Suki's  Page
 
I would like to thank Dorit van der Wilden for sharing these wonderful photos of her working shepherd dog trained by Dorit under the instruction of Ulf Kintzel.
 
   

The primary task for the German Shepherd Dog that works with sheep is the tending of the sheep while they graze.  A dog that patrols the boundaries of the assigned graze and keeps the sheep safely inside while at the same time protecting any nearby crops is doing its bounden duty to the herdsman and farmer that depend on the dog.

Suki surveys the flock

The dog does not always have to patrol every border.  Once the sheep settle, the dog may see that all is in order and stand in a spot where it can survey the flock watchfully.

Suki "kippt die Herde"

In this particular scene, the dog is at the center of the photograph, but so far away from the herdsman and the camera that she is hardly visible.  She is sent there to turn the herd back from the edge of the graze which the stock were approaching too closely and threatening to trespass over the border.  She has been sent very wide to the far side of the graze where the sheep were wanting  to go off into the woods.  Suki faced off the sheep, walked up to turn them and she is now stopped awaiting the command to go back to the border of the graze.  This is a very demanding technique of herding known as the "placement before the flock" in the SV herding trial exercises.  The dog has to go very wide of the flock along the border to the farthest edge of the flock, turn the flock by walking up to face the flock and turn it; then the dog must go back to the border without pushing the flock to the herdsman.

Suki pens the sheep

Suki stands calm and alert at the opening in the temporary fencing between two sections of land while the sheep move past her without damaging the fragile fencing.

Note:  If anyone would like to know more about the kind of work Suki is performing, please feel free to contact me.

>>>>>>In the following paragraphs, Dorit discusses her work with Ulf Kintzel, a certified Shepherd, and tells how their work differs from much of the stockdog work in the United States:

I'm very lucky that I can work with Ulf Kintzel who is probably the only shepherd around who grazes his flock in the traditional German method. We have no fenced pastures. The sheep are penned at night inside electric portable netting. They rarely are grazed in the same area twice in a row. He depends on the goodwill of surrounding farmers and spends a lot of time getting permission for the flock to graze harvested fields and fields left fallow.

In the morning the sheep (200+) are led out of the pen anddepending on where they will graze, taken down a road with the dog keeping them strung out in a long line (4-5 sheep wide), working between flock and traffic, through the woods, over streams, past crop fields they may not touch, into the allowed graze. Not, I think, a job for most BCs.

Then, they do what the main task is, LETTING THE SHEEP GRAZE, for hours on end, protecting the surrounding crops from invading woolies. At the end of the day it's home again with the dog bringing the sheep out of the graze with a gathering style opposite of the BCs. They (the Shepherd dogs) gather from side to side, always coming around the front of the flock and back the other side, the full length of the flock and back again. They may not come up behind the flock because that tends to spread them out just when you want them to string out for the trip home.

And therein, I think, is the real difference in the use of BCs and GSDs in their traditional roles. As I understand it, BCs are used almost exclusively to MOVE the flock and not much, if at all, during grazing time. The main job, proportionally, of the GSD in traditional work, is to let the sheep GRAZE.

Many of us in the Northeast who got into herding early, started withLynette Milville in Connecticut, who had a great BC 'Magic'. I loved watching him work, everything IMHO a BC should be. His work was so effortless, instinctive and joyful, obviously he lived to work. I once asked Lynette if she thought he could work Tending style. She laughed and said she had tried, out of curiosity, but he could not grasp the 'border' concept or NOT come up behind the flock. It went against his instincts.

I have seen a number of GSDs work BC-style, some even have 'the eye' and I suspect that a GSD with strong herding instinct may be the more versatile of the two. Maybe because until recently BC breeders selected for 'only' herding instinct whereas GSDs have for quite a while been selected for so many different traits. Anyhow they're both great breeds and IT'S ALL IN THE GENES. ###

SUKI'S EASTER LAMBS

-- a note on training by Dorit van der Wilden

In Ulf's flock are two ewes which belong to me. Marie, and her daughter Antoinette. (So named because of their eventual fate .) Antoinette hasn't lambed yet, but two weeks ago Marie had twins. She is an extremely protective mother. Last week the lambs and their mothers returned to the flock. For the first week we are very careful to keep the dogs a good distance from the flock because the ewes are rather over-protective and will charge the dogs with little provocation. Most of the summer hayfields are off limits now until late in the summer so we have to move the sheep quite a bit, often leading them along the edges of corn fields, tractor paths, open areas in the woods, and into small plots, too small to bother farming, to eat whatever is available.

This morning we moved out of a small field, along the side of a cornfield and down a tractor path through the middle of the field to get to an open wood with a stream. Some of the sheep tried to spread into the planted rows so I had to send Suki back along the flock to keep them in line. I guess the pressure bothered Marie because she decided to leave the flock with her twins. I sent Suki back to gather them and Marie put her head down and made like a battering ram. Marie is twice the size of Suki and Suki doesn't like being bullied so she got up and moved to the side to come around behind the lambs. Marie charged and hit Suki square in the ribs, sent her flying and into a double side somersault. I could hear the wind getting knocked out of her. Suki came up REALLY MAD, and as Marie charged again, Suki jumped to the side, whirled and gripped Marie in the rear. Marie and the twins quickly returned to the flock.

It occured to me that the toughness she showed in her Schutzhund days is the same as that needed to make a large flock respect the dog. Hope everyone's Easter lamb was delicious! Suki earned the leftovers she'll get tonight!

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