A Herding We Will Go

Photo by Wendy Devent

On Saturday Amanda & I drove up to Louanne's Phantom Ridge Ranch for Kort's first herding lesson.  Up until now he has just been introduced to sheep & basically allowed to chase them in a circle, & do minor direction changes.  This time we wanted more from him.  He needed to stay further back from the sheep & change direction when asked.  Kort was being very stubborn!  He was having fun & didn't want to follow any rules, Kort doesn't think rules apply to him.  So when we demanded it of him, he did the avoidance thing.  By avoidance I mean he stopped & just ate sheep poop, lots & lots of sheep poop.  I was actually quite shocked by this!  My dogs are very prissy, they never step near, or even sniff poop, it's disgusting to them .  But there he was gobbling it down, it was making me want to gag !

I was also surprised by how little he respected Amanda while in with the sheep!  He always listens to her, but sheep are something he really wants, & she wasn't going to stop him, not with the flag anyway :)  Soooo we had to bring out the big gun, AKA, the paddle , dum da dum dum ......

He couldn't have cared less about the paddle either!! Amanda would bang it right in  front of him & he was like, whatever, gimme the sheepies!!!

Sooo , it was time for a lesson in respect, Amanda threw the paddle at his feet, he may have ran into it a bit :)   But that got his attention! geesh! what a dog. 

We ended with him being able to chase the sheep a bit, put the paddle away, & let him be happy.  At his next lesson we will be able to tell if he can come back from the paddle & still have the drive to work the sheep.  It's hard, this sheep herding stuff, the dogs need to listen , they can't just mindlessly run around in circles, & sometimes with a dog like Kort you have to get tough.  Hopefully he will be willing to follow the rules next time but we will see.  Some dogs just shut down, so you need to build them up again. 

I will know when I see Kort at his next lesson whether he has the heart for it or not, as long as Kort wants to continue I will see where it goes.  Amanda has her work cut out for her though!

A short video from the day......