Team Torlundablue goes on tour
Text and photos: Torlundablue
Published: ACDCCs Heeler Holler / September 2008
Why travel 7.464 kilometers from our home in Sweden, across the Atlantic Ocean and into another time zone? Why bear with the cutting wind and meanest mosquitoes north of the Equator? And why on earth spend the entire summer vacation looking at the view of just one round pen? Isn’t the answer obvious? To do herding training and work with Lynn Leach at Downriver Farm in Hope, B.C! We started out planning our trip this winter by asking around at ACD forums on the internet for the best North American herding trainers, and soon we realized that one name was mentioned more often than others – Lynn Leach. We decided to contact her to see if she was the one to help us to start out in herding. And luckily for us, she could fit us into her tight schedule! Two of our dogs traveled with us to Canada, Skinner and Rocky. Skinner is 1,5 years old and - according to Lynn - he is a ”macho macho man”. Well, he probably takes after his human dad, John. Rocky is 9 months old, still quite puppy-ish and maybe, just maybe, a little spoiled by his human mom Inger… Unfortunately we had to leave our bitch, Bandit, behind (but in very good hands) due to... well, let’s just call it ”paperwork complications” to make a long story short.
Back home in Sweden we had tried to do some herding with all our three dogs, but it was hard to find a trainer/instructor who dared to work with cattledogs. One can’t blame them. Most of them are used to Border Collies, and the brave ones who took us in usually yelled ”Hold him back! Don’t let him get close to the sheep!” as soon as our dog gave the sheep a glance.
Imagine what a relief it was to work with Lynn, an experienced trainer who knows our breed! Both Skinner and Rocky made great progress. It was amazing how much they learned in a month! John was working with Skinner, and they were learning so quickly and easily that Lynn considered it to be highly unusual!
She told us that she believes it’s because John and Skinner have a very special - and seldom seen - connection that makes their learning relatively easy. John is a true perfectionist and he is hardly ever satisfied with the training. But now there was a couple of times when you could see him play air-guitar in the field out of pure happiness! Skinner and John have come a long way with the herding, and John has already decided to become ”Best in the West” and win the belt buckle 2009 - and he is really competitive, so watch out!
Inger was working with Rocky, and Lynn kept reminding her that he was still a pup and shouldn’t be compared to Skinner. That was a comfort, because in the beginning Rocky just loved to chase the sheep around - and when Lynn told Inger to correct him, he went and sat by the gate, sulking, as if he was saying: "If you don't want me to chase the sheep, I won't even look at them..." Lynn said that he was like a 15-year old boy who thinks he knows everything and don't want advice from anybody. So it took some convincing to make him work… He finally was able to he keep balance and move the sheep around in a calmly and controlled way. But sometimes he still likes to play cutting horse and if he gets a chance he'll separate one sheep from the herd - and than he goes for the lamb chops! Luckily without any success! Inger was so proud then he took his Herding Capability Test. He did a very good job! With growing age, daily training sessions and more experience, he’ll be a dangerous competitor on the AHBA and AKC trails next year!
One day we got an invitation to join the Annual General Meeting of ACDCC. It was really fun to meet all the members, and very interesting to get a little insight in the club’s activities. It was especially great to see herding being taken seriously! This might sound like a strange reflection, but sadly enough we’re not used to that. The Swedish ACD club gladly speaks of ACD as a herding breed, but when it comes to practice the board shows a disturbing lack of interest in herding, and there is not one single ACD competing in herding in Sweden. Not yet! But there’ll be at least two soon!
We were also fortunate enough to see an ASCA trail at Downriver Farm. Back home we never have the possibility to see so many different breeds compete in herding. It was great fun! Skinner worked with John as a stockdog, handling the sheep for the trial. Meanwhile Inger sat beside one of the judges a whole day, trying to learn as much as possible. It was very inspiring, and she soon turned into a full blown ”back seat herder”. It’s so much easier to comment on other handlers than to do it yourself!
But thankfully, Lynn is not only a good dog trainer; she is a magnificent educationalist for humans too. One of the best things with her is that she doesn’t just tell you what to do. She also makes sure that you get a good understanding of why you’re doing it! Inger happily recalls standing in the pen, surrounded by chaos, dog and sheep running everywhere, while Lynn calmly and patiently said: ”How can I explain this to you in a another way?” And she’s got a fool proof trick to do that. If words are not enough, she simply takes the herding stick and treats you like a dog! And it works! You completely understand your dog’s confusion when Lynn is waving the stick at you and shouting harsh mumbo-jumbo. That’s show, not tell, at it’s best!
Now we have more than one note book filled with Lynn’s advices and they are sorted under headlines, like ”If dog breaks balance”, ”If dog shatters herd” and ”If dog eats poo”. Of course we still have lots and lots of things to learn – but we’ve got a great start in herding. And when our friends asks us about the tourist attractions in Canada, we’ll just tell them we’ve seen the highlight of them all - the round pen at Downriver Farm!