Sue in France Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 I've been asked to ask you if a dog works up close naturally, whether that is evidence of a strong dog. And when a dog naturally flanks widely, is that evidence of a weak dog? Sue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgt Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 Hi Sue. By now you have learned that I am no expert in any of these matters. But your interesting questions keep pulling me in. My answer to your two questions is a bit of anecdotal evidence. I have a 3 1/2 year old dog who tends to work rather close, and who flanks naturally and widely. Powerwise, she is medium at most. So I don't know what to make of all that, except maybe there are so many other factors involved that such intriguing slogans are too simplistic. charlie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipedream Farm Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 To follow up with my own anecdotal evidence, I know of powerful and weak dogs that are wide flanking. However, we still have the grey area of ones definition of power, strong, weak, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackacre Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 Originally posted by Pipedream Farm:To follow up with my own anecdotal evidence, I know of powerful and weak dogs that are wide flanking. And powerful and weak ones that work close. As to power, we could discuss it all day and stilll not come up with a satisfactory definition. Best I've been able to come up with, finally, is I know it when I see it--or don't. A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Fosher Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 Hey A, So power is like pornography? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tucknjill Posted June 16, 2003 Report Share Posted June 16, 2003 You mean if you dont have it you are screwed???? Sorry to offend anybody, but had to say it...My yucky sense of humor! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackacre Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Very good Bill, A discredited test I fear. Now we would need to acertain whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" found the dog powerful. A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipedream Farm Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Perhaps you should reword your criteria; some how I don't think any of us can qualify as average. That implies normalcy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackacre Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Mark, Not at all. But in deference to the range of deviations from the norm, perhpas we should revise the definition to refer to the "median person". A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipedream Farm Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Andrea did you intend to say: Not at all. But in deference to the range of deviants from the norm, perhpas we should revise the definition to refer to the "median person". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackacre Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 OK, now we're homing in on it. Whether "the average deviant sheepherding person, applying contemporary community sheepherding standards, would find that the dog, taken as a whole, appears to be powerful." How's that? A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipedream Farm Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Shouldn't we have some standard reference sheep against which to measure every dog's power? Perhaps Bill would like to be the repository for these standard reference sheep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest totallyterry2003 Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 It is nice to see that my little academic herding friends are having such a nice debate. (God, I hope that I have spelled academic correctly) Sam, You think that your sense of humor is yucky, since dear Bill brought the pornography analogy into this thread, I realize that I am a sicko. At my advanced age, watching a dog with lots of power is much more exciting to me than viewing pornography. Seriously, can anyone name a wide flanking dog with lots of power? Do not include your own dog but a dog that we could relate to? I am not sure that I have ever seen a naturally wide flanking dog with lots of power. Please note that my thoughts on this are slightly tainted because I own a very wide flanking dog that is weak. Final thought for my academic herding friends to debate. There is a difference between presence push and power. A dog with presence and push can have no power. How do you tell the difference especially when the dog is being handled excellently? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipedream Farm Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Mary Brighoff's Val: wide flanking (even before his injury) and has lots of power. Think of it this way, a dog with lots of power and "feels" his sheep will want to be wide to keep the sheep settled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise Wall Posted June 17, 2003 Report Share Posted June 17, 2003 Terry wrote: "Final thought for my academic herding friends to debate. There is a difference between presence push and power. A dog with presence and push can have no power." First lets separate this from guts. A lot of people use the term power to describe a dog who is brave and will stand up to any challenge but who may not be able to move sheep well. In my mind, guts may be a component of power but the definition of power I use is the ability to make sheep go where they don't want to go. What's your definition? Denise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoloRiver Posted June 18, 2003 Report Share Posted June 18, 2003 This is one of the first questions I thought of when I started working Solo: what is power? It's difficult to characterize, because I think it has everything to do with how the sheep perceive the dog, and I have no idea what sheep see when they see a dog. I see power as being related to the amount of implied, but controlled, threat communicated by the dog to the sheep. I think it can alternatively be referred to as "presence," but that doesn't really cover it either. Power is something that should be in evidence when a dog is quietly working sheep under normal conditions; I don't think a dog has to be actively threatening the sheep (pushing, gripping) to demonstrate power. (The latter would fall more into the "guts" category I guess, depending on the context.) I think that a truly powerful dog (or at least a dog who is powerful in a useful fashion, or who has a handle on his own power) is a dog who is capable of manipulating or moderating (consciously or unconsciously) the amount of threat he portrays to the sheep. One of my dogs (who shall remain nameless) has much more power than the other. However, he also scares the crap out of sheep. I don't think the mere fact that he scares the crap out of sheep is evidence of power; I actually think it's evidence of a lack of control that lessens his power. He has problems with impulse control (how's that for egghead language?) that the sheep readily perceive, so they don't "like" him the way they seem to like my other dog (they see a loose cannon) and he has a much harder time controlling them. It's only when he's working with more control that I can truly assess (or attempt to, because let's face it, I'm a novice, how the hell do I know what I'm looking at?) what kind of power he really has. If push came to shove, yeah, I think he would be able to move sheep that my other dog would have problems with, but whether we would have a whole lot of control over where those sheep moved to, I don't know. So, I think it is important to consider that power has elements of both impulsion and of control. A truly powerful dog has a large effect on sheep, is conscious of this effect, and is able to manipulate it usefully. A dog who merely scares the crap out of sheep is not necessarily powerful. A dog with a lot of push doesn't necessarily have power. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amc Posted June 18, 2003 Report Share Posted June 18, 2003 A wide-flanking dog with power? Haley Howard's 2003 National Cattle Dog Champion Cap. Amy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Fosher Posted June 18, 2003 Report Share Posted June 18, 2003 This is a discussion for a December's evening with a bottle of Dalwhinnie and a warm woodstove. I very much like Denise's definition of power -- I think it covers it all. A dog can have power derived from presence, from push, from guts, from brains, from heart; I'll bet most powerful dogs have a blend of all these characteristics in lesser or greater quantities. Some weaker dogs may have some of these characteristics but not enough But the bottom line is that a powerful dog is able to make sheep choose to go where they don't want to go rather than deal with him. I think it was said in reference to a cow dog, but I remember someone saying that a dog could make a freight train take a dirt road. That would be power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pipedream Farm Posted June 18, 2003 Report Share Posted June 18, 2003 Do we have to wait till December for the bar to open? I too like Denise's definition. Please pass the bottle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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