Auchenstroan Wool

Monday 18^th July

I had a brilliant day today, this morning I was allowed off lead in amongst the sheep for the first time!  It was great to be able to walk down the hill with my pals free and easy without the lead getting in the way.  The sheep were walking to the wooden house in the field because it was hot.  The sheep don’t like the heat.  I don’t mind the heat because I come from a place called Turkey.

This afternoon I was let off my lead again so I spent some time with the boss sheep Selene who I like a lot.  Selene was the first sheep to lick my face last week when I was in training.  I feel happy around Selene, she reminds me of my mum.  You can see Selene in the main picture of this story.

Tues 19^th July

Today was a hot day again and felt like that place I used to live called Turkey.  In Turkey they don’t have long grass.  I like long grass, I like running through it, it’s one of my favourite things.  Today we went over to the sheep who were in their wooden house.  I didn’t get to say hello because they wouldn’t come out so I hung around with George.  My girl human went to fiddle with some fencing.  On the way back I did some zoomies and then I sat on a hill.  I like sitting and watching, it’s another one of my favourite things.

Wed 20^th July

One of the sheep who is called Shelby needed some help today.  My girl human didn’t pay me much attention so I sat and watched. She led Shelby into a pen.  Shelby’s nose was covered with flies.  My girl human got a bottle of white spray and sprayed it all over Shelby’s nose.  When she came out the pen I wanted to lick her but I wasn’t allowed.  I didn’t mind, that white spray smelled funny.

Later on, myself and my whole pack went back into the field.  I love going out with my whole pack, it’s one of my favourite things.  George and I sniffed some smells in the grass while the boy human pulled out tall, spiky plants with purple flowers on top.  My girl human put Shelby into a pen again and stuck a needle into her bottom, yikes!

Then we walked back and the sheep followed us, I love walking with the sheep, it reminds me of who I am, a Turkish shepherd dog.  Walking with the sheep is one of my other favourite things.

 

 

Thurs 21st July

Today I followed the girl human around the fields while she opened and closed some gates.  I got bored so I did some zoomies around the sheep.  I was flying around in circles when my girl human called my name.  Before I could decide whether I wanted to go back, my legs started to run towards her.  I don’t know how that happened but I got a biscuit so I didn’t mind.   Then we went into a different field so I could finish my zoomies but I didn’t want to run anymore so we went back to the first field to look at the sheep again.  I didn’t know what to do so I pretended to be a sheep.  Then we went back to the house.

 

Friday 22nd July

This morning on the walk it felt cool and fresh.  George told me he likes the cool weather, he doesn’t like the heat even though he’s from a sunny place called Greece.  George ran off as soon we’d done our “sits” and “downs”.  I stayed with my girl human until we got to the sheep.  Then I sat down down and scratched an itch.  After that I sniffed around in the grass while my girl human went to check on Shelby.  I could see from where I was that Shelby’s nose was better, my eyes can see very far.  Then we went into a field with trees in it and long grass and I felt a zoomie coming on so off I went.  Doing zoomies is another one of my favourite things.

 

 

Saturday 23rd July

I like it when my humans ask me to “sit”.  Each time I sit I get a biscuit.  This morning when we got to the gate George and I sat and we got a biscuit.  George stayed in a sit but I got up and waited for my girl human to say “sit” again and give me another biscuit.  But nothing happened.  I felt a funny feeling in my brain.  I wanted a biscuit and I wanted to go to the sheep but my girl human waited and I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there.  After a long time I sat down and my girl human opened the gate and called us through.  We did another “sit” at the other side of the gate and this time I copied George and I stayed in my sit.  My girl human shut the gate and then she put on a funny netty hat.  I’ve seen my humans wear those hats before, they wear them when there are tiny flies about which bite.  I don’t mind flies, I’m from Turkey where there are lots of flies.

When we got to the sheep they were in their wooden house again.  My girl human let me do my own thing.  I decided to look for some sheep droppings.  My girl human was looking for sheep droppings too.  She was sweeping them up and putting them in a pile.  Then my girl human called Shelby over and looked at her nose again.  She put Shelby in a pen and stuck another needle in her bottom, eek!

