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And then it begs the question ... if there are really "tending breeds" ... why don't the professional shepherds who would find use with a tending dog ever use them? Or do they?

 

The tending style of herding is/was used more in the Eurpean Countries, as the grazing fields were often in the middle of the wheat fields etc. It was the responsibility of the dogs to keep the sheep on the roads, etc and not let them off into the fields goring from one grazing field to another. There would usually be one dog driving behind and one dog on each side of the roadway to keep the sheep on the road. Then they were to keep the sheep in the grazing areas and not let them wander into the grain/corn or whatever the crop was. The sheep followed the shepherd. Belgian sheepdogs are a tending breed, german shepherds were originally that as well. A very good friend of mine has a really nice Belgian Malinois and when we took her out to the sheep she showed a really strong tending style.

 

I don't know how much this style of shepherding is still used in the different European Countries.

 

Watching the video, from what I have read and seen, the dog should calmly be patrolling the perimeter and only moving to block sheep that tried to stray outside the grazing area - not that nonstop running and then charging the sheep. I saw some old video footage of a herding test with Belgians about 25 years ago and that is what they were doing. The test consisted of taking sheep to a grazing area, holding them in the grazing area and then taking them to another grazing area. The dogs were judged on how well they kept the sheep to the road way and how they maintained the "living fence". I don't remember where the video was taken - Belgium or somewhere. A breeder from Canada that I sort of know had gone over to look at possibly bringing some lines back to Canada and taped the trial while he was over there.

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why don't the professional shepherds who would find use with a tending dog ever use them? Or do they?

I think they still do, in a small way. My partner used to live in Europe, and on a few occasions saw shepherds using GSDs to "tend" and move sheep. Agriculture is really different there, and in many regions it's subsidised by the government to an enormous degree, with farmers/shepherds being funded to retain traditional breeds and methods of farming. So it's actually economical for someone to take a couple of hundred sheep out into the paddocks and sit around watching them, then take them home again. Apparently some shepherds do use GSDs in their traditional tending role for this sort of work.

 

Some German dogs from Youtube:

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Here's how they trial German Shepherds:

 

"Hüteordnung für Leistungshüten" (Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde)

 

Short English version of the main points (they appear to be allowed to work with two dogs, but as far as I can see, the main dog is the one who gets judged):

 

1. Removing the flock from a pen

2. Obstacles, traffic (the shepherd leads the herd along a road. The main dog must keep the sheep to the side of the road so that a vehicle can pass. The second dog works on the other side and prevents the sheep from straying into the field and damaging the crop. If there are potentially dangerous obstacles (farming equipment etc), the main dog must keep the sheep away from them)

3. wide meadow (the sheep graze in a wide space bordered on all sides, the shepherd stands in the corner with one dog, the other dog keeps the sheep within the boundaries by calmly circling them)

4. stopping and turning the herd (the main dog is sent around the herd and told to stand confronting its head until the herd calmly stops and then starts turning)

5. narrow meadow (similar to the wide meadow, but due to the narrow space the herd stretches out)

6. narrow path (the shepherd leads the herd along a narrow path, the main dog wears along the whole length of the herd on the more dangerous side, and if necessary must punish sheep that are trying to graze/not keeping up/breaking out)

7. bridge (sheep have to cross a five meters wide bridge. The main dog must ensure that no sheep can endanger themselves by trying to cross parallel to the bridge)

8. gripping (dog must grip on command)

9. obedience (dog must obey its handler willingly)

10. work ethic must be good, dog should seem to "constantly be counting the sheep"

11. independence (dog recognizes where important boundaries are and wears along them, dog knows where he has to be in order to influence the herd rightly, dog doesn't unsettle the sheep unnecessarily, dog knows when to punish a sheep)

12. penning (pretty much the same as in BC trials)

 

Generally, the whole German Shepherd culture gives me the creeps, but this seems pretty sensible IMO, since people do use dogs for this type of work (not here, but further north).

