Getting Ready for Herding Trials - Ted Video

brookcove

This is the first time Ted's done this exercise.  Both times I was ready to go "help" and by jimminey he was fine!

Wow! He did great! Yay Ted

How do they know who they're supposed to bring the sheep to?

At first they only have an instinct to stop the sheep moving.  This is called balance.  It's the good side of "reactive" behavior you hear about so much in herding breeds.  If you put a very well bred pup in with sheep that are used to dogs, usually the pup will take all the sheep to the fence so they can hold them still there.

Then we teach the pup to see us as the "living fence."  We get into the picture, and teach the pup that we will hold the sheep on our side, if they will hold their side.  If we go left, the dog goes to his left too.  If we go right, the dog turns and goes to his right also, like we are two sides of a pendulum with the sheep in the middle. 

We reward them for holding the sheep to us, teach them to control the sheep and not need us to be right there (sending the pup farther and farther for the sheep), and remind them when they forget we are in the picture, by taking the sheep away.  Eventually the pup is ready to find and bring sheep at greater and greater distances, until there's almost no limit to how far they can go to look for sheep. 

We were just talking this weekend about how Ted's breeders (one of them is up with the sheep in the videos holding them for me) had visited a friend and they had practiced finding sheep in his field where they were 1000 yards away.  That's a bit over half a mile.  Ted's mother was doing that and he should be capable of that some day.  You just build it gradually like anything. 

For long gathers of livestock where they lose sight of you, the dog brings them to where he remembers seeing you last.  If you move, or if the terrain throws off the dog a bit, you can whistle and the dog will re-orient on the whistle. 

That is so cool.  If I ever get a BC, I'm totally going to do herding.  Amazing.  :D 

brookcove

We were just talking this weekend about how Ted's breeders (one of them is up with the sheep in the videos holding them for me) had visited a friend and they had practiced finding sheep in his field where they were 1000 yards away.  That's a bit over half a mile.  Ted's mother was doing that and he should be capable of that some day.  You just build it gradually like anything. 

That is truly amazing. I'm so in awe of the whole thing. I'm thrilled when my dogs bring their ball back to me from 20 feet away

I

cakana

brookcove

We were just talking this weekend about how Ted's breeders (one of them is up with the sheep in the videos holding them for me) had visited a friend and they had practiced finding sheep in his field where they were 1000 yards away.  That's a bit over half a mile.  Ted's mother was doing that and he should be capable of that some day.  You just build it gradually like anything. 

That is truly amazing. I'm so in awe of the whole thing. I'm thrilled when my dogs bring their ball back to me from 20 feet away

I once watched a video of a young Queen Elizabeth II out hunting with some kind of upland bird dogs.  They were doing directed retrieves that they said were out to a mile away.  That's pretty astonishing if you think of the fact that it takes sound six to seven full seconds to go that far.  But in that case the target's not moving (assuming HRH QEII did her royal duty to dispatch the bird properly!).  When the sheepdogs are working at half that distance, their target is moving all the time! 

It's all about faith in your dog and building it a teeny bit at a time.  Ted's mom is six, so Ted at two years old has plenty of time to grow into her shoes.  In fact I'm hoping he'll be better than her at the same age (he's better now than she was at this age), since that's kinda the point of breeding.   But we also have the advantage of seeing what worked with her, since they are simiilar, and applying these things earlier with him.  See my earlier post on "Two Training Techniques" - showing Ted what the point of his job was, worked wonders and he's taken a huge leap this two week period.