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How Many Agility Dogs Also Herd Competitively?


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I am curious if there are any competitive disadvantages? Is it better to stick with one discipline or the other or can you successfully train and compete in both?

 

One dog I compete in agility with and also train for herding but don't actively compete. The other is 5 months old and I'm considering choosing one discipline only for him. He had a nice intro to sheep at 4 months and now I'm just getting his foundation work in - sit, down, stay, impulse control, etc.

 

My agility dog was started in agility first, then I put her on sheep. I worry about starting the pup on sheep first and then training agility due to the possibility of excessive flanking and of building such strong herding behavior which does not bode well for ring work...

 

 

 

 

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Can't claim to be an expert in any way but haven't so far seen any of my dog's agility training impinging on his sheep work. He's a completely different dog in that context. I guess it depends on the dog and how strong the working instinct is in it. Agility is training not instinct.

 

My dog is held back by my ineptitude and lack of time to train.

 

Most people I know started with agility then moved on to sheep and some trial. A few started the other way round. There are also people who do competitive obedience and sheepdog trials.

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The thing I see is that the agility trained dogs (and People) are used to using quite a bit of hand and body ques for instruction. The dogs are taught to watch the people. In stock work this can be difficult to break for both if they do agility first.

 

The dogs I see started on sheep first that have instinct for stock work seem to sort this out and it is not a problem for them but it seems harder for the agility people to understand blocking the wrong vs showing/leading the dog to the correct.

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Doesn't Kristi (airbear) do both? She might be able to offer a good perspective on both the benefits and potential challenges.

 

I think one of the biggest obstacles is having the time that one would need to dedicate to both disciplines in order to excel in both. When cross training with other dog sports, there can be a lot of overlap in the skills needed, but that would not be nearly as much the case with Agility and stockwork.

 

When considering the dogs per se, keep in mind that these dogs become very good at reading context. Back when I was training Dean in Agility, there were often sheep pastured on the other side of the fence from where we were running when we worked outside. He learned that when we were in the ring with Agility equipment, those sheep were not available to him and he completely ignored them - they weren't even on his radar. But . . . on the very rare occasions when he got to go into a round pen with sheep (and someone who knew what they were doing with a stockdog), he focused right in on the sheep and worked.

 

I'd say that whether or not you focus in on one discipline or go ahead and do both is really up to you. If you run into challenges along the way, you can always change the path that you and your dog are on, whichever way you go now.


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Can't claim to be an expert in any way but haven't so far seen any of my dog's agility training impinging on his sheep work. He's a completely different dog in that context. I guess it depends on the dog and how strong the working instinct is in it. Agility is training not instinct.

 

My dog is held back by my ineptitude and lack of time to train.

 

 

We have started doing a little bit of both, and Gabe is similarly held back by my ineptitude and lack of time, particularly in herding because it's at least an hour's drive each way and has been hard to fit into the schedule as we're moving soon and got married recently and life, etc.

 

Gabe is also a completely different dog when with sheep vs. doing agility. So I can't say that either affects the other one much. When he so much as sees agility equipment, he's so amped up it's hard to get him to do anything. He blows his start line stays, he runs all over everything, he'll start climbing equipment at random, and will do insane things like jump off the top of the A frame. When we are doing agility, we mostly focus on self- control and not hurting himself. He also gets a lot of time outs to try and bring himself down.

 

On sheep, he's calm and collected. He will hold his stay with absolute perfection, to the point where he doesn't always move when given his release cue. You can see him thinking through each step he takes, even as a very "young" dog in his herding experience, the instructor is always amazed at how thoughtful he is and how appropriately he keeps space and how well he listens. He's good with the instructor also, which is nice because he's often weird with new people. He doesn't chase, he doesn't blow his handler off, he seems really present and calm.

 

Although agility's a little more available to us, I really prefer taking him herding because I don't think it's good for him to practice that "absolutely insane" headspace he enters when doing agility (or just living his life). We're working on "being calm" in many aspects of his life, but at least he has one place where he can just do it. It's really amazing how different of a dog he is in each context.

