A Common Misnomer

[kajarrel]

I think one of the reasons non-working people use the word "herd" is because of it's commonly held meaning to "move animals together." I hope that we don't start excluding and denigrating people based on semantics ("working" as a password "into the club"). Aren't actions more important than words?

 

Kim

[IPSY]

You wouldnt have thought that the first and last time I ever went to Westminster . I only saw b/w BC.

Anytime you see it on TV , they parade a b/w in the ring. I dont ever remember seeing any other colors.

I'm not disagreeing with anybody though , I really thought that only b/w was recognized by AKC.

[geonni banner]

Although B&W appears to be the preferred color for conformation dogs, the breed standard accepts any color, but you have to factor in the judge's personal preference. No matter what they say, the whole thing is pretty arbitrary. There are bench champions in border collies who are other colors as well. There HAS to be. Breeding for color is a big money maker and if someone would rattle off the different colors in conformation border collies, you'd swear you were listening to a commercial for Lifesavers.

 

Lifesavers! Hee hee!

 

I recently learned that allowing sable-merle color to be added to the ACK Collie standard will be on a CCof A ballot soon. Kinda funny since there are already sable-merle champions in rough and smooth in the breed already... Here's one:

[border_collie_crazy]

You wouldnt have thought that the first and last time I ever went to Westminster . I only saw b/w BC.

Anytime you see it on TV , they parade a b/w in the ring. I dont ever remember seeing any other colors.

I'm not disagreeing with anybody though , I really thought that only b/w was recognized by AKC.

 

all colours are accepted by AKC, but keep in mind that many of the "top" dogs are aus/nz lines and THEIR standards allow only rough coats, tip ears, and the colours: b/w, black tri, ee Red and white, chocolate and white, blue and white and blue merle, thats it.

[sea4th]

all colours are accepted by AKC, but keep in mind that many of the "top" dogs are aus/nz lines and THEIR standards allow only rough coats, tip ears, and the colours: b/w, black tri, ee Red and white, chocolate and white, blue and white and blue merle, thats it.

 

That's it? Oh my. I feel gypped.

[juliepoudrier]

all colours are accepted by AKC, but keep in mind that many of the "top" dogs are aus/nz lines and THEIR standards allow only rough coats, tip ears, and the colours: b/w, black tri, ee Red and white, chocolate and white, blue and white and blue merle, thats it.

Well, that pretty much encompassed everything *but* dilute red/brown (lilac),tri merle, and red/chocolate merle.

 

Ipsy,

I know of at least one person who put a conformation champion on a tri blue merle. And I seem to remember seeing at least one red dog in the ring in the perennial "OMG look at the Barbie collies" thread that pops up around the time of Westminster. I think it's one of those things where you can put a Ch on any color if you choose your shows carefully, but the preponderance of dogs are B&W simply because that's what tends to win at the big shows (and we all know how winning at the big shows soon becomes a de facto standard no matter what the actual standards say).

 

ETA: ^^Lol! @ Liz

 

J.

[juliepoudrier]

I am not meaning to be the devil's advocate here, but wouldn't the term "herding lesson" still be appropriate since a lot of us begginers know less than our dogs? My two definetly came out of the womb with more info on sheep than I did. I am learning how to herd and communicate with my dogs, my dogs are learning how to work sheep and decipher what the looney lady really means.

 

I understand some one who knows what they are doing would bring their dog to so and so's to work sheep, but some of us aren't quite to that point yet. We are still learning our part.

 

Sweet Ceana,

I think if you stay in line with what Donald first posted regarding the true meaning of the term herding, then when you go for a lesson you are learning to *work* sheep. Just because you or your dog aren't experienced at it doesn't mean it's not stockwork--it's just a beginner level of stockwork.

 

In Donald's parlance, if you want to learn to herd, then you are learning about sheep/flock management, etc. The two are not mutually exclusive, however; I certainly try to teach folks who come here about sheep as well as about working their dogs. Personally, the folks who are also interested in the livestock are the ones I consider gems, because it shows a deeper interest (IMO) in the whole purpose behind having these dogs to work stock in the first place. (That is, these individuals recognize the role do the sheep themselves in the grand scheme of farming and not just as tools with which to train a dog.)

 

I don't think Donald was trying to be insulting. I think he's continuing the discussion on the basis of his original post, in which he defines the difference between herding and working stock.

