Herding Ht

[JulesP]

Roughly how much training would you need to do to prepare for your HT title? Bit of a hard to answer question I know! Poppy was changing the sheepies direction in her first herding clinic if that helps.

Do people go to a trial and do the instinct & HT in one day? Or should you be doing the instinct test and then doing the HT stuff at a following comp.

Bit hard to practice for herding!! I have room for sheep but don't think my fencing is good enough. Sheep would be handy for grass chomping duties. I can see the dogs spending the entire day and night glaring at the poor sheepies though.

Guess I am asking how hard it is to get your HT with a dog that shows good natural ability.

[ness]

My girls breeder said she tends to enter them in an instinct test when she knows they will easily pass a HT or even PT. From my very limited experience some judges seem to require a lot more in instinct test level then others. I was on the receiving end in an instinct test where the judge was actually requiring a greater level of skill despite the fact my girl has instinct just lacking a bit of confidence (she was only a baby though) so she failed. 4 judges standing outside the ring would have passed her.

[Dova]

I'm about to start herding trials, don't know a thing about them at the moment , Izzi & Pebbles have been to 2 training sesions & the trainer said both would have passed an instinct test if she were judging . We're having another training sesion next Friday, learning what I need to do in the instinct test & starting on HT work, so guess we'll see what happens if we enter the May trial. Hardest part for me is Pebbles is a pusher & Izzi's a caster & I need to change every thing I do when I change dogs , it was so much easier when all I had to do was yell "get right away" & open the gate when Dova & JC brought the cows up . If we do well be ready for the biggest brag, I get really excited when my dogs do well .

[JulesP]

Poppy is a strong 'heading - stopping' dog so it is keeping her moving that is the challenge. She goes into a trance!

[ness]

Dova I should loan you Kenzie she would love to go herding again.

[ShesaLikeableBiBear]

The rules changed last year, and my addled brain can't remember as we havent been training since Nov 2007, you can either do HIC and HT in the one day, or HT and PT, your instructor should know

In HIC the judge needs to see that the dog has the natural ability.

HT requires a controlled pause or stop at the start, two changes of direction, a stop and a "call to handler" at the end.

For the two changes of direction think about a figure of eight.

HIC minimum is 9mx9m (max 30mx30m) and HT 30x30m, although many HIC arenas are more likely 15x15m.

Ask yourself if both you and your dog can confidently move sheep in an arena of 30mx30m, and execute the required changes of direction.

Practice though makes perfect

[Kelpie-i]

Poppy is a strong 'heading - stopping' dog so it is keeping her moving that is the challenge. She goes into a trance

This is what is considered "sticky eye". You need to keep your sheep moving during training if/when they do this as it doesn't do you too many favours.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Kelpie-i

[JulesP]

Sounds like maybe I should just do the instinct test first then? I am going to a mock trial soon, so can see what happens.

Kelpie-i Poppy gets in a trance looking at the sheep and I get in a trance looking at her! The look on her face is amazing. When we were waiting for out turn outside of the pen she was just quivering all over!

[Kelpie-i]

JulesP, our kelpie bitch did the same when we first started with her. She would stick (trance like) and not move, just stand there and stare at the sheep. It cost us valuable points at a yard trial once. I think she was there for what seemed like an eternity until we had to move the sheep ourselves to get her going again. Not too mention the embarassment!

We did a whole heap of training afterward which helped. She still "sticks" but gets herself out of it quite quickly these days.

[JulesP]

Probably the best thing I got out my herding clinic was a better understanding of my dog. I was a tad frustrated that neither border wanted to be 'sent' in agility and were very tentative with it in obedience. Both have great recalls and cling like nothing else to me.

Understanding the different herding styles and were my dogs fitted in explained that they were just doing what comes naturally for a heading type dog. A driving type dog would be much easier to send out.

Does that sound right?

[Kelpie-i]

Hi JulesP,

I am not sure I am understanding your post. Were you told that because your dog is a heading dog that is the reason she has too much "eye"?? If this is correct then this is not the case. Whilst your dog may have strong heading instincts as most BC's do, "sticky eye" is a problem all on its own.

Herding dogs have varying degrees of "eye". This is used to stare and intimidate the stock somewhat. The degrees of "eye" range from loose right through to "sticky" eye (others may term it differently).

Border collies tend to have more eye than kelpies when working but there are kelpies who have this too. It is best to train this out of them so that they keep the stock moving.

I am not sure about ANKC style herding, but in yard trials, a dog that is sticky eyed and has lots of trouble keeping the stock moving is not seen as favourable. It costs you time and points.

[JulesP]

People at agility kept saying I should easily be able to send my dogs out to jumps etc. But they hate going away from me. They do very right turns over a jump but will not run in a straight line a way from me. I think this is because of their natural style of herding - heading/stopping rather than driving or casting.

