The No Touching Rule

[geonni banner]

I was reading in the livestock management thread, and something struck me as interesting.

 

Under discussion was an unruly ewe that stood off a young dog with threat displays. It was pointed out that a whack on the bridge of her nose would have likely sorted her. I'm sure this is a regular practice in sheep farming as even the most affable ruminants can sometimes get stroppy.

 

I was thinking about so many videos of sheepdog trails - usually at the penning - that a well-placed knee to the butt of a static sheep would have dramatically improved the penning time of the contestant.

 

So if trialing is meant to be a display of the work of a stock dog and its handler, why is this sort of thing, which must come up routinely in real work situations, not allowed at trials? Is it an attempt to avoid the issue of "how much force is too much force"? Or is it that the judges want to see the dog do the lion's share of the close work?

 

Do dogs that normally work livestock for a living in a farm or ranch setting ever seem puzzled at a trial by the handler's lack of willingness to help things along with a well-timed smack to a sheep's butt or nose?

[Liz P]

The trial is supposed to showcase the dog more than anything. People want to know if the dog has the skills to do what needs to be done. If handlers were allowed to interfere too much you would have a harder time sorting out how much was the dog and how much was the handler. As it is, that can sometimes be hard to determine. Remember, people often use what they see in a dog at trials to make decisions about breeding or purchasing a pup.

[DeltaBluez Tess]

At home if a ewe is slow to go into the stall, I do the boot in the butt encouragement....doesn't work at trials...as for a ewe standing up to a dog, a quick nip might work...or the dog slowly advancing....at trial you want to showcase your dog. At home, i need to get the job done. I teach my dogs to gip on commands so at home, if a ewe is being a snot, a quick grip changes her mind. BUT i you run on a farm flock and have sour ewe that won't move even if a dog grips her, then you are out of luck. either way, your dog must be able to show that he/she can stand up and move a unrury ewe.

 

(Note: the boot in the butt is me putting my boot on the sheep hind end and pushing her in...not kicking. I do not kick or hit my sheep)

[geonni banner]

OK, I get it, but I'm imagining the poor dog, having not won the trial because some ewe was standing just outside the pen until the clock ran out, thinking, "What's up with mom/dad? He/she usually has my back in these situations..."

 

Of course, the dog probably doesn't go over the run in his mind on the way home. But that moment at the gate, when the handler is watching the clock run out, tendons singing like high-tension wires - and not whacking that ding-busted ewe in the rear. Do you think the dog ever thinks WTF?

[DeltaBluez Tess]

ghot it, if that happens I just retire and help push the ewe along with the dog following.....then tell dog, "good girl/boy......"

[juliepoudrier]

I'm sure we've all seen (or done) handler antics at the pen to try to remove that reluctant sheep. Like Diane, if we fail for some reason, I'm always sure to get the sheep moving on the way to the exhaust and let the dog know it was a job well done.

 

I don't think dogs think WTF.

 

J.

[Gloria Atwater]

OK, I get it, but I'm imagining the poor dog, having not won the trial because some ewe was standing just outside the pen until the clock ran out, thinking, "What's up with mom/dad? He/she usually has my back in these situations..."

 

Of course, the dog probably doesn't go over the run in his mind on the way home. But that moment at the gate, when the handler is watching the clock run out, tendons singing like high-tension wires - and not whacking that ding-busted ewe in the rear. Do you think the dog ever thinks WTF? :blink:/>/>/>

 

 

I don't think the dogs really see it that way. Unless the situation is totally horrible and the dog is completely stressed, I doubt the dog is aware of much but the job at hand. He's not, or shouldn't be, thinking in terms of the human taking up his slack. If a dog lacks confidence and is caught in a nasty situation, i.e. a ewe that charges him or just stamps and faces him off for several minutes, then yes, I can see a dog suffering some sort of setback.