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As others have noted, the primary problem seen in dogs trained first for sports is that focus on the handler. The dogs are too in tune with reading body cues. They often show a reluctance to think for themselves, work at a distance from the handler and work off verbal cues only. The sport dogs are encouraged to have that extreme eye contact with their handler, which is a major handicap when working stock.

 

Pretty sure Kristi buys dogs who are started in sheep first, then trains them for agility. This does, IMHO, make a difference.

 

And yes, time would be a huge factor. I work full time. Just finding the daylight for one activity plus keeping the rest of my lift running is a struggle at times.

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Gabe is also a completely different dog when with sheep vs. doing agility. So I can't say that either affects the other one much. When he so much as sees agility equipment, he's so amped up it's hard to get him to do anything. He blows his start line stays, he runs all over everything, he'll start climbing equipment at random, and will do insane things like jump off the top of the A frame. When we are doing agility, we mostly focus on self- control and not hurting himself. He also gets a lot of time outs to try and bring himself down.

 

I know this is off topic to this thread (but this is the sport section of the board, so I think it fits, generally), but I wanted to jump in and say that you might want to look into the Control Unleashed program. It is actually intended exactly for dogs like yours, to help them to find more of a "calm space" in the context of things like Agility. :) (But you don't lose drive - authentic drive actually increases when overstimulation is overcome).

 

In particular, I recommend the Off Switch Games (which are actually a little-known component of the program, but oh so powerful!), begun with a mat and a simple stanchion and gradually incorporate pieces of equipment.

 

I think you would find that a lot more effective than time outs!!

 

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I know this is off topic to this thread (but this is the sport section of the board, so I think it fits, generally), but I wanted to jump in and say that you might want to look into the Control Unleashed program. It is actually intended exactly for dogs like yours, to help them to find more of a "calm space" in the context of things like Agility. :) (But you don't lose drive - authentic drive actually increases when overstimulation is overcome).

 

In particular, I recommend the Off Switch Games (which are actually a little-known component of the program, but oh so powerful!), begun with a mat and a simple stanchion and gradually incorporate pieces of equipment.

 

I think you would find that a lot more effective than time outs!!

 

 

I'm reading the book! We're also local to Leslie McDevitt, so this is definitely the direction we're heading in, and hoping to take the class with her. He's also leash reactive, and not great with strangers, and a number of other issues that I think this will help out a great deal with. CU is recommended so often on these boards, and then I got way-too-excited when I realized we could take the CU class from Leslie herself.

 

The "time outs" also usually serve the purpose of giving another dog a turn. Most of our agility practice is done at my friend's farm with a small group of reactive border collies who all do poorly with other dogs, so we do a lot of crate and rotate with the dogs during a session. So "time out" might not be the best term, more like "okay your turn's over go relax a little".

 

He's made so much progress in a lot of things since we got him 9 months ago, and I'm hoping CU will help bridge the rest of the gap. So much thanks to everyone who recommends it all over the place. I got the puppy program book even though he's not a puppy based on reviews here that it had the same material but a slightly better read.

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In my own experience with Fly. Starting agility first definitely impacted her ability to watch the livestock rather than me, but that has improved greatly with time and she has really come into her own. Their ability to contextualize is very impressive.

 

That said, when she was started on sheep she had amazing down cues from a distance, an awesome stay and tons of self control, which came in very handy when we needed it.

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As others have noted, the primary problem seen in dogs trained first for sports is that focus on the handler. The dogs are too in tune with reading body cues. They often show a reluctance to think for themselves, work at a distance from the handler and work off verbal cues only. The sport dogs are encouraged to have that extreme eye contact with their handler, which is a major handicap when working stock.

 

That would actually be a major handicap in Agility, as well. :)

 

I see a lot of Agility handlers struggle with this, and it is a common problem. Agility dogs need to be able to sent to pieces of equipment - sometimes even into short sequences, while the handler gets out of dodge to set up for the next section of the course. (This may not be apparent to anyone but the handler since it happens very fast, but when a dog can't do this, you know it because the dog will crash into pieces of equipment, or suddenly turn off of equipment that clearly should have been completed!) You can't do this if the dog can't remain tuned into the handler mentally while actually putting his or her head into completion of the task at hand, while physically disengaging from the handler. Extreme eye contact would be an enormous problem.

