Went to see Step at his home, Three Waters Farm, to give them an on site herding lesson on their own stock. Step is really coming along, and he's got 3 great trainers in the house to help him. Here he is after his lesson, cooling off in a sheep water bucket. He's almost always got his eyes on his stock - watching the billy here.
I forget that I take for granted all the minutia of what I can click and treat with the animals, and how to develop behaviors that will help me out. We talked a lot about what to c/t Step for, how to train the goats to let you trim hooves in the pasture, and possible things to train the billy to do to make him more manageable during breeding season. For me, training has a real flow to it, especially doing pos reinforcement, as there are so many small things you can reward for in the stream of the moment. It really does encourage a different way of thinking about training and communicating with your animals. They ignore something - c/t. They pay attention to you - c/t. They turn towards you - c/t.
For Step right now on stock, it is walk ups, stopping just inside the flight zone, flanking wide to turn the stock and call offs.
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