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Thank you to those who provided a clearer picture of tending style. Different needs, different terrain, called for different herding styles, and I was going to ask if someone could describe the type of area in which the GSD -- or even other tending breeds developed. When you consider "tending" as the original function of the GSD, that uniquely GSD trot makes sense.

 

I also saw on Ulf Kinzel's website that he trains herding dogs, but only tending breeds. He specifically says he won't train border collies and kelpies. I respect that more than those who are only familiar with bc's and try to mold every breed into the bc/ISDS style of working.

 

My hackles go up everytime I think of a conversation with someone who had a very nice border collie bitch, her first "real" herding dog and she set out to prove everything I said in our conversations as wrong. Her idea of a working dog was a "remote control" dog --- where she could sit in a lawn chair and give commands to her dog. Her little bc did well at this, but was one pretty frustrated dog --- she wasn't allowed to use the brain that she had, and that her idiot owner didn't (have). She'd throw back at me that she was told by a clinician that you train the dog and not the breed and that's just what she was going to do. :rolleyes:

 

And I've gone to some AKC trials to watch a friend's dog run, and saw the same mentality on the outside -- one woman with a border collie comes to mind. They were waiting their turn and she was practicing what appeared to be the "herding" moves she taught the dog without stock --- "go bye, away, lie down" and her dog responded instantly to all of her commands --- outside the ring, off stock. I didn't stay around to see how they actually did, but it was obvious the owner was clueless. Hopefully the dog wasn't.

 

While I didn't/couldn't see the video links, it sounds like that's what was pretty much going on here.

When your entire purpose is to accumulate ribbons and titles, you lose sight of the actual dog. Sad, narcissitic even, in a lot of cases, but I figure if the first and only introduction someone has to working their dog is an AKC course --- if a light bulb turns on in one out of 20 minds (human, i.e.), and they start to question beyond the ribbon and title, then that AKC course has served a far greater purpose than probably intended.

 

JMHO and my early morning ramblings.

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Thank you, No49 and Sandra, for those explanations. Those were very helpful. I think they further illustrated that the videos shown do not demonstrate practical work done in a sensible manner, but I think that's what you will see when titles are the goal and neither the stock nor stockmanship is the focus.

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I have trained for C course, although never trialed. Watching a GSD or other tending type dog is rather amazing; they do not have the same style as a border collie.

 

Ulf is a very well respected handler and there are a few others in the US that I know about. I would say it is far harder to train a tending dog than most Border collies i've had.

 

One of the GSD handlers in Germany we went to see could leave his dogs on perimter grazes and have a nap in the van. (he was about 82 at the time); His dog patrolled the boundry in a calm manner. Border Collies didn't work so well in this circumstance because of the straight lines needed between the road and the sheep or between two different crops; ie they were to control the vegetation next to a field (no fences) of crops. Neither the dog nor the sheep would be allowed in.

 

The sheep do not have to be any more trained than other sheep but it is helpful if they haven't been hassled by coyotes...as some of the tending dogs do have a closer resemblence to coyotes.

 

The C course has its faults...The HGH is an excellent example of german style tending...And no you are not supposed to leave one of the sheep on the wrong side of the road...no sheep or dogs should be in harms way during the traffic work. the dog is to push the sheep of the road and keep him and the sheep safe.

 

An aside on the traffic, we asked Manfred (hinnan or Hiemam sp?)about tending next to the busy roads...didn't he worry about his dogs getting hit...he said those that got in the road were genectically bad, wouldn't hold the line (boundry); didn't want those in his breeding program. Working bred GSD people are as passionate about their "version" of the dog as most working border collie people are

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When I have taken sheep out to unfenced areas to graze, I don't use the dog as a "living fence" (seems like an awful lot of work for the dog); instead, I keep the dog back near me and just flank her in whatever direction the sheep appear to be heading if the look like they want to leave the area I'm grazing. Generally that's enough to keep them contained.

 

Julie, i graze the exact same way with my border collies. I find it relaxing and enjoy reading a book, and watching sheep eat

 

When I have seen very good GSDs they do not race around. They were met to trot for hours. They have structure that allows them to move easily at a trot.

