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Types Of Sheep-working Dogs


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Poss looks lovely, very pretty. How tall is she? Trim is quite small, she measures 495 for agility & weighs 15kg. I haven't trialled her. I am not going to do ANKC & she is not ready for 3 sheep. Honestly, we don't spend enough time on sheep. Agility is so much easier to train for...anywhere...anytime.

sorry vickie i missed this before, she is the same height as my husbands cattle dog who measures 500 for agility, tho his height is in his big barrel chest whereas possums is in her legs. she weighs just over 15kg as well.

im not tempted by the ankc stuff either, i know i could probly pass a herding test but it would just be for the title rather than for working possum, and she is really a yard dog - im only aiming at doing trials with her as it gives us something to work towards and keeps her working, otherwise we'd never see sheep. my dad lives up in tamworth and im not taking her up there just to run around with his fancy merinos!

does trim try to round you up when you do agility. possum is a quick learner but if you dont keep up with her she gets frustrated and barks and carries on like a twit. :cry:

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Does anyone find that doing Agility or Flyball etc interferes in any way with Herding?

I mean does it get confusing for the dog (or the owner for that matter)?

Cheers

Adam

well i have quite a long answer for this (unusual for me, sorry! :cry: ) but other peoples experience would be very interesting to me as well.

apparently the UK agility king, greg derrett, said that you could not compete at top level agility if you did herding. there is one very important reason why he would say this. in herding, the dog must NEVER go between you and the sheep. in agility, thats a rear cross, where you send the dog in one direction in front of you while you step left or right BEHIND the dog. if you dont allow it in herding, how do you allow it in agility? dogs do contextualise with some things, but when you use agility training methods, esp operant conditioning, thats a very strong behaviour youre installing.

in our situation, we have a cattle dog, jem. he has been clicker -trained (operant conditioned) to compete at top level agility and flyball. he is the fastest cattle dog in australia in flyball (can do a run in 4.1 seconds) and is one of the fastest agility dogs of any breed (hates weaving tho, slows him down!). his drive to perform is awesome. but he references trent, my husband, 100% of the time. he is so tuned to trents body language, so used to taking his cues from trent, that herding was a real struggle, in the sense that trent could move him around but he wasnt working sheep, jem was just watching trent over the sheep all the time :cry:

then there was his natural instinct - hes a cattle dog. drive and nip, yes. not scared of sheep at all. around? what the f*** is that?! there was NO off switch, no way to calm him down that didnt involve a 4x2 or a 'command' like stop, which was then just a pure training exercise and not about working sheep at all. it was frustrating for trent and for jem as well, and they have decided to call it quits.

possum has not been trained like that, we recognised our mistake in over-training jem and didnt force it on poss. she is very 'obedient' and responded well to clicker training but her instinct to chase was really going to cause trouble in flyball training. surely that other dog running along side me needs rounding up?! :)

which is why we took her to herding, to learn to work with a dog with so much drive. she can now do a full flyball run and was really easy to train for it, she has very high tug toy drive and this is a very high motivator for her. we are slowly desensitising her to other dogs being near her when she runs and she may one day actually compete. i dont know whether herding lets that chase instinct build or whether the herding training we've done, as in relationship building, will pay off in terms of she comes when i call her, that kind of thing.

i dont imagine doing agility with her anytime soon - she would be easy to teach the component parts but whether i can control her at speed (there is no slow for possum!) is another thing. but i think some part of these issues are also breed related with their different working styles etc.

i take what greg derrett says with a grain of salt, im sure they can contextualise enough to get past it. you would have to be careful with your commands, a back in agility might mean something different in herding, but you can jsut choose different words. in agility i get a bit confused because an arm out is go in that direction, whereas an arm out in herding is a block, so i would be interested to hear what vickie says about this as trim is a very good agility dog.

i do think, just personally, that maybe deciding which one you want to do WELL at might be the key and then you can prioritise certain behaviours/training methods for that one. because herding comes so naturally, and i enjoy it so much, im putting that above flyball and agility with poss, but i do think herding and flyball actually complement each other.

JMO!

cheers

k

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do you think there is any difference between male and female handlers with sheep work? (putting on suit now ) !!!

It depends on the male/female. I think some female handlers can be a bit too soft on their dogs and allow them to get away with more although there are some male handlers who do the same.

There are some dogs that can be hard to handle with their owner and then with someone else they are really good. Its generally because their owner lets them get away with alot.

I voted already - postal

I'm sure there will be facilites in Welshpool or thereabouts - they have to vote as well after all.

