Trial dogs vs. farm dogs

[SoloRiver]

OK, I realize this is an ancient argument and probably one with no resolution. But I am in the middle of arguments with Sport Collie aficionados who claim that herding is a sport no different from agility or flyball, and that trial-bred Border Collies have no particular claim on the label "Border Collie," because trials cannot replicate every working situation to be found on a real farm. They then trot out the old saws about dogs who win trials and are useless at real work, in "real-life" situations.

 

I need rebuttals. Failing this, I would be interested to know what the folks on this forum have to say about this topic.

[Bill Fosher]

Trialing is not simply a sport. It is a selection tool that has been used to improve the Border collie as a working stockdog.

 

What most people who look at trialing from a narrow sports perspective see is a dog doing a series of behaviors that appear highly trained and stylized. While some dogs may, in fact, run that way, they are not the ones that are winning open trials or placing in them consistently. Perhaps they are competitive in pro-novice, but seldom beyond that level.

 

I competed in a trial at a sheep and wool festival a couple of years back. A friend of mine brought her agility-competing friend over to talk to me about trialing. Many of the dogs were having a hard time making the transition from the drive away to the cross drive in the small arena. The turn was about equidistant between the exhaust and the setout, both of which the sheep could see, and dogs were reluctant to release the pressure enough to get them on line for the cross drive.

 

The agility person's comment was, "These handlers haven't trained that obstacle very well, have they."

 

When I tried to explain that the issue wasn't "training the obstacle," it was persuading a dog to take a command that felt wrong and risky, she looked at me without a glimmer of understanding.

 

While trialing doesn't replicate farm work, it does encompass all the necessary elements of farm work, plus it adds in the element of surprise that requires a dog to use its brains and trust its handler in strange situations on strange sheep. Using the skills that are proven on the trial field, you can take a dog to a strange farm, gather sheep off a field it has never seen before, sort off a particular group, run them into the shed, load them onto a trailer, and run the rest of them back out to grazing.

 

While none of these activities are perhaps directly replicated on the trial fields, the skills the dogs need to do them are identical. Straightness of line is simply a way of separating the best work from the also-rans.

 

Now, an agilty person I know has told me that the courses they compete on are in different configuations and different places every time. That may be, but the dog really doesn't have to do anything other than trust the handler if it gets confused. An A-frame is an A-Frame is an A-frame, whether it follows a right hand turn or a tunnel. Sheep are different from place to place, and the dog has to find them, get behind them, size them up and take control of them in some cases more than a quarter mile from the handler. In the International Supreme, the dog is often working at distances nearly a half mile from the handler.

 

The A-frame isn't going to look at a shadow across the fetch line and refuse to let the dog climb over it. It isn't going to decide half way through the run that the dog doesn't have what it takes, and put its head down to graze.

 

I could probably stretch that analogy a bit further, but you get the point. What I have seen as proof that trialing makes better dogs is that the more I trial the easier my work at home becomes. The polish and finesse that you need to run well at trials is often overlooked on the farm, where rough-and-ready can get the job done. It just takes longer, and sometimes, when the chips are really down, it means that the job has to be done again.

[Caroline]

I do enjoy reading what you write Mr. Fosher. Eleven years ago I went to a camp for a week to do some herding training. I knew nothing (well a bit more perhaps and so even more ignorant) and registered myself and my dog for this week seminar in British Columbia. It was held in a beautiful place near the Thompson River. Unfortunately it was run by an AKC cattle dog person. She never let my dog get in a big enough area to work. I didn't know that was important then. I watched more confident border collie owners that worked sheep a lot just tell her to use the big arena with them and their dogs. They did and it worked. I was intimidated and didn't ask. The gist of all of this is "What is the variable you add in stockdog work that is not present in agility (dogsports)?" ANOTHER LIVE ANIMAL(S)! I learned over the next couple years a litte bit about handling stock, while weekly training my dog. I have also done much agility with him as that was easier for me to do at the time. He was a very competitive dog in USDAA and NADAC agility. He is 12 now and has been my best friend all these years. The variables in herding are so much more complex, I was thinking, Melanie that you could describe them with mathematical type symbols, you know, how variables change, like in calculus. Anyway, it is exponentially different in complexity than herding. I know this was long and windy. thanks folks,

Caroline (home with her 8 year old son in his body cast)

[Bill Fosher]

Caroline,

 

I'm glad you enjoy it, but Mr. Fosher is my father.