 

But I also think that we as handlers practice enough at home, (or should,) in encouraging the dog to do as much of the work as possible, that the dog is not really expecting us to step in. Also, at the pen, there is so much that we can do: step forward or back, wiggle the rope, waggle our crook, stomp our feet, crouch or bend, (once I leaned over and BLEW in a ewe's face - she went in, lol) that I don't think the dog will really feel hung out to dry. Not unless we're just standing there like a lump.

 

My tuppence, anyhow. :)/>/> And if things really go bad, I just try to let my dog know that I appreciate their effort and they are still a good dog.

Respectfully submitted,

 

Gloria

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Trainers,

 

The boot to the butt or the crook across the bridge of the nose will, indeed, get the sheep's attention shifted from what you might want her to do to you - the new threat on the block. After decades of working sheep, I am trying to think of an instance where brute force made a sheep do what she didn't wanna. Still thinking . . .

 

Donald McCaig

[geonni banner]

But I also think that we as handlers practice enough at home, (or should,) in encouraging the dog to do as much of the work as possible, that the dog is not really expecting us to step in.

Gloria

This explains it best for me. Do you train a dog that is primarily a farm/ranch working dog on a trial type course to get it ready to work in a trial?

 

I'm assuming that the work interaction on a trial course is at least a little different from when the dog is at home. IE - the handler never touches the stock and stays at the post for the outrun, fetch, and cross drive.

 

Would a shed at home be materially different from that on a trial course? Meaning, would the handler be helping to split the sheep using the crook or doing a bit of pushing?

[geonni banner]

Dear Trainers,

 

The boot to the butt or the crook across the bridge of the nose will, indeed, get the sheep's attention shifted from what you might want her to do to you - the new threat on the block. After decades of working sheep, I am trying to think of an instance where brute force made a sheep do what she didn't wanna. Still thinking . . .

 

Donald McCaig

Well, maybe not the handler, but as for the dog but isn't that what a grip is for?

[Smalahundur]

Indeed Geonni, I would also say that a nose grip however "clean" would fall under brute force .

Also however you want to define it, I do have experience changing a ewe´s mind by bopping her (not that hard, I love my sheep) on the nose with my staff when she tried to stare down Gláma (who is young and not that powerful).

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Wouldbe Sheepdoggers,

 

When I suggested that whacking a sheep rarely gets her to do what you wish, Ms Banner wondered: but isn't that what a" (dog) " grip is for?"

 

Like other violence, there are times when a grip is effective and more times when it just makes things worse.

 

Effective: some neighbor kids brought their ten pet sheep to be sheared with ours. Big Suffolk recovering bottle lambs, never seen a dog before. Luke promptly bit the leader on the nose to inform her she was a sheep.

 

Makes things worse: Maiden ewe defending her newborn, sick sheep won't move, single sheep fleeing, terrified lamb . . .

 

Donald McCaig

[geonni banner]

Dear Wouldbe Sheepdoggers,

...Like other violence, there are times when a grip is effective and more times when it just makes things worse...

Donald McCaig

I wish more folk could see this in day-to-day dealings.

[TEC]

Well, maybe not the handler, but as for the dog but isn't that what a grip is for?

 

A well-placed grip with just the right force, timing and duration certainly has its place in trialing and farm-work. Most handlers do not want to train the grip out of a dog, as it likely takes a little keenness with it. IME it's a fine balance that has to be maintained, so that your dog is not consistently getting DQ'd, yet retains good keenness along with a justified grip when reasonably needed. Parameters of what's justified varies among judges and handlers.

 

My little dog has an ,"Are you talking to me?" snap toward the nose (never seen her connect) that usually turns the sheep another direction. Infrequently she has the standard run-along-side and briefly grip wool behind front shoulders, which tells me she was out of position, and she knew it. Little like the "blatant foul" in basketball. We're working on that one, chiefly by getting her into correct position from the beginning.