 

So - I would say that a trainer who is building a degree of handler focus (eye contact) that the dog can't tear his or herself away to go do something independently is actually setting his or herself up for difficulty in Agility, also.

 

Now, I am not equating the two disciplines by any stretch of the imagination. Just making the point that if the dog is so focused on the handler that he or she can't think for himself and work at a distance . . . that's going to be a problem in Agility, too. It may be a result that some people are getting through their training, but it is actually not something that is desired in the long run.

 

Based on what I am seeing in dog sport training trends, I am not seeing the same focus on extreme eye contact that I did years ago. And I believe that is a very good thing.

 

I think of the old exercise where the handler would hold both hands out to the sides while the dog stares at the handler's face and the dog would be heavily reinforced for that by the handler bringing each hand down to the dog in turn to feed while the dog maintained eye contact. That used to be a standard focus exercise. I don't do that anymore. A lot of sport trainers don't do that anymore. It takes too much work to "unglue" that kind of eye contact in the long run than it does to start off with training eye contact in certain contexts, but teaching the dog to work without that eye contact right from the start.

 

Of course, sport foundations vary from region to region, and these sport disciplines are always changing. :)

 

But I would consider that kind of handler focus and eye contact to be a pretty big problem in an Agility dog, too. One that I would be working to change in the dog.

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I'm reading the book! We're also local to Leslie McDevitt, so this is definitely the direction we're heading in, and hoping to take the class with her. He's also leash reactive, and not great with strangers, and a number of other issues that I think this will help out a great deal with. CU is recommended so often on these boards, and then I got way-too-excited when I realized we could take the CU class from Leslie herself.

 

Oh, you are fortunate!!! If you get a chance to work with her, that's like gold!!! :)

 

And yes, I always recommend the puppy book, too.

 

The original is good if you really want to get into the theory behind the program, but I would actually recommend that most people read the puppy book first, and get experience with the exercises, and then go back to the original book and pick up the more technical information. :)

 

If you get to work with Leslie, please let us know how it goes!! She's amazing!!

 

 

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I do complete in both agility and herding with two of my dogs. It is possible, and there are more of us out there (we are secretive like ninjas :ph34r: ), but it really depends what you mean by competitively. I think it would be difficult to be really top notch at both sports, because there just aren't enough hours in the day to devote to both demanding activities. My agility friends who win national championships and compete at a world level spend an awful lot of time training their dogs and themselves. Ditto my herding friends who are competitive consistently at an Open (USBCHA) level. But I know lots of folks who can get titles on their dogs in both sports (in herding, I mean AKC, ASCA and AHBA), without straining their time and resources.

 

... I worry about starting the pup on sheep first and then training agility due to the possibility of excessive flanking and of building such strong herding behavior which does not bode well for ring work...

 

I am going to put it out there that I wouldn't want my dog excessively flanking on sheep either. It is ugly, it is a waste of energy, and the sheep don't like it. I don't know what herding behaviour you are referring to either. And this is not aimed at you, per se, but I am puzzled by the use of herding terms in an agility context. I am told that a border collie that is nipping its handler is herding. That a border collie who is hovering above the yellow on a dogwalk is sticky. That a border collie who runs around a jump is doing an outrun. The thing is, other breeds display these behaviours. For example, if a lab is biting its handler, no one says it's being birdy. It's likely frustrated and has impulse control issues. A poodle creeping down the DW likely isn't eyeing up, it doesn't know when it's going to be released, because sometimes he's asked to go to a stopped position, and other times he's allowed to leave early but he isn't sure why on the latter, so he's going to go slow to make sure he gets it right. Anyway, you see where I'm going here. Here's an emoticon so I seem less like a jerk. :P

 

 

The dogs I see started on sheep first that have instinct for stock work seem to sort this out and it is not a problem for them but it seems harder for the agility people to understand blocking the wrong vs showing/leading the dog to the correct.

Yes. Agility people point where they want to go. Blocking sides is a tricky concept.

 

I think one of the biggest obstacles is having the time that one would need to dedicate to both disciplines in order to excel in both.

