Chimps with Wolves

A couple of weeks back I got an email from my friend and CityDog trainer, Liz, asking if I’d be willing to help her train her Border Collie Rose learn how to herd sheep.

“Hang out with my bestest buddy Rose and a bunch of sheep at the same time? Jack pot! Count me in!” *

* Not my exact words, but it might as well been

So this past Friday I drove out to Belmont where apparently there’s a habitat area to help out. My role was that of a “Corn Gent,” as Liz put it; meaning I’d stand in the middle of a field tossing corn while sheep gathered around me to eat said corn. Nothing fancy, but it allows Liz to concentrate on working her dog instead of worrying about the sheep scattering. Also, it’d give me a chance to watch a Border Collie in action and see training work outside of the Sit/Down/Stay/Come taught in class.

It was quite a fun experience and I look forward to helping out again. Both Liz and Rose are new to sheep herding, only really starting this past Spring, but seem to doing well at it. Both are learning to read and communicate with each other better as well as learning to read the sheep and different scenarios better. Sheep are skittish creatures and things can go from calm to woolly chaos very quickly, so trust between Liz and Rose is also building. It’s also interesting to see positive reinforcement being used to train a BC to herd sheep as traditional methods are mostly used. Good to see you can teach your dog to do even complex tasks such as herding by using R+.

And thanks to the power of the iPhone I was able to capture some photos and a video of the event.

Pics and video after the jump…

My weapon against the hordes of sheep

Sheep, aka Woolly Chaos

Time to train to herd sheep

Training in session... annnnd three sheep butt

This is Mocha... she's very pushy when it comes to corn

Rose circles the sheep

Rose looking after her goats

Blackie the Goat

And, lastly, some video of Liz and Rose working the sheep.

One thing I learned and found interesting is that “Down” doesn’t always mean “lay down.” When things are going nuts, trying to think of which command to use wastes precious time (just think of every time you’ve rushed to call someone’s name only for it to slip your mind). So Liz uses “Lie down” to mean “slow down” and “down.” How she says the command is what really matters.

I don’t suggest you try teaching your pup that Sit means a few different things, but it’s interesting to see how inflection and voice tones can affect a dog’s behavior.