Article: Of Balance and Power

By Nicole Rhodes

8/14/2015

I see a lot of people who misuse the word balance. Heck, I used to use it wrong too, and it was quite the ah-hah moment when I realized it. It really changed the way I looked at and selected dogs as well as how I trained. Where confusion pops up over balance is when people mistakenly label a dog that is going from one side of the stock and seeing the handler, going back the other direction until it sees the handler again, ad nauseam, as having good balance. That dog is not balancing. He has no balance. He is just being blocked by the handler. These back and forth dogs, even once taught they aren't allowed to come on the handler's side, will flank endlessly behind the stock wasting energy and often creating more work for themselves.

Ideally when selecting border collies we would like a dog with both balance and power as this is the dog holding steady pressure to maintain control of stock to a purpose. He may be holding them to you or to a fence or to some imaginary place only he knows, but the main key here is that he is holding pressure. Individually, balance is the dog holding stock to a place or a person and power is the dog controlling and commanding stock with his presence. Or sometimes, specifically eye, although not all dogs with power necessarily have eye. Take note that balance is not always the stock being held to you, the handler! A dog can hold balance to a place as well. He can balance while driving stock away just as well as he can when he is bringing them to you. To the dog it looks no different, he is still taking the stock somewhere, whether to you or otherwise. This is one of the reasons I have taken to doing more driving early on in training than I used to do and will switch back and forth between fetching and driving as the opportunity presents itself. If all you do in the beginning is tell the pup he's not allowed in between you and the stock then he will be mighty confused later on when you try to begin driving. Easier to teach them sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't right from the beginning.

The pup in this next video isn't looking for balance, she just runs around until she gets blocked to go the other direction.

There are many variables that determine where balance is. It is a very fluid position, changing as the dog moves, stock moves, you move, all of it affected by the terrain and desires of the stock. Balance is often not straight across at twelve o'clock, it may be off to one or the other side to account for the stock's draw toward a particular direction. The dog must read and adjust for all of these things.

Some young dogs find balance easily and right away on their own. They innately know where it is although they may first want to hold stock to a fence or other place where the stock can't get away and must be taught to hold to the handler or a place the handler indicates. Others must be shown how to find balance before they recognize it or realize there is a job to be done and a point to all this! Some will always have to be told where to be, which way to go, where to stop, to mechanically create balance. A dog that doesn't know where to be needs helped to be useful but you can also take the balance out of a dog by over commanding him to where he gives up control to you and then must be told.

Many individual traits go into the collective package called "good balance." For a dog to find balance first he must look for it and for him to look for it he must desire to control. Some traits that affect a dog's ability to find balance are his feel for livestock's flight zone: how close he wants to be. He won't find balance three feet from the stock as he will likely be causing them to move and he cannot see the whole picture. Some dogs we must push them out to help them find balance. Pace is another trait that interacts with balance. If a dog wants to push in too fast he will again wind up too close and shoving the stock causing him to have to continuously move to keep them from getting away.

Some dogs are what we call "line dogs" in that right from the get go they will hold a direction and just drive along, pushing the stock on their own. This doesn't necessarily mean that they won't head the stock, it's just that it's not a big priority for them or they don't feel the same anxiety to do so, they don't think the stock is getting away and they feel in control. They will make short flanks to either side to correct the direction the stock is going without coming around far enough to stop them or catching the eye of stock. This is not the same thing as a dog that just likes to bite heels and chase stock. These dogs tend to have minimal movement and are actively controlling the stock from behind with a steady presence.

Speaking of minimal movement, this means that a dog does not flank needlessly or for no reason, he flanks only to cover the stock and keep things tucked or to change the direction the stock is heading. If you hired a person to help you move your cattle and they galloped their horse back and forth behind the cattle would you tolerate that? So why would you accept the same type of work in a dog? This is a trait that somewhat goes hand in hand with eye and power. A dog with power moves stock by walking calmly straight into them, he may or may not be crouched showing eye, but he is not dashing back and forth spooking cattle forward with his movement. Instead he applies steady pressure on the animal(s) that need it and backs his presence up with a bite if need be. The next video demonstrates a medium eye dog applying steady pressure with minimal movement.