Yes. This. Both agility trials and sheepdog trials tend to happen on weekends, with activity ramping up in the summer and ending in the fall. You really need to choose your events early, and that means you might not get to go to everything that you want. Or, you might be on the road a LOT. For example, the Bluegrass is the weekend before the USDAA NW Regionals. For the third year in a row, Rex will compete at the BG, then we will haul butt home and compete at the agility trial. Bar might be in both too, and if he doesn't draw into the BG, he probably will run in a few of the things at the NW regionals.

 

... They often show a reluctance to think for themselves, work at a distance from the handler and work off verbal cues only. The sport dogs are encouraged to have that extreme eye contact with their handler, which is a major handicap when working stock.

I think this is a bit of a generalization. I'm not sure how one can tell if an agility dog is thinking for himself, because he's meant to run a numbered course. There isn't a lot of room to gauge whether the dog is capable of thinking for itself. And the extreme eye contact - yikes, I wouldn't want that. I catch my dog's eye when I need him to check in (collection cue), but otherwise, I look at where I want him to go.

 

Pretty sure Kristi buys dogs who are started in sheep first, then trains them for agility. This does, IMHO, make a difference.

I don't just buy them started, I get them finished LOL! Rex didn't start training agility until he competed at nursery finals, and Bar did two years of Nursery before we did much agility training. The downside, of course, is that Bar is now three and still doesn't know all the equipment. I am terribly traumatized by this, of course, since dogs his age are competing at a national level. We are in therapy. :D

 

I'm going to throw out one other thing that I don't know has been addressed. My dogs are work-bred. They are from working breeders, not versatility breeders. They aren't just from strong working lines. They are talented sheepdogs from talented sheepdog parents. I truly believe that this is key to the dual sport border collie. While my agility friends disagree with me on this :D , I do not think there are traits needed by agility dogs that you can't find in a well-bred border collie from working stock. IMO, you need a dog with a sensible temperament, some biddability, good structure, and maybe a long tail for help in the weave poles.

 

tl;dr It takes time and money, and get a well-bred dog.

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In my (very) limited experience of training a dog to do agility then moving to herding, there is a difference in independence that is striking.

 

Example, teaching my dog to accept a redirect and move wider on a flank. My inclination is to mark it with a yes or good boy, whereas my instructor points out that my dog should be looking for the reaction of the stock (he goes wider, they settle). If I mark it (like any good sports trainer would do) he looks to me for validation and doesn't learn that how he moves affects his stock.

 

We struggle a lot with that, hes a really good sweet boy and wants to be right, so its a handicap for him to constantly be looking to me for validation vs. reading his sheep.

 

The difference in how and what you train is really very striking. Prior to actually working stock (more than some dabbles here and there over the years) I wouldn't have guessed it.

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I don't have a hope in hell of getting in the right place to guide my dog round and agility course and æ dog that looks to me for physical guidance is gong to be very disappointed. I too want a dog that will look ahead not at me and that will respond to verbal cues.

 

Extreme eye contact is definitely a no no for all dogs.

 

My main issue is feeling a responsibility towards the sheep. I don't have a problem in principle letting my dog figure it out for himself as much of my training uses that approach anyway, I just don't trust him enough yet as the whole thing is unpredictable to me.

 

I

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In my (very) limited experience of training a dog to do agility then moving to herding, there is a difference in independence that is striking.

 

Example, teaching my dog to accept a redirect and move wider on a flank. My inclination is to mark it with a yes or good boy, whereas my instructor points out that my dog should be looking for the reaction of the stock (he goes wider, they settle). If I mark it (like any good sports trainer would do) he looks to me for validation and doesn't learn that how he moves affects his stock.

 

We struggle a lot with that, hes a really good sweet boy and wants to be right, so its a handicap for him to constantly be looking to me for validation vs. reading his sheep.

 

This is precisely why most serious stockdog trainers and clinicians will advise people who aspire to do both to get a solid foundation working on livestock before beginning agility training. It's easier to teach a dog to look to their handler for direction than it is to undo that training and encourage more independent work that's predicated on the reactions of the livestock.