 

JMO.

 

J.

[IPSY]

Thanks everybody for your input . Im glad Im wrong. I would love to see a picture of the blue tri merle who won.

[stockdogranch]

OK, so Donald started with a nice post. Then we got a question about what colors are and are not allowed for the ACK showring (struck me as OT, but whatever). The question was answered, several times, but now we are *still* continuing this thread about what colors are allowed, or which ones have won a championship, and so on...I don't know about the rest of you, but I sure don't give a flying you-know-what about what colors are or are not OK with the ACK showring, nor do I care to see pictures of them.

 

What has happened to this board?

A

[Journey]

What has happened to this board?

 

We've been and they are part of the crowd!

[sweet_ceana]

Julie,

Thank you for the extra explanation. I think the part that threw my brain off was:

and no my dogs don’t “herd” – that’s what a human does

I was thinking same actions at a lesson, just the word that describes the human.

 

I have never heard the word herd used as a description of livestock management, which is why I had didn't quite wrap my mind around it at first. Until this discussion I have only heard/read it used to describe moving livestock, or just a large group of animals. Or, maybe I have just misenterpreted what I have heard and read because no one had ever told me the difference. DH and I are trying to learn as much as we can about sheep, because we would love to have some one day. Truth be told I want to give them all pirate names because the first time I heard sheep BAH-ing it reminded me up a bunch of pirates on helium yelling "ARRRRRG"

[PSmitty]

I think one of the reasons non-working people use the word "herd" is because of it's commonly held meaning to "move animals together." I hope that we don't start excluding and denigrating people based on semantics ("working" as a password "into the club"). Aren't actions more important than words?

 

Kim

 

My thoughts exactly. I understand the word offends people here, so I don't use it. But with non-BC/non-working people, I say "herding lessons". It's what they understand, and I feel kind of pretentious saying "I'm going to my stock-working lesson". I'd like to say "I'm going to work my dogs", but by most people's standards, we're not working, it IS a lesson.

 

Blah, blah, blah...

[juliepoudrier]

I have never heard the word herd used as a description of livestock management, which is why I had didn't quite wrap my mind around it at first.

 

It might make more sense if you think of it in terms of a shep-herd, goat-herd, or cow-herd, herdsman--all human occupations. Like many other words in our language I think it also has the broader meaning of gathering or moving animals as a group. For some, hearing the term herd used to describe the work the dog does is as annoying as using the word cow to generically describe all cattle is to cattle people (and that's another topic that comes up here fairly often).

 

I think Donald was just trying to give a logical explanation for how the term herding meaning to move livestock came into being. Certainly moving livestock is one part of it (and is the part included in the dictionary), but as he pointed out, there are all the other aspects (care and feeding, etc.) that are also done by herdsman, and so in that more general sense dogs don't herd.

 

I don't think anyone is going to shoot you if you say you're taking herding lessons. As others have pointed out, most members of the general public would understand that better than saying "I'm working my dog," especially now that we have a whole different culture (sports) who also use the term "work."

 

While I don't generally use the word herd to describe what my dogs are doing (I say they work sheep, or we're moving sheep, or similar), it's not really offensive to me, though it does sometimes mark the person using it as someone who may well come from some other venue (namely AKC, because as Donald noted, the AKC arbitrarily placed certain breeds in a "herding group") or just as a newbie. As others have said, use of the word "border" to describe a border collie is much higher on my offenso-meter.

 

Your best source for learning about sheep could be your herding (oops!) instructor. It doesn't hurt to ask about livestock care and management when you're out for a lesson, and frankly, if your instructor doesn't care to teach you that stuff, then I'd wonder about his/her management practices and reason for owning stock in the first place (that is, whether the instructor just views the stock as training tools or as actual living beings that need to be cared for and aren't just a source of lesson income). To me, it's all interconnected, and if you want to learn to work stock you should also learn what it means to care for stock, because ultimately the whole purpose of the dogs is to make stock management easier for the human and less stressful for the stock. And that's one of the most basic concepts I try to teach any student.

 

J.

[IPSY]

We've been and they are part of the crowd!

 

[nancy]

Julie, you remind me of one of our trips to Yorkshire.

 

We stayed with a family we know well. Chuck was teaching the daughter

(about 12 then) how to use the computer her grandmother gave her. She wanted to do kids' graphics. But she mentioned that her Dad was having such trouble keeping the necessary records of all the animals he raised - and the ones he transported in his real business.