Thank goodness you posted this here. I dashed out to the closest early voting centre when i read this. We are leaving for Welshpool friday lunchtime as we have to be there at 8.30am on Saturday and i dont fancy getting up that early to drive then.

I have entered novice ducks, novice sheep and city slickers. Hope to see you other DOLers there. Maybe we should tape DOL on our forehead for easy recognition :cry: . Or maybe i will just randomly ask people when i recognise pics of their dogs from being posted on here.

Edited by jesomil
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sorry vickie i missed this before, she is the same height as my husbands cattle dog who measures 500 for agility, tho his height is in his big barrel chest whereas possums is in her legs. she weighs just over 15kg as well.

So she is about the same size as Trim

does trim try to round you up when you do agility. possum is a quick learner but if you dont keep up with her she gets frustrated and barks and carries on like a twit. :laugh:

No, she has never tried to work me & I have never let her bark on course. My boys used to bark a bit in agility & I decided from day one that she would not. She is fairly quick, so no time to be rounding me up. She did nip me once in a trial when I got in her way :) . I'm pretty sure she'll never do it again :laugh: .

Edited by Vickie
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Does anyone find that doing Agility or Flyball etc interferes in any way with Herding?

I mean does it get confusing for the dog (or the owner for that matter)?

I don't think it should be confusing for either the dog or owner. There is a vast difference between the two. My dog changes completely in personality from one to the other. I use "Lie Down" for both agility & herding. It's probably not necessary for me to say it in agility, just a habit really.

Actually I don't know anyone who does both really seriously. It would be hard I think to train and/or compete seriously in both.

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ps more pix of dogs please!!

Here you go Kylie...some sheepdog photos I have taken over the last 12-18mths (there's over 100 so should keep you busy :) ):

http://www.pbase.com/zenotri/sheepdogs

They are mostly BC's & Kelpies but there is at least one koolie in one of the trial galleries (shortcourse I think).

Some of the older ones are huge (before learnt to resize) but if you click on medium they will be much smaller & load quickly

Edited by Vickie
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:)

Pauls place is on the South Gippsland Hwy so you just keep going and you will arrive at Welshpool.

It takes 2hr 24mins from my house to get there in the eastern suburbs. It depends where you are going from. Look up www.whereis.com, that is where i got my exact time from and it has directions too.

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:)

Pauls place is on the South Gippsland Hwy so you just keep going and you will arrive at Welshpool.

It takes 2hr 24mins from my house to get there in the eastern suburbs. It depends where you are going from. Look up www.whereis.com, that is where i got my exact time from and it has directions too.

tell me more about this thing you are doing at welshpool? is it some sort of herding extravaganza and if so, how do we get one here :laugh:

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tell me more about this thing you are doing at welshpool? is it some sort of herding extravaganza and if so, how do we get one here

It certainly is!! Its the Working Dog Festival.

There are events running all day Sat and Sun. It also incorporates the Tri Challenge Championship. The dog who gets the highest score at the open level trials with sheep, ducks and cattle wins. It pretty impressive watching a dog that can work all three types of stock. Such a difference going from being rough with the cattle then to being gentle with the ducks.

So basically it is run as a duck trial, sheep trial and cattle trial all levels then there are other fun things like puppy competitions, city slickers, high jump, tricks, sausage eating comp, working dog race etc.

And there will be agility, flyball and lure coursing demos throughout the days as well as instinct tests, etc etc.

Is that a good advertisement :)

I am excited although a bit nervous.

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I must admit though. I am going more to take a peak and see whats what than actually enter into anything.

I wiould like to introduce Chance to Cattle if I can just to see how he handles himself.

But all in all I am just going for a chance to learn.

Cheers

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It certainly is!! Its the Working Dog Festival.

There are events running all day Sat and Sun. It also incorporates the Tri Challenge Championship. The dog who gets the highest score at the open level trials with sheep, ducks and cattle wins. It pretty impressive watching a dog that can work all three types of stock. Such a difference going from being rough with the cattle then to being gentle with the ducks.

So basically it is run as a duck trial, sheep trial and cattle trial all levels then there are other fun things like puppy competitions, city slickers, high jump, tricks, sausage eating comp, working dog race etc.

And there will be agility, flyball and lure coursing demos throughout the days as well as instinct tests, etc etc.

Is that a good advertisement :)

I am excited although a bit nervous.

yes you are a great advert, i checked out the site too, it sounds amazing!! what a fantastic 'fun with dogs' weekend!! sooooo jealous :laugh: my husband would love to see his ACD work cattle but i reckon the ducks might loose a feather or two...i used to have chooks once...

did you say you were doing sheep and ducks jesomil? what about you kayne?

take lots of pix and report back!

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