I have to be very careful I get it right the very first time with Peyton. The upside with her, is she learns very quick, the downside is she learns even the wrong behaviors very quickly. There is no room for error on my part and once she knows that command it's very hard to re-train, if not impossible.
I spoke to a trainer last night on the phone and I was told taking Peyton to the DP was only making DR matters worse. Good for burning off energy but I was driving the message home that going to the DP was fun and at the DP that DR was acceptable.
The trainer also said Peyton would not understand the difference in outside the fence and inside the fence at the DP. It was all DP to her, which is why my walk up to the DP is so hard to control. That made sense to me, in other words, I cannot flood her and diminish DR, I'm only exacerbating the problem trying to flood her by taking her there several times a week.
This is a complicated behavior for me to tackle and have been totally unsuccessful so far. I need high level professional help on this one. I just don't have the expertise to do this and I hope I'm smart enough to know it.
I'm going to be brutally honest here. Peyton is more dog than I know how to train and I know in my heart that I have not helped her to reach her full potential, no where near that actually.
It would not surprise me, if she could have a 100 word vocabulary or more. Peyton is just an incredibly smart dog who loves to learn new things and loves to train with real enthusiasm and "snap". She is frankly more dog than I deserve or know what to do with. Ok, I said it...
I know, I know, everyone says they have a smart dog, but wait a second, Peyton is truly top of the top class smart and I'm wasting her potential because I can't get that DR under control.
The problem I'm having (DR) and responsibility to correct it rests on my shoulders. I'm just not enough trainer for this truly "exceptionally" bright dog is the bottom line. Peyton deserves a better trainer than myself. It took a while for me to admit that, but I know it now.
This has nothing to do with herding or Jax and we probably should get back on topic but it's one of my problems when training two dogs in the same event. Jax is much slower to train and much more primal, Peyton is super fast to train and much more intellectual. I really do have two "very" different dogs what require very different approaches and training levels.
Neither of my dogs are going to be rehomed EVER. I just need to step up MY game and I'm seeking to do that, but I need "real" help to do it for Peyton. Jax on the other hand I "think" I can handle at this point. Peyton is another matter entirely.
Who to trust is another problem. Everybody in Dallas is a dog trainer. You guys see where where "trusting a referral" got me on the HIC test. If anything, I went backwards on training Jax. Jax learned chasing sheep is ok rather than herd which should never had been allowed. I know that now, and I should have stepped in before it got out of control but I didn't know that at the time. If I did ever go forward on herding Jax I would have to retrain what he already learned about Sheep from that "referral".
I don't have that luxury with Peyton, I have to get it right the first time or do nothing at all until I "can" get it right. I'm stuck in training paralysis, I'm afraid to make a mistake and I'm loosing confidence in all these so called "experts". I need a real deal trainer for my real deal dog Peyton and I don't know who to trust anymore.
If I can find the right CU trainer, I know Peyton will take to CU like a duck to water. She would do all the exercises and love it! If that solves the DR problem, only time will tell but it's my next best guess for something that "might" work. I just need to find someone to teach us that actually "knows" what they are doing and give CU a real chance to work.