 

Once a dog has the concept of working livestock, training it to look to the handler for direction in agility probably won't undo what it's learned about reading the livestock. OTOH it can be more difficult, sometimes even impossible, for the dog to unlearn its reliance on handler directions.

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Micah does both, though not competitively. My instructors say he could, but I'm neither motivated in that direction nor do I have the money for it. We started agility long before I found out I could find a stockwork instructor anywhere around here, so some of my agility body language is very much ingrained, and not OK for stockwork. Micah does much better than I do when it comes to switching back and forth. I've been told MANY times to put my hands in my pockets.

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Micah does both, though not competitively. My instructors say he could, but I'm neither motivated in that direction nor do I have the money for it. We started agility long before I found out I could find a stockwork instructor anywhere around here, so some of my agility body language is very much ingrained, and not OK for stockwork. Micah does much better than I do when it comes to switching back and forth. I've been told MANY times to put my hands in my pockets.

 

"...this isn't agility, it won't work to point the stick where you want him to go!"

 

:lol:

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Hahahaha, my biggest issue. I just do not have the spatial intelligence to figure out how to use the stick in a way that's NOT pointing where I want him to go.

 

I totally get it. My spatial abilities and R-L discrimination are sub par (which, btw is pretty normal) so it took me over a year to master the stock stick and now that we are working on distance and driving my RL discrimination issues are catching up to me. :D I am hoping that practice will cause improvements...

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I love this thread. Very interesting to read the comments - many of which I agree with (even if I hadn't thought about them before).

 

I am training Kiefer (just turned 2) in herding and have dabbled a bit in agility. My older dog is my main agility dog. Because I heard the recommendation to train in herding before starting agility training, that is what I am doing - BUT, I have done a little bit of backyard agility since I have the equipment - a tunnel, one jump and channel weaves that are still 8 inches apart. Very little to no sequencing. The most is a jump, then tunnel or vice versa.

 

I am glad that I have not done too much agility with Kiefer. He seems naturally very handler-focused when doing agility. The experienced agility dog, Torque, was naturally very obstacle-focused. It has been interesting to see the differences in training for agility and, in the future, to see what happens once I start running courses with Kiefer. For example, when my cues were not early enough for Torque, he just happily continued on his own version of what he thought the course should be. Whereas Kiefer wants to make sure that I really mean he should take a jump. So he needs early cues too, but for a different reason.

 

Having said that, Kiefer has no issue with checking in with me when herding. He is pretty good with verbals (lie down, away, that'll do, etc.), but his attention (eyes) are totally focused on the sheep. This leads me to believe that he is able to compartmentalize.

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I totally get it. My spatial abilities and R-L discrimination are sub par (which, btw is pretty normal) so it took me over a year to master the stock stick and now that we are working on distance and driving my RL discrimination issues are catching up to me. :D I am hoping that practice will cause improvements...

 

I can't wrap my mind around what I want to be doing with the stock stick let alone DOING it, and Gabe knows I'm clueless. I hope eventually I'll figure it out...

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Having said that, Kiefer has no issue with checking in with me when herding. He is pretty good with verbals (lie down, away, that'll do, etc.), but his attention (eyes) are totally focused on the sheep. This leads me to believe that he is able to compartmentalize.

 

Nothing to do with sheep, but I see that same ability in Bandit.

 

We take Rally Obedience class and Rally FrEe class, one after the other on the same night.

 

In Rally Obedience, the dog sits most of the time when the dog and handler team come to a stop. Rally is full of sit, sit, sit, sit, sit.

 

Rally FrEe includes very few sits, and the dog is to remain standing when the team comes to a stop.

 

That boy has no trouble flip flopping between the two contexts. Even though we are moving through a course of signs, he seems to understand that in one context he is going to sit a lot and that in the other he is usually not going to sit at all.

 

FWIW, he started to study Rally FrEe first, so he never developed the dreaded default sit. Many dogs struggle going into Rally FrEe from Rally (or Obedience) because they want to sit all the time, and that can be very difficult to change. I think that because Bandit learned the stop-remain standing first, he is doing better bouncing between the two.

 

Again, nothing to do with sheep, but definitely a clear example of being able to go from one context to the other and that is apparent to the dog.

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