonely. The goats are all in Belmont at the Audubon Society now. The sheep now spend their days and nights with their guardian Joe in the pastures.  I put the sheep out in the front pasture at first. For a while when I went to the barn to feed Jet in the morning she would appear from the direction of the front pasture. I didn’t think much of it, because she is a mighty huntress and there are woods and streams and rodentia a plenty that way. A few days ago, I moved the sheep to the middle pasture. Suddenly Jet is hunting and spending time in the woods between the barnyard and that pasture. Last night, in fact, I was late to penning the sheep in the night time area and Jet lept out of the woods and startled my cousin and me as we walked to the pasture. Nothing like a black cat after dark to get your heart racing. So, it appears that Jet has solved her own problem of being a lonely barn cat. She is still hanging with her peeps, which in this case are her sheep. Hunting is just as good in these woods.

Jet displaces Kale from my lap

Jet displaces Kale from my lap

This afternoon, I went to the barn. She was deep into her afternoon nap. I sat down and she curled up in my lap for a nap. She really doesn’t get much attention from me but she readily accepts it when the opportunity presents itself.

Jet has made me think a lot about resilience. Except for our dog Alex who died several years ago, I think she is the most resilient animal I have owned. Things do phase her. The goats were quite a shock. Her eyes were like saucers those first days. Now with spring,  suddenly her barn companions aren’t coming into the barn. She shocked herself on the electrinetting one day and disappeared for hours. But then she finds a way to solve her own problems. I can only speculate what combination of nature and nurture laid the firm foundation for this transition from city cat to queen of the barnyard. When I think of cats I don’t generally think “open to new experiences”. But Jet seems to be just that. She is open to new people, to new animals, to new hunting grounds. She is not fearless or fierce but she doesn’t cower. She doesn’t respond with hostility or posturing unless it is called for. She has an agile brain which she applies to the circumstance at hand and learns from her experiences. She can tell the difference between the dogs as individuals and responds to each differently.

My experiences with her have made me think all the more about what we ask and expect of our pet animals. Over the past ten years, I have thought about just how much our animals give up of their essential nature in order to fit into our lives. I certainly know many cats, who given the opportunity to hunt or lie on the couch, would choose the couch. And I know plenty of dogs who are quite happy in their lives. But as I watch the animals around the farm, my dogs included, I realize how impoverished our pets’ lives often are and how frequently we underestimate their intelligence because it isn’t of the type that humans possess. Everytime I send Jura out on an outrun to collect his sheep that are scattered about, I realize that he can read sheep better than I  ever will.

Jet is a smart cat. She is a resilient being. I believe that she has some sort of a sense of humor when she messes with the dog and the goats. She has found her own way here on the farm in ways that I could not have expected. And she is one of  the most well adjusted animals I have ever met.  This is a cat, who was rejected thrice by human families before she came to live here. She couldn’t adapt to her life as an indoor city cat. I can see why she would have been miserable in such a

Jet's version of couch potato

Jet’s version of couch potato

constrained life. I can only imagine the ways in which she told her person in no uncertain terms that indoor life was not the life for her. She must have been impossible to live with. We so often blame the animal for not adjusting and thinking that there is something “wrong” with him or her because it doesn’t fit into our lifestyle. We then “diagnose” the animal as having a problem – when maybe the problem is with the environment or our expectations.

My mind always drifts next to the environment that we provide for human children. More and more we are diagnosing children with ADHD and other “diseases” because they are not adapting well to the environment into which we force them to live. But maybe, we need to stop and look. Perhaps they, like Jet, are responding to an unreasonable set of expectations. We want them to be couch cats when they are natural hunters. Maybe it is the environment that we have created that isn’t so healthy. Maybe, given the right environment they would thrive and we would find them quite resilient and adaptable. I could go on and on about how we have taken away serendipity and opportunities for spontaneous learning and how in the name of safety we have removed risk and thus the opportunity to learn how to adapt. For all our technological toys and structured activities, I sometimes wonder if we are impoverishing our children by not exposing them to the unexpected. We have done the same for our pets. But that is an entirely different blog entry.

As a dog trainer, I often recommend that people get puzzles and toys for their dogs. I suggest they do training of tricks or a sport to exercise their dogs’ minds. With the advent of the sport of nosework (where a dog gets to use its nose, a sensory tool that we can not even begin to appreciate), I recommend that people try it with their dogs, if only to open the humans’ eyes to how differently a dog perceives the world. I suggest ways to enhance their environment. But I sometimes fear (well let’s be honest – often fear) that all that isn’t really enough. I fear that people aren’t really looking at the amazing creature before them. Part of the reason that we don’t see the amazing creature before us, is our own self-absorption. We humans are so conditioned to believe that we have dominion over the earth (even those of us who reject that notion, rarely cease that behavior in practice, myself included, hobby farmer that I am). And we think of our intelligence as “the” intelligence.  Part of it, for many people, may be our lack of the observation skills and knowledge that would enable us to really see the animal. But as I watch Jet, I realize that the cat that was turned in to the shelter once and returned twice, would not have shown her true self in an indoor setting. She is at her finest with a flock of sheep, a herd of goats, her own llama with whom to consult on all things farm, a few dogs with whom she can mess, farm visitors with whom she can schmooze and a wide world of small rodents. She has thrived on mastering her new environment. She is an amazing creature. But so too is every other cat on the planet.