Herding with Sabrina first week in January, 2020

[obbanner]

My Sheltie Sabrina doing a seventy five yard fetch and penning about thirty sheep in a two minute video. One ewe didn't want to go in the pen and while Breeny was getting her some of the other sheep made a jail break. But she got all the sheep penned.

The next 15 second video is Sabrina taking the sheep out of the pen.

 

[BamMoMoMommy]

I love watching herders do their job. Sabrina has got that down! Phenomenal to watch...is it bad to call such a hard worker...adorable?

 

[MyBuddy]

She is a sweetheart! She did an awesome job!

 

[Ddski5]

Awesome!

 

[Viemarangelrock]

Good job, Sabrina! Totally mesmerising!

 

[Ddski5]

@obbanner

You ever have a sheep or herding animal just straight up go after one of your dogs??
Or it is hell bent to do what it wants to do and not be guided by your dog?

Do you let that conflict and battle linger on or is that a training situation? OR is it something that you immediately stop?

 

[Brioddy]

She is so cute! There’s a sheltie in my agility class named Milo, he’s also adorable but he’s a chocolate and white color. He would much rather zoomie around than do courses, lol. I am definitely at some point relatively soon have Rio take an instinct test.

 

[obbanner]

@obbanner

You ever have a sheep or herding animal just straight up go after one of your dogs??
Or it is hell bent to do what it wants to do and not be guided by your dog?

Do you let that conflict and battle linger on or is that a training situation? OR is it something that you immediately stop?

I never had sheep charge Sabrina, but they will hold their ground and stamp their feet. I've never worked with the adult ram or wether, as they live in their own field except during breeding season. (A wether is a castrated ram. If a ram is the only male in the flock, he'll pair off and not breed with other sheep. The wether makes the ram more sexually aggressive and he'll breed with the entire flock.)

A flock will run over a dog, though. We were halfway up the chute at a trial when Sabrina was working as a stock dog and the sheep that just came out of the ring came charging down the chute. Sabrina had a muddy hoofprint on her back after being bowled over although she wasn't injured. We were pulled off stock duty and we went in the back of the farm where there were a few tame sheep and let her work them to get her confidence back. She was trialed the next day and didn't have any lingering after effects.

I never had any issue at all with my Doberman Cooper. He looked like a wolf to the sheep with his strong eye and they'd start moving while he was approaching the gate to go in the pasture!

 

[JanS]

She does such impressive work and I love seeing her videos!

 

[MyBuddy]

(A wether is a castrated ram. If a ram is the only male in the flock, he'll pair off and not breed with other sheep. The wether makes the ram more sexually aggressive and he'll breed with the entire flock.)

Interesting!

I guess males are males, no matter what species!