Not talking about the eye thing.

[Guest Clover]

Have you done a lot of obedience work with them JulesP?

[JulesP]

A fair bit. Both are CD standard.

[herding_guy]

Roughly how much training would you need to do to prepare for your HT title? Bit of a hard to answer question I know! Poppy was changing the sheepies direction in her first herding clinic if that helps.

You answered it ... depends on the dog.....changing the direction is a great help. Hve you got a good "stop" on her?

I can see the dogs spending the entire day and night glaring at the poor sheepies though.

This is called "sheep TV" for herding dogs

Guess I am asking how hard it is to get your HT with a dog that shows good natural ability.

Not hard with a know how dog and a handler that knows how to position themselves. Just give it a go you might be pleasantly surprised and you'll have a lot of fun doing it.

[Kavik]

I thought all BCs and Kelpies were heading dogs?

I'm not sure that the sticky eye and the agility problem is related? Could be that they are more comfortable close to you if you have tended to reward close and not away from you, if you have done lots of obedience work?

Don't know that much about sticky eye in herding except that it's not desirable sorry can't help you there. The little I have done with Kaos he does not have this problem, he is showing good inclination to head where necessary, but does not stick.

[herding_guy]

I thought all BCs and Kelpies were heading dogs?

They are.

Don't know that much about sticky eye in herding except that it's not desirable sorry can't help you there. The little I have done with Kaos he does not have this problem, he is showing good inclination to head where necessary, but does not stick.

Eye; The ability of a dog to control sheep with concentration using eye to eye contact. A dog moves stealthily, sometimes with one foot paused midair in an attempt to obtain this eye to eye contact with the sheep. The more eye a dog has the more he will pause and stare. Eye dogs are great at controlling small numbers of sheep….the problem comes when you have large mobs and the dog will fix to one or two sheep forgetting about the other hundred or thousand.

Some people hate eye dogs and some like ‘em. I’ve heard all sorts of theories about ‘eye’; It’s aggression, fear, concentration, lack of experience etc etc. Most of which I agree with…depends on the dog. Truth is it is a hypertrophied instinctual behaviour within prey drive that you will observe in sheepdogs and gun dogs like pointers.

Personally I like eye dogs, they look good when working small mobs at trials. The trick is to use it to your advantage. Dogs with strong eye can be trained to creep in on cue without taking there attention off the sheep you want to control – can’t do that with loose eyed dogs. If your patient enough you can teach them to walk in a step at a time and shift their weight, left or right, on command…..I haven’t been able to do this with weaker eyed dogs. Strong eyed dogs are fun but you need to give them experience to loosen ‘em up on big mobs – not impossible.

If your dog is strong eyed teach it an “off” …. I do it by letting the dog go into eye then putting pressure on the dog by shifting balance while giving the cue “off” or directional cues then rewarding the dog.

If you’ve got a dog with specific talents learn how to utilise those talents and work with them. Indian runner ducks are great to teach and train strong eyed dogs on if you can’t get sheep.

[Kavik]

Would love to do more with Kaos in regards to herding, but hard to get to.

Tried the ducks argument on OH - he wasn't impressed

The people who have seen Kaos like what they see though From what I have seen he has a fair amount of eye.

Haven't seen you around the forums recently, if I was in Melbourne I'd try and bring him to you

[JulesP]

Thanks for that Herding Guy! I found if I made a shoosing type noise I could get her moving quite easily. She does have a good stop and did the recall. The only really problem I had was trying to get the sheep out of the corner. She wanted to keep them in there. But I don't think there are supposed to be corners in the lower levels!

I originally fell in love with border collies from watching the sheep trials on the tv as a kid in the UK. So it is cool to be having a go at it.

[herding_guy]

Your welcome JulesP.

The “shoosing” noise acts as a secondary key impulse (that’s tech’ talk for excites the dog up) to increase the intensity of prey drive and therefore shift her into another behaviour other than “eye”. This is good but doesn’t discourage her from sticking.

The stop and recall are what you really need…..the rest is up to your use of them.

Once a mob of sheep learn that they can get away from a dog by sticking there heads in a corner they will just keep doing it. They figure if they can’t see the dog it isn’t there. You need to practice moving sheep around with the dog towards the center of the yard therefore keeping the dog between the fences and the sheep therefore always moving towards the center of the yard.

Your dog also needs to build courage enough to get in between the fence and the sheep. This can be done by slowly working sheep closer to fence and moving her in between fence and sheep. Slowly reduce the distance between sheep and fence and show her how wonderful she is every time she moves through. She’ll eventually love doing it because of how wonderfull you’ve made her feel every time she does it.

Yes those ol’ 3 sheepers are pretty pretty cool but not as cool as Aussie kelpie trialers.

If you ever want to bring her out to have some practise just contact me.