Ted Working Mamas with Lambs

That is so cool! I love watching herding dogs. Hopefully Tracy will start herding with Twister or Pilot.

I love watching herding dogs!  I'm going to another trial in March and I am starting to get addicted.  What are you telling Ted when you shhhhh him?  It seems like a sort of "take it easy, slow down".  He looks great as does Lu. 

 That was so cool to watch, was it "just" a training exercise for Ted or did you need the sheep to be moved?

Lu barking woke Ben up, he gave me a dirty look LOL.  I told him he'd better get used to it. ;)

Ugh,, that was the neighbor dog barking, not Lu.  She knows when I move the sheep it's not barking time.  ;)

It's a training exercise.  We'd be moving a lot faster if I were just getting the sheep from point A to point B! 

I wanted him to push them up in that top left corner, then turn them, then go across the yard and over the drive, then I was going to turn them back towards me from there but the memory card got filled up at that point (you can hear me say, "Uh-oh" - lol).

Anyway, the point is to push without pushing so hard that the ewes (mama sheep) get worried about their lambs and drop back, but if he doesn't push hard enough, they'll get bored or think he's done, and wander off. He has to work, too, to "tuck in" the mama sheep on either side so they don't sneak off while he's paying attention to the other side of the flock.

Shhhh, means "group these sheep together and get them all facing the same way."  Up to now, it's been a signal he knows, to do something easy and fun - gather sheep and turn them around towards me. This is an extremely difficult exercise, so when he responds to my command to "tuck in" a sheep that's straying on one side or another, when he catches her and gets her going in the right direction I say, "Shhhh" to give him a little positive signal, very much like a clicker mark.  It lets him know he's definitely doing the right thing.

It only takes a few repetitions of something for Ted to learn his job, and then LOVE doing his job.  So I'll try to get another video of this, maybe this weekend if the weather holds (it's supposed to snow Sunday!). 

 enjoyed that Becca!  Good job Ted

and squee all those lambs!

brookcove

Ugh,, that was the neighbor dog barking, not Lu.  She knows when I move the sheep it's not barking time.  ;)

Oops!  Sorry Lu!   I admit I was surprised by it (when I thought it was her) but wondered if she was being overprotective of the lambs or something.

Oh, that was so interesting to see.  Thank you for sharing this.

I could just sit and watch Ted work allllll day long. Lovely :)

 I was going to ask about the slowness of it too. :)  I thought it might have to do with the fact that there were babies among the flock.

So how do you train Lu to leave the BC's alone?  How does she know the difference?

She learns from the sheep the difference between herding, and danger.  The sheep are obviously quite calm in this video, but even when we are hussling, or even when things get a little hairy, most of the time the sheep are pretty much in control - they aren't worried, because they know the worst that Ted can do.

Zhi, believe it or not, likes to stir up trouble.  She goes out, if we aren't watching, and will get Lynn all excited and goad her into trying to catch either a lamb or a duck.  When that happens, the guard dogs all start barking and will body block the dogs and try to intimidate them - but they don't do what they would if it were a strange dog. I think it's still the sheep they get their cue from. 

Even if Lynn and Zhi get a sheep cornered and try to hurt it (it's happened before), they'll just bark to try to get my attention, but because the rest of the sheep are kind of "Oh, well, stinks for that one but WE are okay," - they don't attack Lynn and Zhi.  And they know I'll come out and save the one that's in trouble. 

  Today is a perfect day to take pictures for comparison, of Ted moving these girls at a good pace, but my camera batteries are dead, like killed dead won't charge.  At least I hope it's my batteries and not the charger.