 

cynthia

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So I gather from what you're saying that we were seeing rather poor examples of the work. I was really surprised by the way the dogs responded when traffic went by--it seems to me that a calm approach to the sheep would be a better means of keeping them from leaping in front of a vehicle than most of what I saw on the videos. And I really didn't get the concentration on the front of the flock while the back pretty much did whatever it wanted (at least in the American video). It seemed that the sheep used in the videos from France were more reactive than the sheep in the first video (that is, they behaved more like real sheep), which I was happy to see.

 

I can imagine that properly trained tending dogs doing the work as it was meant to be done are an amazing thing to watch (I'd love to see videos of the work the 82-year-old's dogs did while he went off to nap--I'm sure that was something to see). I'm guessing that the trial mentality has gone a long way toward making tending trials a poor representation of the real work.

 

I don't think that border collies could make good *unsupervised* tending dogs, but I sure would like to see some tending work that looked real (any breed)!

 

J.

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I've seen the German HGH championships on video and they make AKC C course look like a joke. The HGH dogs worked as a pair, 1 judged at a time, and the tasks were as described already - practical and normal. The sheep were several hundred heavy farm woolies - rude and heavy too a dog, very much aware of where the graze and gates were - as most heavily manged farm flocks are.

 

Had I several hundred sheep to take through town daily and graze precisely between expensive untouchable (as in your sheep eat this and you loose your lease on this land) crops I would have been more than pleased to have the winning dogs from the HGH championships :D Yes I think you could do the same chores with a Border Collie, but a few of them (like the disengagement of the eye and the patrolling of strict borders literally right next to the grazing sheep) were better suited to the GSD's use. Those GSDs...oddly :rolleyes: , looking nothing like the show type.

 

I've seeing working flock/tending dogs doing tending while in Germany when I was a kid. I wish I'd know how marvelous it was then...not just "oh cool, a dog and sheep!". Several of the farms near my grandparents home still take the cows and sheep out of the barn (which is btw, the downstairs of the house) and down the streets daily to graze.

 

As usual AKC has taken a practical thing and polluted it into something cheap and ribbon oriented.

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I can imagine that properly trained tending dogs doing the work as it was meant to be done are an amazing thing to watch (I'd love to see videos of the work the 82-year-old's dogs did while he went off to nap--I'm sure that was something to see).

 

That reminds me of the story (in Don McCaig's "Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men" perhaps?) of the shepherd who stepped out of his house in the morning, sent his dog up the hill to gather, and went back in for his cup of tea, knowing that the dog would bring down the sheep but he'd have plenty of time for his cuppa.

 

'm guessing that the (kennel club) trial mentality has gone a long way toward making tending trials a poor representation of the real work.J.

I took the liberty of adding "kennel club" to "trial mentality" and hope Julie doesn't object. I think she really summed it up in this sentence because, as described and shown in certain of these videos, tending can be real work done real well, requiring a dog with innate talent and a good handler/trainer.

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And I really didn't get the concentration on the front of the flock while the back pretty much did whatever it wanted (at least in the American video).

J.

 

One of the big problems some of the dogs have is that they don't cover the back of the flock...they are eithe training with small flocks and the dog only goes back so far...or the handler doesn't allow them to cover for fear of a bust up.

 

One of the odd things about AKC c course is that they don't allow a dog to fetch in C course...even when it would make sense. One of the trials I was at, the sheep would not follow the handler...they were calling to them (which was hysterical) and the dog was working the back end of the flock at the side. It isn't a DQ but is some marks off..

 

so trial people spend lot of time not allowing their dog at the back of the flock...stupid in my opinion. You lose lots of marks for not adequatel covering the flock...more marks if you get killed by the car!

 

cynthia

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I sure would like to see some tending work that looked real (any breed)!

 

Altdeutsche Hütehunde (these look pretty nice to me):

 

We sometimes watched programs about these shepherds and their dogs when we still had TV, but I can't remember any of the program titles.