 

Do good and experienced handlers humanely manhandle stock when need be? In event the dog, for instance, isn't successful pushing sheep through gate into muddy half of pen, handlers sometimes have to, for example, take hold of sheep to get a few through so that others will follow. The task needs to get done, nevertheless it would be poor training to have his dog try with all its ability, yet fail.

 

I liked everything Gloria said, especially about handler (and dog) from time to time "stepping back", also known as pressure-and-release. This tactic can be especially effective for close-in work. Sometimes the dog and handler him/herself can inadvertently over pressure stock. When stock feel too much, too close, too forceful, or too fast they freeze in-place and/or turn assertively toward the dog. A dog and handler: 1) stepping back (or moving left/right) from the packet to be shed in order to spread the group, or 2) opening the gate only halfway, so that if stock stall in entrance, there is room to swing it further-still...these are examples of releasing pressure. It's best, I believe, to find ways to invite stock to do what they likely want to do in any event.

 

I try to build my dog's confidence by placing her in progressively more difficult situations. If my estimation is off, and we find that she was moved along too soon, it may be best to set-up a more appropriate training scenario, or if a chore has to be done, step-up and use reasonable measures. Does a dog feel let-down by a handler who will not directly assist? I believe the dog loses a notch or two of confidence in his/her own abilities. IME herding dogs are resilient, and an occasional training error can be overcome by a little extra patience and better choice of difficulty levels. Incorporating intangibles of pace, flow and rhythm can obviate many stock-dog-handler confrontations. -- Kind regards, TEC

[Smalahundur]

 

 

Makes things worse: Maiden ewe defending her newborn, sick sheep won't move, single sheep fleeing, terrified lamb . . .

 

 

Not to put a finer point on it, but nobody with any sense of stock would use violence, be it a nose grip or a whack from a staff in the above situations.

But maybe I wasn´t in the group you adressed, what exactly are "wouldbe" sheepdoggers...?

[juliepoudrier]

This explains it best for me. Do you train a dog that is primarily a farm/ranch working dog on a trial type course to get it ready to work in a trial?

 

I don't have panels or a pen so I personally don't train on a trial type course on a regular basis. But one can use the natural obstacles in a field to practice the elements of a trial course. I don't own a freestanding pen, so if I want to practice that I'd need to go elsewhere, but I can send sheep through gates or put them in barn stalls and really the principle is largely the same.

 

Would a shed at home be materially different from that on a trial course? Meaning, would the handler be helping to split the sheep using the crook or doing a bit of pushing?

From a practical standpoint, if I needed to sort sheep at home, the fastest and easiest way to do so is to gate sort. This means that you man the gate and use your dog to bring the sheep up and then shift them around so the sheep you want end up at the gate opening and you can let them through. I almost never have a need to shed in an open field, but on occasions when I need to do that, how much I help or train or anything else would largely depend on why I'm separating a sheep and how pressed for time I am.

 

Likewise, I wouldn't take the time to park a trailer in the middle of a field and then proceed to try to load it. It would be an interesting training exercise to do so, but if I'm loading a trailer it's usually because I need to get the sheep somewhere on time and so I need to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. So in that case, I'd pull the trailer along a fence or in a gateway or something similar so that I could create something of a chute that would funnel the sheep toward the back of the trailer. That would make it easier for me and the dog(s) to get the sheep loaded as efficiently and non-traumatically (for the sheep) as possible.

 

ETA: I went back and looked at your original question, and I think you need to consider context as well. In the livestock management section the discussion was about a ewe facing off and stomping at a *pup.* Youngsters can be seriously set back if they are hit, chased, etc., by a ewe. So in a case like that, as I said there, I'd probably go over and help turn the ewe. Normally just getting between her and a pup and wavings one's arms would be enough to turn her, but if not, then yeah, I might whack her on the nose. But you have to remember that it's a special circumstance and not an everyday occurence.

 

J.

[juliepoudrier]

Makes things worse: Maiden ewe defending her newborn, sick sheep won't move, single sheep fleeing, terrified lamb

 

Not to put a finer point on it, but nobody with any sense of stock would use violence, be it a nose grip or a whack from a staff in the above situations.