 

I thought of another way to describe the difference. When you come right down to it, there are just two ways that an agility run can be botched. Either the handler screws up or the dog disobeys.

 

Those two options are available to botch a trial run as well. But there are many, many more.

 

A trial run can actually be botched by a dog who obeys when the handler issues a command that looks right from his perspective. But with his different perspective, and ability to read sheep, the dog is expected to know when to disobey.

 

Sheep can simply lie down and refuse to move.

 

A dog can get itself into a situation where the only way out is a grip, and the grip gets a DQ.

 

I could go on and on about all the different things that can go wrong in a trial run. The fact that most of them don't go wrong speaks about how good our dogs really are.

 

The other thing, Melanie, is that you don't need to defend anything. Tell them to prove to you that it's just another sport. It only costs about $35 to take a dog out to the post of an open trial -- let them try it for themselves if they think it's no harder than flyball.

[Tassie]

That explanation should do it for Melanie's debate, Bill - unless of course the Sports Collie aficionados think that sheep are some kind of identical woolly robots (of course that is possibly what they do think.) I'm sure you guys don't, but please don't think all non-herding owners are as ignorant as those mentioned. One of the attractions of this and Bill G's board is reading about that fascinating interaction between dogs, handler and stock that most of us can only experience second hand.

[Eileen Stein]

>

 

If by "herding," they mean AKC herding trials, they're probably right. AFAIK, those were devised as a fun thing to do with your dog. OTOH, sheepdog trials were developed by farmers and shepherds to test those attributes that a dog needs to be useful in the management of a livestock operation. They are still conducted in that way, and for the same purpose, today. In the UK, ISDS folks are near-fanatical about how wrong it is to refer to sheepdog trialling as a sport. It is, they say, a pastoral art. But then, what do they know?

 

>

 

Huh? How many working situations would they have to replicate, supposedly, to be a useful test of working ability? Even if they tested only 80% of the abilities needed, that's at least 79% more than flyball or agility tests. But as Bill has explained very well, if these people understood what's needed in a useful working dog, they'd understand that nearly all these qualities are tested for in sheepdog trials. The problem is that they don't. They probably think 3 sheep are easier to handle than 30.

 

>

 

Just ask them how many trial winners they've seen trying and failing to do real work in a real-life situation -- who, when and where. If they haven't seen these dogs working on the farm, what basis do they have for saying they're useless?

 

But ya know, then again . . . maybe you should just say yes, stay away from trial-bred border collies, they're worthless, you're so right, just stick to AKC dogs bred for flyball and agility. You'd be doing the breed a favor.

[workindogs]

I guess I see things a little different.....the instinct I see in my 13 week pup is truly instinct and has not been trained. It is in the DNA passed to him from his lineage.

 

Day 1, it was instinct that compelled him to squeeze through the field fence and push the sheep into a corner, balancing on the leader and covering any escapees (best that any 15# pup can). Instinct did not compell him to seek out jump sequences, A frames or teeters.

 

Day 2, it was instinct that compelled him to dart for the fence once again, through my grasping hand, between my feet and regardless of frantic "thatlldo's" (who am I kidding....I hadn't even trained that command). Instinct told him to run 100 yds to the sheep and seek to control all of them...balancing and covering. Instinct did not command him to seek out weave poles....well, except that he is underfoot constantly.

 

Day 3, it was instinct that propelled him like a rocket out the door and toward the barn in a determine attempt to gather sheep once again.........................................................................................................................only to hit the end of my 30 ft long line with a 'thunk'......and the long line is where he stays until he is really learns "thatlldo" and likely until he is physically and mentally ready to start.

 

The example that this pup made on "nonherding" friends really highlighted for them that "this thing I do" with my dogs is not trained. Despite my attempts to educate them otherwise, they had always assumed that I had trained my experienced dogs to "do all that". The puppy finally made them understand. It is inside the dog...and only by virtue of generations of careful selection for the finest working dogs..not pedigree breeding...not versatility breeding...but selection of generation after generation of the finest proven working dogs. With this makeup, I only train to shape the instinct and develop the dog's partnership with me.