Sunday 24th July

This morning it was raining, I don’t like the rain.  I wanted to stay in my bed but I also wanted to see the sheep in the field.  My brain didn’t know what to do with these two thoughts.  I was pleased when my girl human took charge.  She called me and George and we went into the rain.  I started to enjoy myself and I noticed there were different smells in the air.  I saw a small green creature on the ground with bendy legs.  This time I sat by the gate quickly.  My girl human looked happy.  She opened the gate and George and I went through into the field.  I was pleased when she unclipped my lead because the rain was making my ears tickle and I felt a shake coming on.  Shaking is one of my favourite things, when I do a shake all the water flies off around me and makes a funny sound like “brrrrr”.

The sheep were in a different field today.  We walked up a hill to get to them.  When we got there my girl human let me do my own thing.  I decided to introduce myself to Yssi.  Yssi is one of the second in command to the boss sheep Selene.  The other second in command sheep is called Ursi.  I know about these things.  Dogs are the same.  Everyone has their place.  My girl human looked for Shelby.  She gave her some brown pellets to eat from her pocket.  My legs walked towards her and my nose went into her pocket but my girl human walked away.  Shelby still had a funny spot on her nose.  I wanted to lick it but I wasn’t allowed.

Then we went back to the house a different way.  There were lots of tall plants to walk through and my girl human was having trouble finding the path.  George and I used our noses to find the path.  Humans’ noses are not very good at smelling.  This is one of the things I have noticed as a dog.

 

 

As you may have read in Training our rescue dog Elliot and introducing him to the sheep, Elliot has been with us a few weeks and is slowly being trained in the key commands of sit, down and recall. As a farm, we also have to introduce him to our livestock, our sheep and our hens. Our approach combines dog psychology with a hint of training.

One of the reasons we chose this breed, Anatolian Shepherd (aside from already having one), is that they are bred to guard livestock. This means their instincts should be in all the right places when it comes to sheep. Nevertheless, introductions need to be managed carefully for two reasons; first we need to check that Elliot’s attitude towards sheep is as it should be and second, we need to let the sheep know he’s not a threat.

Early indicators were that Elliot would be just fine. He was interested in the sheep, but not fixated. Also, we heard from his foster carer that he had protected a lamb that had strayed into their dog enclosure. All looked good on that side.

The sheep, however, needed some convincing. While they have accepted George, their first reaction to Elliot was a bit on the panicky side. One in particular, Ymogen, verged on the edge of hysteria. It only takes one to set the rest off.  As with humans, sheep have a fight or flight response. On seeing a predator, they will either gang up on it or run away. We needed to avoid both of these at all costs. The first could spook Elliot leading to an unpredictable reaction. The second could easily trigger his chase instinct. If either of these happened, the time for introductions would lengthen considerably.

The plan was simple. We walked Elliot by the sheep every day, stopping for a while with a fence in between. This gave the sheep time to assess Elliot and us a chance to assess Elliot. The breakthrough was Thursday last week. Elliot had gained my trust so I allowed him to sit at the fence and look at the sheep (hitherto he’d been put in a relax position). About 7 sheep lined up to examine him from a distance of around 3m.

After a few minutes, the flock matriarch, Selene, peeled off and came over. Without ceremony, she stuck her nose through the fence and sniffed him. He sniffed her back. They to’d a fro’d a while until she held position at which point Elliot licked her. At that point, I knew everything was going to be fine.

Later that day, I took Elliot to within 3m of the sheep but with no fence. All but two or three were lying down, chewing the cud. Ymogen was not impressed, but the rest looked at Elliot briefly and carried on. Yssi headed towards us with intent, but 2m away, turned round and flopped down, clearly unworried. Well pleased, I led the dogs away.

Next day, Nicole took Elliot to the fence and once again, Elliot and Selene exchanged a kiss. Later, she walked Elliot in the same field as the sheep but kept a few meters away.  As hoped, 5 or 6 sheep came over. Elliot started to groom Witchy and licked her face all over before moving on to lick Selene’s face. He even licked one of their bottoms, something we encourage (George does this) as clean bottoms reduce the threat of flystrike.

Today (Saturday), Nicole sheared Vera, the last of the sheep to be sheared while Elliot, George and I were in the field next door pulling out thistles. Well, I pulled out thistles while the dogs lolled about, Elliot on his long lead tied to a fence post. The energy was calm and relaxed, perfect (aside from the pesky flies).

After Vera had had her trim and all the thistles were gone, we took Elliot right up to the flock again. All was fine, the best part being that Ymogen was the first sheep to come and say hello.

