So we worked on "don't herd the chickens unless Mama asks" today. It was so beautiful out, a break in the cold. We sat outside, cuddled, talked, played, etc with the chickens out and her just on her e-collar. She did extremely well and I only had to recall her once. Then we also worked on herding while walking them in, instead of on drive. She aced that too. The goal being "loose dog, guarding loose chickens, unsupervised". She's fully chicken safe unsupervised on a 30 ft. lead, and supervised off lead, but she still views the herding part as too much fun vs. work only, and struggles with "upon request only". She just thinks "chickens belong in the pen, at all times" when I want them to be able to free range with her. First day of probably many days of refinement starting, but it's cool to be on phase 2.
Edit: Also, I didn't mention this upthread I don't think, but one of the force free "Who's the Boss?" methods I used was "Sit on the Dog". It worked miracles over the course of a week or two. Google if interested.