 

Yeah, this was because of the big BSE and hoof & mouth stuff. Each animal now has to have incredible records of where and when it was. And all beef cattle have to be slaughtered by a specific age.

 

So Chuck tried to show her how to set up a database of all the animals and record all the necessary data. That went fine, in examples.

 

But, when he went to save the file, he called it "cows". Anna was appalled! She said, "They aren't cows; they're bullocks!"

 

We now know to call all large bovines "stock".

[geonni banner]

It might make more sense if you think of it in terms of a shep-herd, goat-herd, or cow-herd, herdsman--all human occupations. Like many other words in our language I think it also has the broader meaning of gathering or moving animals as a group. For some, hearing the term herd used to describe the work the dog does is as annoying as using the word cow to generically describe all cattle is to cattle people (and that's another topic that comes up here fairly often).

 

I think Donald was just trying to give a logical explanation for how the term herding meaning to move livestock came into being. Certainly moving livestock is one part of it (and is the part included in the dictionary), but as he pointed out, there are all the other aspects (care and feeding, etc.) that are also done by herdsman, and so in that more general sense dogs don't herd.

 

I don't think anyone is going to shoot you if you say you're taking herding lessons. As others have pointed out, most members of the general public would understand that better than saying "I'm working my dog," especially now that we have a whole different culture (sports) who also use the term "work."

 

While I don't generally use the word herd to describe what my dogs are doing (I say they work sheep, or we're moving sheep, or similar), it's not really offensive to me, though it does sometimes mark the person using it as someone who may well come from some other venue (namely AKC, because as Donald noted, the AKC arbitrarily placed certain breeds in a "herding group") or just as a newbie. As others have said, use of the word "border" to describe a border collie is much higher on my offenso-meter.

 

Your best source for learning about sheep could be your herding (oops!) instructor. It doesn't hurt to ask about livestock care and management when you're out for a lesson, and frankly, if your instructor doesn't care to teach you that stuff, then I'd wonder about his/her management practices and reason for owning stock in the first place (that is, whether the instructor just views the stock as training tools or as actual living beings that need to be cared for and aren't just a source of lesson income). To me, it's all interconnected, and if you want to learn to work stock you should also learn what it means to care for stock, because ultimately the whole purpose of the dogs is to make stock management easier for the human and less stressful for the stock. And that's one of the most basic concepts I try to teach any student.

 

J.

 

 

Well... Wouldn't it be correct to say herding instructor - because she/he is teaching you to herd with your dog? She/he is probably training your dog to work stock.

Ok, this whole use of the word herding is new to me - and that's good - correct terminology is important to me. I write, and if you write, it's good to use the appropriate words.

[ejano]

Well... Wouldn't it be correct to say herding instructor - because she/he is teaching you to herd with your dog? She/he is probably training your dog to work stock.

Ok, this whole use of the word herding is new to me - and that's good - correct terminology is important to me. I write, and if you write, it's good to use the appropriate words.

 

Julie's supplemental explanation makes sense to me -- my local "go to" person on all matters Border Collie, often corrects my terminology as the Border Collie world, like most specialized occupations, has its own jargon. And I have had heard her say many times, "We're going to work dogs or "we've worked dogs." But she has never corrected "herding lessons" -- either she's not gotten around to that yet, or as has been put forth, the "herding" lesson is in learning how to be a herdsman or herdswoman specifically, the part of how to work your dog.

 

The worst application of "herding" in my limited experience was when Robin and I had the misfortune to enroll in a puppy obedience class and when it came to puppy play time, Robin and an Aussie pup focused right in on a a tiny little miniature pincher and the instructor said, "Oh, look how they are herding -- ain't it great!" Actually, no, they're not herding, they're in full out pursuit in a hot blooded chase and they've got that poor mite trapped in a corner and they just might hurt it. She actually corrected me when I went to get my pup. I got him, and walked out the door.

 

Mr. McCraig, I'm enjoying your posts .

 

Liz

[IPSY]

Good for you , Liz ! That instructor wouldve had a hell of a time explaining to the owner of the tiny quivering mass of a mini pin that they were just playing..

[Carson Crazies]

It used to be there were only two terms with regards to border collies and stockwork that would set my teeth on edge - "herding" and "borders". That, however, has been replaced.