There is still much work to be done. All of the above is done with Elliot on a lead. Like all Anatolians, his response to recall is very much dependent on what he’s doing at the time. We are working daily on improving that. There are plenty of exciting distractions here including various wildlife trails (deer and badger), pheasants everywhere, hares and small furry animals galore. Last thing we want is Elliot clearing a stone dyke in pursuit of a deer, our recall command relegated to his to do list.

Also, we’ve postponed his introduction to the chickens as we have a brood of chicks (see Chicks Abroad ). We have noticed Elliot is just ever so slightly more interested in birds than we’d like. It may be that, before being rescued, he hunted birds in order to survive. Who knows. Anyway, we’ll go through a similar process once the chicks are a little larger.

We’ve had our new dog Elliot for just over a month now.  Being a rescue dog and coming from Turkey, up until now we’ve focussed mainly on settling him into his new environment and getting him used to his new “pack”, (us and of course George our resident dog).

Elliot’s young life has seen many changes, first he was rescued from the streets where he faced an uncertain future, then he lived in a rescue centre for a while, then a foster home, and then eventually he moved from Turkey to Scotland where he came to live with us.  At only a year old he has experienced a lot of upheaval so we knew it would be important to take things slowly and help him to feel secure in his new environment.  His training would therefore be approached in a very slow and gentle manner.

Furthermore, although to us humans his past was wobbly and his new home is, from our perspective, all he could ever wish for, this lovely new home wouldn’t necessarily be that great from Elliot’s point of view, at least not at first.  To Elliot, it’s “yet another change”, more sights and smells to get used to and another pack to get to know.  It would all be quite stressful for him to adjust and this would more than likely take a few months.  We know from taking on new livestock that animals never truly settle until about the six month mark.  They might give the appearance of being settled sooner than this, but there are little things about the body language and a look in the eye that lets us know they’re still finding their feet.

So with this in mind we were aware that during Elliot’s adjustment period we’d need to approach his training taking little baby steps.

By the same token, we knew it would be important to start Elliot’s training pretty much from day one.  Being an Anatolian cross, he’s a big, powerful dog with bags of energy and a huge willingness to learn.  We knew he’d need mental stimulation as well as regular walks, so during week one we started to work on his recall.

Anatolians are bred to be independent dogs so doing a speedy recall isn’t their best subject.  They prefer to make their own minds up about things.  Asking them to “come” is the equivalent of sending them an e-mail.  They get the message but they ponder it for a while and then decide in their own time whether it’s worth wandering over.

 

True to form, Elliot’s first recalls fell on “deaf” ears.  We always practiced it on a long lead so we could guide him in and reward him.  For the first two weeks we had to guide him in all the time.  Then, one day he started to get it.  He now comes over to us and rarely has to be guided, sometimes he bounds over which is very heart warming.  We have a lot of land here on the smallholding so in anticipation of him needing to be reached from further afield we’ve now replaced the vocal command with a whistle.  He’s responding well to this and seems to prefer the whistle to our voices.

As he’s enjoying learning so much, we’ve introduced “sit”, “down” and “relax” to his repertoire.  The “relax” position is really important, it is where Elliot lies on his side.  We included this in anticipation of introducing Elliot to our livestock.  We’d need him to be in the “relax” position when we take him in with the sheep and hens so that his energy would be right and he wouldn’t look threatening.

So, with his basic training ticking along so nicely we thought now would be a good time to introduce some sheep work to his routine.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be taking Elliot to an adjacent field to wherever the sheep might be grazing, and put him in the “relax” position for about ten minutes while the sheep mooch about near him but on the other side of the stock fence.  George has an important job to do here, his job is to lie in a “down” next to Elliot to show him how it’s done.  Elliot will be allowed to look at the sheep but not fixate.  He’ll be on his lead and supervised at all times.

Yesterday was a big day for Elliot, his first day relaxing with the sheep!  We had him in his “relax” right next to the sheep but behind a fence.  Some of the sheep came up to investigate and Elliot stayed relaxed the whole time.  He did brilliantly!  The energy stayed calm, the sheep didn’t seem phased by him and we were more than happy with how it went.

Today we took him over again and repeated the process.  We’ll be doing this every day for the next few weeks now.  Later on we’ll repeat the process but with the hens.

There’s no way of telling how long it will be before we can let Elliot mooch around in amongst the sheep (on his lead), but we’ll know when we know.  You can’t rush things like this, Elliot and the sheep both need to get used to each other’s presence and then start to build a relationship.  We’re very much looking forward to seeing how he progresses over the next few weeks.