herding whistle

[roscoe11]

I just got my first sheep herding whistle any suggestions on how to use it? I had a feeling it was not going to be easy, but the nails on a chalkboard sound I am getting is driving my dog crazy.

[Smalahundur]

Hehe, first tip; do not practice with your dog(s) in ear shot. But I suppose you had figured that one out already .

Furthermore, you have a tone, be it "nails on chalkboard", that´s (more than) half the battle. Now just keep practicing; basically play with the size of the space under your tongue and whistle to modulate the tone, good luck with it.

[roscoe11]

Hehe, first tip; do not practice with your dog(s) in ear shot. But I suppose you had figured that one out already .

 

 

Thanks for the tips and yes I had figured that one out already . I guess i will practice in the car

[Liz P]

Hold it between your teeth and press your tongue against the back edge of it. Experiment with tongue position, which will affect pitch. Definitely practice when your dogs are not around.

[Gloria Atwater]

The car is the best place to practice! Also, you can practice with different tongue placement and muscle tensions in your mouth to vary the nails on a chalkboard noise, and when you get variation, THEN try playing songs. "Old McDonald Had a Farm" was a good one for me to start with, along with the opening bars to "Dixie."

Good luck! For some of us, it just can't come easy.

~ Gloria

[Pam Wolf]

Liz YOU are not whistle trained!

[red russel]

if it gets loud and you are practicing in your car wear hearing protection. deafness kind of creeps up on you in the long run. it is the little things we do today that bite us in the butt years from now.

[Liz P]

Hey, I was brain dead from a long day of lectures and I don't respond to whistles!

[Gideon's girl]

I know this is an old thread, but I finally got my first whistle today, and I was glad to know where to look to learn more about how to use it. I've been getting noise from the first blow, but getting any variation is still eluding me, but at least I now know what to try. I got a corian A shaped whistle from Border Collies in Action. It wasn't hard at all to get sound from. Let's just see how hard it is to get good sound from.

 

Thanks everybody!

[Smalahundur]

Though I can use them I don´t like the herding whistle.

 

My wife taught me how to whistle on my fingers shortly after getting into border collies.

 

And I practiced that a lot (I lived in the misconception I would never be able to learn this; never underestimate the motivational power of stock dogs...).

 

I can whistle (a lot) louder on my fingers than on a herding whistle. If I am trying to get loud using a whistle they seem to flake out on me.

 

Also my fingers I never forget at home.

 

I use my index and pinky finger of the same hand, so I can whistle one handed, especially important when you are on horseback (and practicing in the car).

 

There are people that can whistle that loud without using their fingers, now that would be a nice skill (though I wonder if they can modulate the tone just as well, but I see no reason why not).

[Gideon's girl]

I've tried finger whistling all my life and have never been able to get more than a breathy whistle. I have a good loud clear voice and a small farm, so I don't need to whistle for anything now, but as often as I've heard that you should practice in the car for a year before trying the whistle on the dog...well, I just thought I should get started, just in case.

[Sue R]

I was shown how to finger whistle by Dan King at a trial. I came home and really practiced hard, and could get a very loud, very sharp whistle going. Too bad DH found it too loud and too sharp, and discouraged my practice both indoors and out. And wouldn't you know, when I tried again (and I have numerous times since), I can't get a peep out of my efforts? I'm pretty pathetic on the man-made whistle, too. I always tense up when I need to use it and am again unsuccessful. Fortunately, it's a small farm and I have a big mouth for yelling...

[Gideon's girl]

Within 2 minutes of unwrapping my new whistle, I already had everyone in the house wincing and glaring at me. I had only tried it about 3 or 5 times. Honest.

[gcv-border]

I can whistle using my fingers - very loud, but not the different tones.

 

I learned as a sophomore or junior in high school from a friend. Waayyy back then (late '60s), I lived in VT and played high school softball which required a stay after school. By the time practice was over, the after-school bus had already left. We had an arranged ride home - and home was 30 miles away from school over a mountain. To top it off, the ride was in the back of a pick-up during the months of April and May in Vermont when temps can still be cold (even snowing). We huddled in the back of the pick-up while my friend taught me how to whistle with my fingers. [Hey, there wasn't much else to do.] I remember a lot of slobber before I finally 'got it'.

 

Those were the days!

[Gideon's girl]

Gross! But it sounds like a great memory! And a useful skill to have.

[Hope/P.]

I have a herding whistle but wanted to know how all of you trained yourself. Would you recommend purchasing a CD with the herding whistle commands and mimic the sound?

 

Thanks for any input.

 

 

[airbear]

I bought a dog that was already on whistles, so I just learned to blow his whistles. If you're interested in the how's of communicating to a dog with whistles, Alasdair MacRae has a downloadable audio product called "Whistle While You Work". You can buy it here.

[Smalahundur]

I personally think buying a whistle cd is like buying a booklet explaining the verbal commands.

I don´t like to overcomplicate things.

You can find fine examples for whistle commands on youtube.

[Maxi]

I agree with Smalahundur.