 

Two of my family members INSIST on calling it "goin sheepin". No matter how many times I correct them (politely) to say "I'm going to work my dogs" or "going to work sheep" or "working stock" or whatever version of that, they insist on saying "goin sheepin". That one makes my skin recede from my skull as orange fire simultaneously shoots out of my eye sockets. I found out a year or so after they started that crap that my EX-HUSBAND started it. I seriously considered suffocating him in his sleep. I didn't, by the way, but it was a close one.

 

So give it your best shot. Call it herding around me - I'll ignore it. Just don't call it "goin sheepin".

 

ETA - in all seriousness, and sorry for the tangent, it is nice to learn the terminology. I rarely ever correct someone unless they ask me to, or just annoy me beyond the point of where I can restrain myself (which is next to impossible). I'd never heard stockwork referred to as "herding" actually prior to my starting to work my own dogs. However, as I listened to the working folks around me I didn't hear them use the "H" word, so I banished it with the exception of occasionally pulling it out for someone who doesn't understand what I'm talking about. Failing that I just baaaaaa at them. Anyway, I figure that a novice has enough problems without getting hairy eyeballs for wonky terminology.

[Sue R]

I do appreciate Donald bringing up this topic because I have to say that both "herding" (especially "going herding" to mean going to take a lesson) and "borders" (instead of Border Collie) result in me gritting my teeth - it's like nails on a chalkboard.

 

It is an issue of association. While neither word is appropriate in meaning or use as pointed out, if the use of these words was not associated with the kennel club mindset, a lot of mis-information, and going to "have fun" with one's dog "doing what it was bred to do" (even if it's ancestors haven't been bred for stockwork for decades), it wouldn't bother me half so much. It comes too close to the "sheep as dog toys" mentality. Otherwise, it would just be an issue of someone who didn't know any better, and not someone whose "roots" lie in the kennel club.

 

I have a friend who has been taking lessons for several years now. It still frustrates me that, after all the discussions we've been through, she's still "going herding" when she takes her dog to a lesson or to sheep time. It's a lesson in patience for me, as much as I love her dearly. And that's precisely what everyone else I know from that kennel club says when they go for a lesson...

[kajarrel]

Let me put this in a different perspective. I live in a rural area of central New York state. Other than this list, I don't really associate with people who trial their dogs (mind you, not because I don't want to but rather because typically people around me at work and home don't). I don't know people who do agility, flyball or other dog activities (other than with Fox Hounds and/or Search and Rescue or Assistance dogs). The people I know who own border collies either have them as pets or work their dogs on farms. These people don't have any of the associations you do - herding is simply moving animals. And the farmers certainly recognize that being a shepherd means more than moving/"playing with" sheep.

 

Kim

[kelpiegirl]

Here's my question....

 

Who cares? Seriously. I mean, I hear terminology that irks me in just about every aspect of my life. Some of the big trainers I know/work with, have used that dreaded H word, and I haven't seen them go all agog. It just doesn't matter. I will say that I don't think we are working sheep, I believe we are working the dogs. At least I HOPE we aren't working the sheep. But, again, it's a matter of semantics.

 

What really amazes me is that this perennially sticks in everyone's craw. It should not be the talk, it should be the walk.

[juliepoudrier]

I will say that I don't think we are working sheep, I believe we are working the dogs. At least I HOPE we aren't working the sheep.

Lately I've been working my sheep by taking them on "forced marches" in an effort to encourage them to go ahead and lamb (you know, like pregnant women being encouraged to walk to bring on labor).

 

(And as for the perenniality of this topic, I guess since we didn't discuss Westminster, something had to take its place!)

 

J.

[kelpiegirl]

Wait, they STILL haven't lambed??? You may have to give them that beet soup remedy!

 

Lately I've been working my sheep by taking them on "forced marches" in an effort to encourage them to go ahead and lamb (you know, like pregnant women being encouraged to walk to bring on labor).

 

(And as for the perenniality of this topic, I guess since we didn't discuss Westminster, something had to take its place!)

 

J.

[Mark Billadeau]

I will say that I don't think we are working sheep, I believe we are working the dogs. At least I HOPE we aren't working the sheep.

If you think that training sheepdogs does not give the sheep a work out you're not paying close enough attention to the stock. Even when the dog is correct the stock do not move that much by choice. But you are correct, the goal is not making sure the sheep are buff.

 

Mark