Sheepdogs Time Out!

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Sheep dogs at work and play

Follow Andy and Kay as they train each other in this video! (Andy’s also doing the commentary)!

There’s nothing quite like moving sheep with a well trained sheepdog, it turns a chore into a pleasure. And I really love training sheepdogs as well.

This is little Kay. She’s bringing the sheep up the field really quite nicely.
See how she’s keeping right back to avoid upsetting them. She’s bringing them in a nice straight line, that’s just what she should do.

And now she’s flanking round clockwise – that’s “Come-bye.” See how she’s keeping well out from the sheep so as not to upset them.

Now she’s flanking anticlockwise – that’s “Away.” Pushing them away – that’s driving them.

When she goes to the left, the sheep go off to the right. And when she moves to the right, the sheep go off to the left. That’s how she controls them.

And when I tell her “That’ll do” she comes straight back to me.

But she wasn’t always like this. This is Kay before we started training her. Chasing the sheep all over the field! She’s having a great time, but she’s not really achieving much.

Time to play!

Straight at them, look. Like Nelson at Trafalgar!

And now she’s scattering them all over the place. The poor sheep.
She’s not achieving anything there, is she?

We’ll give little Kay a go at some work! So, we’re going to get her into a ring where the sheep can’t run away, and where there are no corners for them to hide in. Come on Kay!

Sheepdogs at play!

But look, she’s doing exactly the same thing again, Going straight at them, like Nelson at Trafalgar!

And she’s just enjoying herself. Lie DOWN, you!

And “Mr Grumpy’s” having a right good shout at her. Come bye, good girl – Come bye. Still, she deserves it.

What I’m actually doing is trying to, encourage Kay to go out around the sheep. Whoops! I’m trying to encourage Kay to go out around the sheep, and not through them. But some of them are trying to vote with their feet and go elsewhere.

But don’t worry, we’ll get her under control.

Kay’s just the perfect sort of pupil. She’s just the sort of dog I like to train. Come on Little Kay!

Practice makes perfect, and every time I take her into the ring she gets a little bit better and a little bit better.

I’m still trying to push her out, waving my arms, I’ve actually got a small rope in my hand, and I wave that, or I might use a stick or something like that. Just to encourage her to go out around the sheep and look, it’s working.

A very important thing to notice is where I put my body.

When I move around in one direction, it makes Kay move in a similar direction, so if I go to the right, anticlockwise around the sheep, Kay will go anticlockwise as well, and if I go clockwise around the sheep like this, then Kay will go clockwise too.

And now I’m trying to get her to stop.

It’s no good having a sheepdog that’s got no brakes, so I’m putting myself in between Kay and the sheep, I’m blocking her, literally like a goalkeeper trying to stop a footballer scoring a goal.

And I’m just telling her, you are not going to get near these sheep unless you stop.

But as soon as I’ve stopped her, I send her off again, and that’s so that she doesn’t get the idea the game is over when she stops. If she gets that idea, she might not want to stop next time.

Stand! I put my hands up. I’m determined to stop you! Stand! Stand!

So the secret is to stop the dog, and send it off again, straight away.

I use the command “Stand.” But it doesn’t actually mean she’s got to stand still.

Quite often, stand can mean slow down.

And it’s coming to the time when I want to take her out of the ring, because it gets quite boring for them in here. There’s no sense of purpose to it.

So we take them out into the open field as soon as we can. This is Kay’s big opportunity. She’s bringing the sheep out, into the field, and of course, they make a run for it, but she goes back and she gathers them together, and here you see her out in the open field, she’s going quite nicely.

I’m trying to keep her back, I’m always trying to teach her that she must give the sheep room. She flanks round really nicely, that’s “Come-bye” clockwise, and oh!

She’s had a mouthfull of wool there. She shouldn’t really do that but we’ll let her away with it this time. We just give her a bit of a telling off, and then, as soon as she’s doing good work again, we tell her what a good girl she is. And use a nice, gentle voice when she’s doing things right, and a really gruff voice when she’s doing things wrong.

Stand!

She’s going round the sheep she’s trying to hold them to me, and that’s exactly what I want her to do at this stage.

But now look we’re walking away from the sheep, and that’s a big step forward when you’re training a sheepdog.

The next thing on from there is to be able to drive the sheep away, and that’s really advanced stuff!

And now, here we are, shedding the sheep , that’s parting some away, some that we want to keep away from the others.

And look, this is Kay on a full sized trials field, with some Herdwick sheep. She’s got them through the gate, and she’s bringing them back to me. She’s working at a long distance away from me, and she’s really doing well.

So you can see how Kay’s training has led to her becoming the wonderful dog that she is now, and the control that she’s got over her sheep is really impressive, We’re very, very proud of her.