The Urban Herder

Western ranchers seek new ways to keep hikers, bikers safe from the guard dogs that protect their sheep

As an urbanherder, or someone that actively works around sheep I certainly understand the ranchers need to protect their sheep, but as a rather avid mountain biker I sure as hell don’t want to be attacked by dogs or any other animal for that matter.

My experiences also lead me to believe that mountain bikers are at least somewhat at fault here as well. Great Pyrenees, the breed that generally guard sheep are not, in my experience, aggressive unless you mess with their sheep. If you are dumb enough to engage the sheep you should expect trouble from the dogs.

Either way, this story makes it sound like both the ranchers and the cyclists are taking precautions which is a real good sign. When either side, or both, are intractable nothing gets done.

I finally edited and uploaded photos I took at the Highland Games. You can find them in my gallery.
Check ‘em out. If you find any you like you can purchase from there.

That's me, no crook, no hat, no clue

This is a border collie only trial and the field is very narrow. So on the outrun it is important that your dog hug the sides to not move the sheep too early off the hay. On Saturday I knew Scot would probably cut the outrun and charge the sheep. We haven’t done enough practice / work for him to not let his excitement get the better of him.

So I wasn’t surprised that the sheep came off too fast and basically blew my run right there. But I had confidence that we would do better on Sunday. The sheep would be more ‘dog broke’ and Scot would be more relaxed.

Other than that our Saturday run was OK and we finished in the middle of the 12-14 dogs in our class.

So when Sunday came my run was toward the end of ranch class so I was able to watch several runs before mine. The most notable thing was that the sheep were coming off the hay and BOLTING toward the exhaust area. I not only noted this, but talked about it with competitors sitting around me. So when it came time for my run I knew what to expect.

So I was ready, until I got up to the post and realized that I had left my crook at my chair and my hat as well. But I was still relaxed and ready.

I sent Scot out and he stayed out well, but I was so concerned about keeping him with a square flank, which he did by the way, that I forgot to protect the flank where the sheep were escaping.

On Saturday the best place to stop your dog was 11 o’clock around sheep. But Sunday it was necessary to stop your dog closer to 10 o’clock to protect the line to the exhaust. But I was so intent on the outrun, that I brain-farted and completely blew it. Not Scot, me.

So Scot was way out of position when the sheep made their break. He made a great effort to get them back and did so with the leader, but in the meantime the other two ewes headed up into the woods. Perhaps I should have tried harder to bring all the sheep back together, but after watching nearly every run, about 40 dogs, I knew that on the off chance I did get the sheep all back together, it was doubtful I’d have much of a run. So I called off Scot and retired.

I was seriously annoyed at myself. I made sure I praised Scot when he got back to me, because he had done everything I had asked of him. It was my mistake and not his. He is stubborn and makes mistakes because of it, but this time it was all on me. I should have thought far enough ahead to realize I needed him to stop early to protect that flank, but I didn’t. I didn’t. And because of that the sheep escaped and ended the run that was supposed to be our good one. Instead I had a lesson and story.

That isn’t a bad thing just not as much fun.

Recently I ran into a couple of great blogs.

First is a blog about dogs and dog behavior. Also, as you might imagine, it features a lot of info about border collies as well as of other working breeds. It’s written by a rather famous dog trainer / behaviorist Patricia McConnell and can be found at: The Other End of the Leash.

A lot of great discussions on how to interact with your dog, dog to dog behaviors and a ton of great stories.

The second blog I recently ran across is The Outrun and written by a guy in the UK named Clinton Moffat. He has a lot of fun-to-watch videos of border collies as well as some interesting information.

You should check them out and add them to your RSS feed or bookmark them to read when you can. I will also add the links to my blogroll on the right column if you need to find them later.

Funny comparison of my two border collies.

Beag who I’ve had since was a puppy and Scot who I’ve had a year this month. They are the same age, just a few days difference.

I just gave each a greenie. Beag put it away in about two minutes flat if that. Scot amazingly took his time and chewed it carefully. Maybe five minutes.

No real idea why I think that’s funny, but there you go. Just thought I’d share.

As I was trolling through my Twitter stream this afternoon I ran across a link to this story: http://elkana.info from @border_collies. It’s short but excellent post about some of the issues surrounding getting a border collie, particularly a border collie puppy.

I agree on all points. I would especially emphasize the one about a first dog. Unless you have real experience with dogs and working dogs in particular I recommend you not start with border collies.

Borders love to test you. They are very intelligent and exercise alone won’t cut it. While they can be great pets, they can also terrorize your home and family if they don’t have an outlet for their energy AND intelligence.

Happy reading!

I started herding a bit less than a year after I got Beag as a puppy. I had already tried obedience and agility to work with her and to make sure we had a relationship I could use to make sure I could control her under all circumstances. Building a bond where we could trust each other.

I had a border collie before Beag, but I had never even thought about herding with him. I so fell in love herding while learning with Beag, that after Beag showed her Addison’s I knew I would eventually get a dog I could herd with.

I haven’t had any real behavior issues with Beag or Scot, but I know plenty of people that do have those issues. And I would recommend herding, agility or any activity that goes to the breeding of whatever dog they have. So a Lab (retrievers) should retrieve or dock dive, a beagle (scent hound) should learn to hunt scents and a greyhound or whippet (sitehounds) should learn to chase lures. Dogs, other than toy breeds, were originally breed for a specific purpose or task. You will never see your dog more alive than when it gets to put generations of genetic heritage into use.