 

Try to keep your whistle commands simple so you can remember them easily and also so that your dog can readily distinguish them from each other.

[Gideon's girl]

I had a car trip planned today and I was so looking forward to practicing, but it turned out I had to take my daughter(first time ever I wasn't happy to have her along), so I practiced after I got home while I was cutting up some brush. I didn't get anything new until I was quite pooped from all the work and heading in. I suddenly got 3 different tones. I took a few minutes to practice those, so maybe I'll be able to get them again tomorrow...We'll see.

 

Definitely a good thing I won't need any of it for a while. If I concentrated real hard, but not too hard, I could repeat one series well enough that I could turn it into a command, but as soon as I had that thought, I lost my ability to get anything at all out of that blasted whistle, and couldn't do it again until I told myself that it would be a while until I did anything with my new "talent," then suddenly I could get whistle again. Sheesh! Apparently thinking is too much pressure for me.

[Gloria Atwater]

Definitely a good thing I won't need any of it for a while. If I concentrated real hard, but not too hard, I could repeat one series well enough that I could turn it into a command, but as soon as I had that thought, I lost my ability to get anything at all out of that blasted whistle, and couldn't do it again until I told myself that it would be a while until I did anything with my new "talent," then suddenly I could get whistle again. Sheesh! Apparently thinking is too much pressure for me.

 

Don't think. Don't try for any particular tone or whistle command, just focus on making tones, period. The object is to become consistent at those tones, not to blow them as early as possible.

 

I went to a "whistle clinic" last spring with someone who gave the toughest exercise I'd ever seen: whistle all the way up the scale and back down again, with no breaks or warbles or dead spots along the way. It's HARD! And our homework was to revisit the warbles, breaks and dead spots until we could whistle those notes, too. But the valuable point was, we needed to learn more than just a few notes. That's too limiting. We should learn to whistle all over the musical scale, so that our whistled commands have more flexibility.

 

After all, you may find yourself one day needing to blow a LIE DOWN OR I'LL KILL YOU, but then realize you've only taught yourself - and your dog - one whistle for a lie down. So, my recommendation is whistle often, whistle lots - the car is a very good place, providing no dogs or humans are on board - and just play along with songs on the radio or songs you learned in grade school or whatever. The more range you can give yourself, the handier it will ultimately be. But don't worry just yet about blowing specific commands. Learn your instrument, first.

 

Oh, and unless you're one of the lucky prodigies, odds are this will take you a couple of years. Don't fret or get discouraged, just keep toodling away. Good luck!

 

~ Gloria

[Gideon's girl]

Thanks, Gloria!

 

I wasn't trying for anything like a command. I just kept getting the same 2 notes one after another, so my brain went "Hey!" Then I couldn't even blow 2 notes.

 

Two years!! Ouch! OK, I'll go practice and then I'll...practice some more. Good thing I have a good voice and a small place.

[Hope/P.]

Thanks for the input. I will plan on just keeping it simple and start slow with one command at a time. I didn't know at first it I wanted a universal sound if I should happen to have two Border Collies sometime in the future.

[Gideon's girl]

Some people do teach different commands to different dogs so they can work them independantly but at the same time. Others use the same commands for all their dogs. It's really up to you.

[Alchemist]

I really liked Kent Kuykendall's whistle CD. It not only gave me some ideas - but it also explained the whole philosophy of whistles. All of a sudden I could go to a trial and hear the different variants of whistles a handler was using - hear the difference between a full flank and a half flank, a "lie down" and a "LIE DOWN, GODDAMNIT!!!". I can't replicate all of his notes - perhaps the difference between a metal whistle and a Corian or plastic one?

 

My dog came with one set of whistles from each of her prior two owners. With the first owner, I can't myself hear the difference between the "away" half-flank and a "lie down". I reckon if I can't hear it, I can't expect the dog to differentiate my best efforts. With the second owner, I can't replicate the higher notes, so I'm trying to drop them an octave or so. (Mixed results so far: Spain thinks both of my flanking whistles are "come bye" whistles, but we haven't practiced them much).

 

I'm also trying to take pains to make sure that the first notes the dog hears are all distinctly different. (I guess this means I'm hoping that dogs are less tone-deaf than many humans I know). The hardest for me were getting distinctly different, yet reproducible, "come bye" and "away to me" flanks. After I worked out a set of whistles that seemed to satisfy the requirements that they were (1) similar to her prior whistles; and (2) I could blow them; and (3) the first notes were different, I asked my older son to tell me what chord they represented so that I could pick them out on the piano if I ever needed that sort of reinforcement. He informs me that the notes of my "come bye" and "away to me" flank comprise the "second inversion of an F# major triad with an added ninth". I'm taking that on faith... "C# F# G# A#" works better for me.

 

I spent quite a while when I was first figuring out how to get reproducible sounds out of a whistle just playing Christmas carols in the car. Then I moved on to trying to play along with whatever was playing on the CD. Unfortunately I can't get enough range out of a plastic whistle to cover Mozart's "Clarinet Concerto". Never mind, that's not a good CD for the car anyway, as it makes the dogs howl...