 

Well, to be honest, if I have a single fleeing and the dog gets in front of it and stops it with a nose grip I don't consider that a situation where a grip *isn't* warranted. But for the other cases, I generally agree.

 

J.

[Gloria Atwater]

This explains it best for me. Do you train a dog that is primarily a farm/ranch working dog on a trial type course to get it ready to work in a trial?

 

I'm assuming that the work interaction on a trial course is at least a little different from when the dog is at home. IE - the handler never touches the stock and stays at the post for the outrun, fetch, and cross drive.

 

Would a shed at home be materially different from that on a trial course? Meaning, would the handler be helping to split the sheep using the crook or doing a bit of pushing?

 

 

I'm just moved up to Open, so still a newbie to higher levels of trialing, but for my own part, I like my dogs to understand both work and trialing. I don't own sheep, but whenever I can help friends or even just help out at a trial, I jump at the chance.

 

For my level of trialing - i.e., not world-moving - I'm not training a trial course, per se. I'm training the segments of it. I want a nice, long drive on my dogs, so I work to encourage steady driving. I want pace when coming into a panel and alacrity when turning into the cross drive, so I train and encourage solid stops, an honest "steady" and clean flanks. (We can discuss another time whether I get those! )

 

One thing I can see that can catch a handler up, when taking a dog from farm work to trialing, is that in daily work, the dog is permitted to make more of his own decisions. There's a job to do, the dog 'gets' the job, so we aren't requiring as much precision or obedience.

 

So, if I have a trial coming up, I'll take time out to put on extra polish, sharpen up the stops, focus on the pace, and in general make sure the dog's responses are a little crisper and cleaner than in daily work. I'm reminding him that hey, pal, right now I need you to give a little more focus to what I'm telling you, not just what you think we're doing.

 

I'm still fairly shaky on the shed, but when practicing shedding at home, (read, at my friends' places) my focus is on helping my dogs understand and become eager about the shed, so I am doing a fair bit of helping. I'll step in more, use my crook more, stamp my feet, etc., to make that opening happen. (In practice/training, I'm dealing with fairly doggy farm-flock sheep.) But in a trial, I think judges prefer to see minimal human input, in the shed. We get to pick the place to make the cut, but I would expect the judge to nick me pretty hard, if I step in to make the gap.

 

That said, though, being as I'm still starting out, I'll do what I think it takes to make the shed happen. Someday when I'm better at this, I'll worry about making my shedding more judge-approved.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Gloria

[DeltaBluez Tess]

Dear Wouldbe Sheepdoggers,

 

 

Donald McCaig

 

Don,

 

Who are you referring to "Wouldbe Sheepdoggers".....this kinda implies none of us are sheepdog folks but wannabes....which is not true for me as well as some of others who have sheep and/or are Open trial folks...or you just only addressing those who are not folks who do not have sheep and/or do not trial?

 

Diane

[geonni banner]

Well, as for myself, I'm a would-like-to-be-but-probably-never-will-be-sheepdogger asking academic questions. There are probably lots of us here. And lots of the-real-deal-sheepdoggers and a number of people with zero interest in sheepdogging. And I'm sure we all know which category we fit into. I don't think any disrespect was intended.

 

I started this thread because I really do care about Border Collies - the real ones that work sheep. Despite the fact that money, mobility issues and agoraphobia will likely conspire to keep me and sheep in very different environments, I want to know as much as I can about these dogs and their work - in the paddock or on the trial field.

 

I want to hear more about how these dogs and their handlers do things. I want to hear Julie explain why she thinks dogs don't have WTF moments, because my dogs all seemed to me to have them, like the time my Collie saw me in a gorilla suit. (Don't ask) And the time my Doberman went to guard dog evaluation and one of the testers came out banging a bamboo cane on the ground, wearing a burlap bag over his head, singing "Camptown Races" and walking like a drunk. Her mouth snapped shut, she watched him with amazement for a moment and then gave me a look that said, plain as day, "Are you seeing this? WTF?!"