 

Walking in front of the herd is how they lead them about in narrow places...doesn't mean the dogs are bad :rolleyes: .

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For what it's worth, I went to a C course clinic when I was in Louisiana to video tape the Shepherds working. I brought Chesney along for the sole reason that he was needed to move sheep from one part of the field to the other and to round up strays that decided they didn't want to play any longer... The instructor said that you could not do tending work with a flock without a tending type working dog... I asked her why couldn't a Border Collie tend a flock and then move them from place to place. I have seen it done. It's because these dogs need to stay on a track that may separate grazing areas from non-grazing areas. I went away from that clinic with an even stronger belief that the Border Collie is the ultimate livestock dog for any situation you might come across. Heck, my dog got more productive, useful and needed work done at that clinic than a lot of the tending breeds did and I didn't even have to pay to work my dog!

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Altdeutsche Hütehunde...literally that's "old German herding dogs" - I think "Old German Shepherd Dogs" exist in English, but I'm not sure if that's the same thing.

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Walking in front of the herd is how they lead them about in narrow places...doesn't mean the dogs are bad :rolleyes: .

 

I don't think anyone was saying that the fact that the shepherd walked in front meant the dogs are bad. I think the dogs not ensuring that the sheep in back were kept with the flock would mean the dogs were bad. However, it does look as if the sheep in your video are VERY flocky -- rarely do any of them seem to be not touching one or more of their fellow sheep -- and they definitely appear to have been trained to follow the shepherd (which makes good sense in the circumstances). Given those conditions, there probably is rarely any need for a dog to be behind the flock. The front sheep follow the handler, and the other sheep follow their predecessors very closely. It didn't appear that any were lagging, even with no dog behind them, and the last few went through the gate into the last field with no help from the dogs (even with the dogs a little ahead of them, actually, and therefore somewhat blocking them from the others). I don't think that method would work too well with less flocky breeds of sheep, or where the forage was sparser so that the sheep had to spread out more to graze. It seems to work very well in circumstances like this, though.

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It seems to work well for these sheep, but the dogs seem rather superfluous if the sheep are so drawn to the shepherd. In some of these videos, the sheep seem to be led about almost in spite of the dogs, rather than with the dogs' assisting the shepherd.

 

I would expect that seeing good tending dogs working "real" sheep on grazings would be quite a treat, and a testament to well-bred and well-trained dogs of that type.

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Agreed...I was trying to find a video of an actual working situation rather than a trial, but the few I found by searching for "Wanderschäfer" (as these shepherds are called) were quite boring dog-wise, as the dogs were hardly used. I can see why they use sheep like those (to avoid a massive pain in the arse when travelling through villages etc), but it doesn't show much of the dogs' abilities.

Searching for the GSD specific stuff ("Bundesleistungshüten", "HGH" etc) brings no results at all - I'd like to see it, too.

 

ETA: here's an example with almost no dog action at all:

. These are real sheep, but they do behave like this.
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I don't know about the "real" German competition version being so much better -- as I noted, the video that was originally posted is from an HGH trial judged by a German HGH judge. And the dog looked pretty pathetic, and it passed.

 

I guess this is one of those things where 85% of the time, you don't actually need the dog, because the sheep are pretty much tame. When everything is going OK, it probably looks like nothing is happening. But, the 15% of the time you need a dog, you better have a good one. Otherwise, why would they use dogs?

 

I recall the shepherds in Morocco. The sheep seemed pretty much tame, and the shepherds always had a dog. The dog played no role in moving the sheep and was probably a guardian only. If you have tame sheep, you don't need a dog to move them from place to place.

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Very interesting conversation.

 

ETA: here's an example with almost no dog action at all: video. These are real sheep, but they do behave like this.

 

Sandra, thank you so much for posting this video. I didn't understand a word of the video but found it far from boring. I would love to do that! But I'd like to bring my dogs (moreso just because they're my buddies -- those sheep don't look like they need much in the way of direction) and my camera. Wow!

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