Here is a blog post from my instructor and Scot’s breeder, Terry Parrish on “A New Reason for Herding.”

Herding, for people like me, is not to get work done on a ranch or farm. It’s a sport and fun activity to participate in with our pets. For people that are real serious about the sport, the dogs are not pets, they are tools. This doesn’t mean the dogs are not loved or well taken care of, but that there is a distance between handler and dog.

Herding or agility or any other activity that you work on with your dog builds trust and teamwork between you and them, reducing problems and engenders understanding. Always a good thing.

Yeah, I know I ended not only a sentence with a preposition but a headline, but it’s appropriate to this story . . .

It’s a tale of getting in a bit over your head and having trust in your dog that you probably haven’t earned.

A few weeks ago I went to do some work in a very large open field near Norco. The photo below gives you a small idea of how open the field was. No fence in site either in front or behind for many acres.

Cheryl works her border collie in the open

This in and of itself was not a big deal at all. I had no issues with long, say 100-150 yards, outruns and fetches. I was doing great until Terry threw down the challenge of a really, really long outrun. I’m talking something in the neighborhood of 3-400 yards. Too far for any voice command to be heard even by a dog. And they can hear WAY better than you think they can.

If you lose the sheep here, it's a lot of work getting them back

As you can see from these photos there is a lot that can go wrong. And for my one and only mongo outrun, it did. Scot and I were on the top of a knoll probably 300-350 yards out and about 100 feet below. I made sure Scot saw the sheep I wanted him to gather and sent him out on a big ‘awee’ (away to me or counterclockwise relative to the sheep).
It started great, he got way out and was coming around nicely when another dog and it’s handler distracted him and he once he picked up the sheep again he was heading straight into them rather than around behind them. This is not good for a couple of reasons. The first is that the sheep will start moving, but in the wrong direction. And since his speed was high he spooked the sheep. It doesn’t always happen but this time one ewe broke out from the group and Scot took it into his head he had to get that one back with the group. but now there was another dog.

Wide open spaces

And there was a deep ravine cutting along the back of this section of field complicating things even more. Of course I was WAY to far away to effectively call off Scot and the other dogs down that way were making the sheep jumpy.

Well after 3 humans and 4 dogs searched for about 39 minutes in and around a 2o foot deep brush filled ravine, one of the more experienced dogs went into the ravine and rooted out the missing ewe.

After everything settled down I got suitably chewed out. But I think the best lesson I got out of this is to make sure you can do middle distances well and have a KNOWN way to communicate over that kind of distance even if it’s nothing more than the ability to call off and have to the dog to return. All in all very solid learning experience in not-so-much-fun happening.

I participated in my first AHBA trial 3 weeks ago down at ActionK9Sports.com I had never done this type of trail before and I was told by my instructor that I should START with level 2 HRD. Unlike the AKC courses I have done, this was working 9 sheep to start and from a pen.

We had to pull all the sheep out of the small pen into a larger pen. From there we had to sort out 5 of those include 2 ‘special’ sheep that the judge specifies. After the sort the sheep moved down to the hay at the far end of the second large pen.

This next section is very similar to the AKC A course. It’s an outrun, lift and fetch off the hay in a straight line from hay to the handler and around a cone to a y-chute. My movement was restricted since I was in level II.

Once through the y-chute there was a cross-drive to a tight z-chute and I wasn’t to leave the y-chute until sheep were within 12 feet of the z-chute entrance. Once the sheep were in the that obstacle the dog was supposed to enter the chute behind the sheep. This part is very unusual so Scot and I worked on it to get him past his inclination to go around.

This practice came back to bite me in the ass as he also went through the y-chute putting him in a bad position to control the sheep properly coming out. They wanted to break back down toward the hay and the exhaust area, and by Scot being in the gate he couldn’t correct the movement of the sheep as they came out. In order to keep this under control I moved to control things,

Once we got that fixed Scot moved the sheep very well through the z-chute and we exhausted the sheep in to the holding area.

Then is was back to the remaining 4 sheep still in the first large pen. We had to drive / fetch these sheep across the second large ring into a hold on the far side. That was simple and smooth and I kept Scot on the hold as I touched each of the sheep per the requirements. Then I had to fetch /drive these sheep back through both large pens to a trailer on the far side. The sheep had to be held until I could get the trailer gate open and sheep drove into it.

I was really annoyed at myself, but not too badly as I saw pretty early that I had at least a qualifying score of 78. What really pissed me off was when I got a look at my score sheet. Everything was nice but for one glaring note. I lost 6 points for the handler moving off-post. Then I noticed the winning score. Had I not moved off post, Scot and I would have won! WON! All I had to do was to stay put. ARGH I was pissed. Only at myself.

Oh well, herd and learn. Scot was solid, the handler, not so much

Token watches 'mom' work with sister Ariel

I went to grab a quick lesson with Terry out at Christy’s place in Norco. I always try to get there early to relax and get Scot in frame of mind that doesn’t include being wired from an hour in the car. Already there was a young lady with 2 Aussies. Turns out she works with some former co-workers and found this site from talking with them about me.

It’s fun when new people find the sport. Especially when we have friends or co-workers in common. I hope she finds herding rewarding. I know Token here has what it takes. His ‘sister’ Ariel was, I think, a bit overwhelmed. I think if she keeps at it, one or both could be decent trial dogs.

Good luck and keep at it!