There are also mental traits that affect a dog's ability or willingness to find balance. Confidence is the biggie. If every time he gets to balance he says, yikes this is too much pressure, he isn't going to want to stay put. This may manifest as 'bouncing' off the flight zone or diving into and attacking the stock. A dog who lacks confidence may appear to lack balance when it isn't the case, he just has another trait that overrides his ability to go to, and or stay, on balance. Other things that may hide balance are a dog's desire to bite, to get excited, chase, and have some fun. Or a dog may have a strong desire to get to the front of stock in fear they may escape. We can correct some of these things thru training and experience. Some traits that hinder balance can be detrimental while others may be good things in moderation. Getting to the front of stock is an important thing, I want to see a dog show me he wants to stop and turn stock, but a dog that needs told to stay back constantly gets tiring.

Watch the video of this five month old pup as I let him interact with the sheep to evaluate his working potential (Read an article about evaluating young dogs here). This pup wants to control motion and at one point he finds balance and holds the sheep to the fence but most of the time he is too close and causing the sheep to dash about. Look at that dirty look he gives me after he has the sheep balanced to the fence when I move. His ears go back as he knows I'm going to cause the sheep to take off on him again!

Here we are looking at the same pup a couple months later. Now we're asking for a little higher requirement. For the pup to go between the sheep and the fence, for him to flank around both directions, to stay on the opposite side, and encourage him to find balance as it relates to me. He doesn't trust me not to let the sheep escape and he would like for me to let him to the front to turn them. This is a perfect example of what I talked about earlier of other traits overriding balance: he is turning in on the balance point so we know that he recognizes balance but he doesn't slow down and hold pressure at that distance. Instead his anxiety that the sheep are going to escape cause him to try to run to the lead. Another pup who didn't have as strong a desire to head stock, or that was more confident and trusted me, might stay put better. This one will eventually learn to relax and trust that I won't let the sheep escape and then he will stay on balance as well.

The pup in this video is an example of what bouncing off of or not dealing with pressure looks like. At the start she she wants to mix it up and is having a fun time attacking the sheep until the handler steps in with the rake to block her and asks her to slow down. She doesn't want to deal with the pressure and tries to flank way around the other way where she gets blocked again. She goes back to where the handler is asking her and she walks up nicely until a ewe gets to looking at her. She again feels too much pressure and turns away to leave. A third time she approaches and seems to be doing well until she gets right close to the sheep. This time she responds to the pressure by diving in and attacking the sheep until it's too much stress for her and then she turns and tries to flank away from it again. Some time to mature, training, and experience will help her overcome her confidence issues.

This next dog was around ten or eleven months old and I think this was his second training session on stock. He is a head dog and wants to go to the lead but he is mentally quiet and very easy going which makes it easier to convince him to stay back and walk behind the sheep. It doesn't take very long to help him find balance. I tell him 'ahh' when he is wrong and either raise the flag horizontally in front of me to block and steady him or swish the flag to push him away. I praise him and let him walk into the sheep when he is in the correct place. I stop or step toward him to put pressure on to correct and I step back to take pressure off to reward and let the sheep have somewhere to go. There are no commands yet, this is all body language, just helping him find his way. This is a long video but it's slow moving and easy to see where and when the dog finds balance and how everything comes together.

This video is of a young dog on, I believe, his twenty fourth day of training with me. I apologize for the terrible wind noise, I'd recommend turning the volume down! I'd taken this dog to a friend's place to get some experience on some different cattle in a different environment. He comes around too far and heads a calf, rather than stopping and lifting proper, on the first fetch but settles in decently after that. This dog is fairly steady and is not real flanky but will sometimes drift off pressure or try to slide around to the head. He was just learning the rudiments of driving and not real sure about it. Nor is he a powerful dog but he has a lot of try and is usually in the right spot.

Of Balance & Power