Windy Tries Sheepherding!

[ChickInDelight]

 

[Windrider]

Update: Second Herding Lesson

Windy had her first herding lesson at 9 months old. She is now just barely one year old. Looks like herding isn't going to fit well into my schedule! Agility comes first, but we'll fit herding in now and then as we can.

"Yeehaw! Go get them sheepies!"


So, her first time out Windy did a good job of keeping the sheep together, but kept them to herself and wouldn't bring them to me. She did a bit of that again, at first. Gathering and bring the sheep back to the handler is supposed to be the first skill beginner dogs learn.

Wild child taking the sheep AWAY from mom (well, at least she is keeping them together).


But one of those sheep was a ram. (At least that is what the trainer told me. I didn't see balls, so I expect it was a wether and he just said ram because a city girl can't be expected to know what a wether is). Anyway, this male sheep had enough of this 19 pound, know-nothing twerp pushing him around and he turned on her. Didn't butt her, but you could see that all of a sudden she realized that these sheep were MUCH bigger than her and mom was clear across the arena!

She took a bit of convincing that she still had the power to move the sheep.


Poor kid, all that feeling of invincibility she had as a 9 month old "teenager" - nope you are a big girl now and have to face reality. The trainer had both of us humans push the sheep around ourself a bit to show her that we are boss and the predator here, and then she got interested again and a little more confidence back. But the rest of the day she wouldn't work the sheep too far from me. This wasn't a bad thing - it was a good opportunity to teach her that there is a job to do here, not just pushing sheep around willy nilly.

New set of ewes this time who really wanted back in with their flock-mates on the other side of the fence. Here the trainer is showing me how he wants me to send her in to lift them off the fence and when the sheep come towards me for me to move away with them with Windy following us.


For some reason, she had no problem keeping the sheep together in the open arena, but had difficulty getting all three off the fence and moving the same direction.

That's only two sheep!


Oops, now you've only brought me one!


Forgot one again!


Yay! That's it!


And again!


So, hopefully now she has figured out that this is a team effort. I just feel a little lost as to how to train her for this sort of thing. I've put titles on dogs in obedience and agility, but the whole shaping with rewards, back-chaining, and other usual training methods are useless here. Time to start reading up for me I guess!

 

[Windrider]

This St. Patrick's Day "herding" trial video (really a Guinness ad from the UK) had our training club falling out of our chairs laughing. Very Monty Python-esque. Enjoy!

 

[True Grit]

Just beautiful. As you say, watching the light bulb come on must have been truly gratifying. What a fulfilled life your lucky pup will have!