My Blue ACD

Sydney's Tapu Aniwaniwa ILP, CGC, RE, PTc, ASCA STDc & CD, AHBA HCTs                                 Sydney at 9 weeks 

It all started with Sydney in 1999.  She was a "Help my dog has had puppies, please take one" kind of girl.  She was one of 7 and was not the kids' favorite.  She would back away if you reached for her.  I thought this was what I wanted.  After all, isn't that way the breed is supposed to behave?  She and one of her brothers crawled into the back of an old washing machine and took a nap while the rest of the litter played (this should have been a big clue) but I persisted and only gave her my attention.  When I was leaving, she followed me around to the front of the house and she has been my constant companion ever since.  It's hard to believe that was back  in July of  '99 and believe it or not I did do some research first before I took that shy little puppy.

I have come to the realization that my mother trained my other dogs when I was growing up.  This little bundle was all teeth and I wasn't prepared for that.  I'm sure the people I worked with at the time were wondering what my husband was doing to me because I was covered in bruises and scratch marks from the elbows and knees down.  It was all Sydney.  I would say that it took a good year for her to settle in and discover who she was and what her role was in life (i.e. not the leader).  I have been learning ever since about how to be a leader.

      Sugar and Sydney in 1999

  At the time we got Sydney, we already had a dog named Sugar who was 5.  Sugar was a Collie/Samoyed mix and had been brought home from the local pound by her previous owners.   We bought our current house in 1992 from Sugar's owners.  They could not take her with them and they were going to take her back to the pound.  We said "No Way" and she conveyed with the house.  Sugar became our $63,000 dog.  She was very well trained and she had her own couch downstairs.  We quickly learned that we needed to replace the couch (which the previous owners took with them) because I found her upstairs on our couch.  Once we did, we never had another problem with her being on the wrong furniture.

Since she wasn't the favorite, Sydney needed a lot of socialization and handling so she could go out in public and not be a complete spook.  She was not crate trained so she spent the first 2 months gated in our bathroom and sleeping behind the toilet.  Gradually we worked through her separation anxiety and absolute hatred of the crate to her voluntarily going into her crate and sleeping.  She still has some separation anxiety but it has lessened over the years.

Now don't get me wrong, I made lots of mistakes.  It took me several months to find a training method that would work with Sydney.  I didn't find an obedience class until she was 9 months old and I had gone through every training book the Library had.  Clicker training saved us.  Positive reinforcement is really the best training method for these guys.

   Herding is another activity that has greatly assisted Sydney with confidence and a more balanced life.  Our very first herding experience ended very similar to the picture shown above.  We came home and she crawled up into her Daddy's lap, gave him a kiss and promptly fell asleep.  Eureka!!! I had found it!!!  Up until then, I had been trying to decide what activities we were going to do and I was going back and forth between fly-ball, agility and herding.  I can't run very well, asthma, so agility was low on the list at that point, I decided that since her mother was a working cattledog, I should give that a try first and if she didn't have any instinct then we would go on to the next thing.  Well, she balanced off of me and I thought OK, here we go and we haven't looked back since.

This picture was taken from her very first experience with stock.    We had been observing at a Cappy Pruett clinic near St. Louis, in 2000, and she had been hiding behind me all day.  Nothing I could do would make her watch what was going on.  Well, I soon discovered that all of the action was way too much for the Queen of the Roolbook.  Order is the number one priority of this little gal.  Heaven forbid that the sheep just stand there or worse, mill about.  That just won't do.  There will be absolutely NO milling, thank you very much.

This discovery has led us to working with cattle.  While I am not a cattle person and I do respect them, Sydney has so much push, that cattle or goats are just about the only livestock we can herd now.  She is fully convinced that sheep are just totally insane, which creates all sorts of new challenges.  The above photo was taken at the 2006 National Specialty in Minnesota, by Great Dane Photography.  Now, I won't say that the cattle were easy but they were honest and they learned quickly.  She had to push hard to get these guys to move off of the back fence and away from their buddies.  The cattle had not been separated into smaller groups, they had been sorted off from a big mob, which really presented some difficult situations if the dog did not hold pressure.  On the third day, she was finally able to pull them off of the fence without me having to cross the handler's line to help her and even though we did not qualify at all, I am very proud of the work she did for me.  She listened and we worked as a team, however brief. 

This picture shows just how determined they were to get to the exhaust gate and reach their buddies.    Unfortunately, she didn't stop them and once they reached the fence, it was very difficult to pull them back off so we never made it around the course.  Again, I was very proud of her effort.

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March 2008

Well, it took many tries and about a year off from direct training but Sydney finally finished her ASCA CD at the end of March with a 174.5.  It wasn't pretty but I am just glad that she has stuck with me all these years.  I'm not sure if having JD around now and splitting my focus between them has made the difference or just exactly what made it all click together.  I really hope that taking the time to do the AKC Rally program all the way to her RE is what turned it around for us as a team.  I promised her that if she finished her CD that she could retire from Obedience because we have never received a qualifying score in the AKC program and besides she's 9 now and would rather go herding anyway.  There is a whole story behind this picture (courtesy of Say Fleaz Photography) but I will have to get into that another time.

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