 

 

ETA: My Doberman flunked the guard dog evaluation - "Smart, a great dog, but not at all protective." The following week she caught a guy trying to pry a screen off one of the back windows of the house. She went for him, chased him to the 6-foot back yard fence, which he tried to clamber over, and held him by the calf of his leg until the police arrived to rescue him. He required sixty-some stitches.

[juliepoudrier]

I want to hear Julie explain why she thinks dogs don't have WTF moments, because my dogs all seemed to me to have them, like the time my Collie saw me in a gorilla suit.

To clarify, I said that I don't think dogs have WTF moments if, for example, you don't boot the ewe in the ass to get her in the pen. That's a bit different from seeing someone in a gorilla suit or whatever. (Apples and oranges.) That is, in the normal course of work on the farm I may or may not boot a ewe in the ass to get her to move, therefore my dog doesn't *expect* anything in particular from me when we're doing a particular task. Therefore, there's *no reason* for the dog to have a WTF moment if I do or don't do something during a particular task at a trial.

 

If we miss the shed, *I* may be thinking WTF, but the dog is just gathering the sheep back so we can try again--and in that case I sincerely doubt the dog is thinking, "Stupid mom screwed up so now we have to try to do this again;" it's just doing the work it knows how to do.

 

Now if I walk out into my field and send the dog and someone has added a camel or a yak to the menagerie, the dog might indeed have a WTF moment because it's something completely outside its understanding of normal, but in our day-to-day tasks at home, the human doesn't always do the exact same thing so the dog doesn't come to expect anything, ergo no WTFs coming my way.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

J.

[geonni banner]

To clarify, I said that I don't think dogs have WTF moments if, for example, you don't boot the ewe in the ass to get her in the pen. That's a bit different from seeing someone in a gorilla suit or whatever. (Apples and oranges.) That is, in the normal course of work on the farm I may or may not boot a ewe in the ass to get her to move, therefore my dog doesn't *expect* anything in particular from me when we're doing a particular task. Therefore, there's *no reason* for the dog to have a WTF moment if I do or don't do something during a particular task at a trial.

 

If we miss the shed, *I* may be thinking WTF, but the dog is just gathering the sheep back so we can try again--and in that case I sincerely doubt the dog is thinking, "Stupid mom screwed up so now we have to try to do this again;" it's just doing the work it knows how to do.

 

Now if I walk out into my field and send the dog and someone has added a camel or a yak to the menagerie, the dog might indeed have a WTF moment because it's something completely outside its understanding of normal, but in our day-to-day tasks at home, the human doesn't always do the exact same thing so the dog doesn't come to expect anything, ergo no WTFs coming my way.

 

Hope that makes sense.

 

J.

It does indeed. Thanks!

[DeltaBluez Tess]

I had some handlers say to me at one trial that Nan was saying "call me thru for the bloody shed" when it fact it was a single...she would lean forward, ready for the shed and I would fuss about trying to set up a single...the people just laughed as one time she turned to the specators as if to say "WTF"...apparently the expression on her face was priceless.....i had several openings for a shed but never got the single set up until the very end...where she flew in like a bat out of hell....

 

maybe it wasn't a WTF look but "I have a stupid handler look?"

[Mark Billadeau]

Julie,

 

We didn't use shedding much to sort sheep at our previous farm; I do a lot of sorting by shedding on our new farm. Many of the gates and supporting fencing might fall down (some have) under the pressure of our sheep during gate sorting; until we get caught up with decades of fence maintenance sorting by shedding makes more sense for us. Shedding is no longer just a trialing task for us.

 

Mark

[Smalahundur]

 

 

Who are you referring to "Wouldbe Sheepdoggers".....

Ah, I see I am not the only one wondering what is meant by this....