Interesting turn

For several sessions I did not have to use the collar at all. Arie gets it! She has minded her manners well. But, the other day when she was out with the sheep I was doing some work on my truck. I couldn't see the corral very good from where I was at so every little bit I would walk over to check on everyone.

Well, one of the times I looked I was shocked to see that Arie had somehow gotten Pixy, one of the ewes, down on her side and was playing tug-o-war with one of her hind legs. It just so happened I did not have the transmitter with me so I ran in there and reprimanded Arie verbally. I took her by the collar, put her in a smaller pen and closed the door. So then I went and checked on Pixy who had gotten up and ran to the other end of the corral. Upon inspection everything seemed fine with the ewe other than a small limp. Arie had not bitten down hard enough to break the skin.

I was convinced that Arie was only playing since if she had been serious Pixy's leg would have shown it. At the minimum the skin would have been broken.

Arie was still eager with excitement so I ran to get the transmitter for the shock collar then let her out of the pen. Right away she wanted to continue her play so I gave her a correction. I stayed out there for a while and in all she got 3 corrections. In one session she made up for all the past days where she did great. But, with the last correction she no longer was interested in playing anymore.

The next day I put her back in with the flock and watched them closely. Arie kept her distance and was content to explore the corral. Once I saw she would be good I went about my business, keeping an eye out from a distance. Probably an hour went by and movement caught my eye, the sheep were running around I my first thought was that Arie was running them. After checking them out I couldn't believe it. Pixy was now running Arie.

The day before, I had strongly suspected that Pixy might have started it, because she is one of the boss ewes and has battles now and then with the other sheep. Pixy was chasing Arie all around the corral but, Arie was minding her manners and did not attempt to play or defend herself other than some gentle mouthing as seen in the second picture below.



Pixy would charge at Arie and she would do her best to side step and evade the ewe's butt.

I was proud of Arie that no matter how much Pixy pressed her, she would not retaliate.

Today she was out there for over half the day and all was well. She did not try to play or chase. Pixy tried a little bit to show Arie who's boss but, Arie was very good natured about it and dodged any attempts by Pixy to dominate.

I'm happy with this new training tool. I never was a fan of shock collars but, in this situation it seems to be a good fit. So far we are seeing positive results.