Zip
Unzipped
Zip3: Are we ready?
August 2018: 6 months old
She is a wild running, butterfly-working dog
Or more scientifically: a dog with a compulsive behaviours that responds very fast to arousal and movement in the environment.
Her first response is to chase and grab when there is fast movement. This is normal, juvenile behaviour in a sheepdog. She has yet to find, or it has yet to emerge, an adult “eye”, or stalking behaviour that will work well on sheep and other dogs, cats, pigeons. But not butterflies or bats.
Some young collie pups arrive with a very strong eye by 12 weeks and learn to develop flanking moves. She is the opposite way around and until she discovers the power of eye, which is infinitely more effective than chasing, chasing will get stronger. I need to arrange some eye clinics!
This need, or compulsion, to chase and race is being used as her default behaviour. If I have Merrick in the kitchen for training she will evacuate to the garden to chase. If I groom Time up on the table, same response. If this option is not available, there is high, frustrating arousal resembling a panic.
Our skill as teachers is to learn to observe and find those indicators of readiness. What if we ignore the individual’s readiness? If we expose them to social demands too early or expect good physical skills when they are still growing? There is a high risk that the learning in those mismatched phases with have some negative impact for the life of those behaviours. They become the tainted behaviours.
How many kids are “ready to leave home” at the beginning University or College? Some maybe, others maybe not, and even then it can be a traumatic experience because it is too early. I would say 33 years old is possibly too late, but I was outta the house at 12 years old with a bucket load of expectations from Enid Blyton.
I wanted to go learn more, do more things. We need to learn to look for that in our youngsters. This does not mean we let them go feral and explore the county, but that we provide the right sort of library for them to feed their hunger and thirst for learning and experience.
To adapt a well-known understanding and stretching it: perhaps we need to be sure their seeking is engaged before we ask them to go navigate the next world.
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For the next few months she will be learning to live with The Team or more realistic, us learning to live with her!
Next: Zip's arrival from Merrick's view point and the learning she will need to do to develop a life long friendship.
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