Shepherd Dog Training: a Team
Kondor, a nine-year-old Schutzhund-titled male is learning to patrol
the edge of the graze while his son, Azraq, age 4 years, holds the sheep
out of the shady corner toward the center of the graze. It is a hot,
dry California Valley Summer day and the sheep have gathered in a tight
circle in order to put their heads in each other's shade.
This is the beginning of training a team of shepherd dogs to work together in helping with the sheep. You can see two already trained dogs doing this kind of work out in unfenced countryside at another section of this website.
To start the dogs working in this manner, it is better if one is a reliable worker and knows most of the herding tasks. Here we are introducing Kondor, the sire, to work that his son has been doing since he was 5 months old. We have put a small group of sheep, perhaps 20, in a corner of a field which has a ditch marking one boundary and irrigation pipes marking another side. Of course, two sides are fenced.
Azzie has put the sheep in the area and has understood that he should keep them pushed out of the corner of the field, so that Kondor works close enough to the sheep that he feels in contact, but learns not to influence their movement while they are inside a "grazing area," except in situations which he will learn about later.
Kondor now has rounded the open corner of the graze and is working
along the boundary marked by pipes. Azzie is still keeping his sheep
out in the middle of the graze, even though they would like to shrink back
into the shady corner of the field, especially with this strange dog coming
a bit closer.
Kondor himself is a calm, business-like worker, who in a few lessons was working perfectly comfortably off lead in larger areas. He proved to be as easy a study in herding as in protection.
As for the course of training, we simply moved from this small area to larger areas, using the whole East end of a field, for example, with only one boundary. Then we moved out into the middle of the large field, and still Kondor acknowledged his boundaries, working off-lead and away from his trainer. From any point on the boundary, he could be recalled directly through a flock of grazing sheep without disturbing them.
It is a disappointment to me that we do not have a program for titling these real herding dogs with the HGH anywhere in the West.
If you would like to discuss any facet of herding with me, please use the form below, or email me directly.