Val

Aka - Valbazen 

(Dirtiest dog on the planet-in all ways)







     I like Val an awful awful lot!!!  She is the anti-Lily though.  She is really pretty much all about Val.  With the help of more experienced trainers I have identified in her a bit of a passive-aggressive personality.  She really just wants her own way.  In her training evolution, she is starting to realize that the only way she can have what she wants is through me.  She is a special mix of power and pout.  When reprimanded, the look that she gives me is not necessarily one of being sorry, more that she is sorry I feel that way.








     I did acquire her when she was 5-6 mos old.  I really like her breeding.  In her training she goes through spurts of growth.  In general she has been fairly slow in her maturing.  As a really inexperienced handler, I have been a little too impatient for her being so young.  It just takes time, and with these guys you just have to be patient and feed knowledge when the "window of opportunity" presents itself.






     Val has a tendency of being more of a driving dog than a fetching dog.  Being a young dog, she really likes to insert her pressure into the flock to make a mess so that she can have fun fixing it.  We are making steady improvement on that as she ages.  Recently she is gaining more of a sense of feel for her sheep and showing at last some nice "eye".  I need to reprimand her, but not nag her into pouting.  When her window of learning closes, I give her time off.  She isn't allowed to run with any of the other dogs or 'eye-up' anything at the home place.  I still exercise her quite a bit, just alone with no one to feed off of.  This tends to remind her that I am her drug dealer, and if she wants her sheep fix we need to reinstall her hearing/listening drive.




     I think Val and I have developed a nice sense of team.  I love this dirty little manure tinged furball.  She really does have some sweet tendencies.  She is just not easy in any sense of the word.  She now can jump any fence on the place flat footed..... and when I am disappointed, she is quite sorry that I feel that way.  Her remorse is definitely in being caught, not necessarily in doing something wrong.  Her trainers early on told me she is a dog that needs a sense of purpose.  Val does not like doing useless drills, this bores her and entices her to mix it up a bit on her own.


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