 

I guess that's how I see it.....

 

Elizabeth

[Caroline]

Thanks Bill. Having seen Finding Nemo with the kids SEVERAL times recently, there is a scene where a turtle says "Dude, Mr. Turtle is my father" so I do know what you mean. Your posts sound experienced and I meant the Mr. as a sign of respect *smile*.

Caroline

[SoloRiver]

Thanks for your comments so far. Eileen, the folks I am talking to are referring to ISDS-style sheepdog trials as just another sport. I think part of it stems from a semantic argument -- I use the word "work" to refer to, well, work and "sports" to refer to stuff like agility or flyball. They then made a rough distinction between activities that are "real" or "fake" (my words, not theirs) and argue that since herding is no more "real" than "other sporting activities," they aren't any "better" than sports for deciding which Border Collies should be bred.

 

I've told them about the relationship between trials and real work -- but I don't think they believe me. And maybe they shouldn't, as I'm a novice and don't have a farm of my own. Anyway, I'm about to give up. It's pointless and hopeless.

[cgt]

In the few years that I've been bumbling through this stockdog stuff, I've always gotten the impression that there is strong "market pressure" to turn trials into a sport rather than a test. Indeed, it seems that many clubs and (competent) handlers refer to/view it as a sport. I guess this is The American Way. Or maybe this is the result of principally dog people getting involved in trials vs. principally farm people?

 

Fortunately, at the (relatively few) trials I've been involved in, I've also gotten the impression that the Open dogs that consistently win or place near the top are dogs anybody wanting to get some real work done would be thrilled to have on their team.

 

I refuse to believe that a dog that can find wild range ewes 500 yards away, bring 'em home, drive them around a comparably sized course, pen, shed, and do it better consistently than 20-30 or more dogs that can also do these same tasks is not going to be able to be taught farm chores and excel at them. IMHO, people that say otherwise (i) have no relevant experience, and largely for that reason, (ii) can't be convinced otherwise.

 

charlie torre

[Northof49]

I think it is really really hard to get people to understand the complexity of herding , to people that have not experienced it for themselves. You can't compare it to any dog sport that you train a dog for. I don't think you can even compare it to training Labrador Retrievers for hunting and field trialing. We have trained some of our Border Collies for hunting (and btw that always out worked and out performed the hunting breeds), and it's definitely nothing close to teaching them to work stock.

[Mary & Dogs]

Melanie: As you very well know, the herding instinct consists of many genetic factors that all have to properly balanced in order to produce a dog that can work stock well. There are reports in literature of these dogs going back to the 1200's and before - but always as shepherd's dogs and they were used to move sheep back and forth.

 

All of the Highlands in Scotland would be worthless if it were not for the dogs. The Highlands are rough and steep and covered with rocks and trenches. No machines could manage. So, if it were not for these very specialized dogs the land could not be used.

 

There is still a very real need for the farmers in many parts of the world to use a dog to help move and manage stock.

 

If the dogs were bred with no thought to their herding ability it would only take about 2 generations to lose the ability that has taken hundreds of years to fashion.

 

A good working dog can do agility or chase frisbees or do flyball or obedience. But it is not true that a good agility dog can necessarily work stock. So it would make sense that no matter what you use your dog for it should always come from good working stock.

 

Some trial people do it for sport and tend to breed for a dog that does well at trials. But a trial was meant to show off the dog's working skills. The practice of trials in UK back in the 1800's actually helped improve the dog's skills because it became a matter of pride to have a really good working dog.

 

I've always felt that if people don't care about the working ability (but like the dog's trainability and speed, for instance) that they should use another breed of dog.

 

The border collie has always been defined by its superior working ability. If it doesn't work then it is no longer a border collie - its just another black and white dog.

[PennyT]

There are a few other things that I think should be mentioned. One is the vee shape of the drive.

 

You can't usually make a reasonable turn for the drive, whether at 45 degrees or in the case of some pro-novice classes 90 degrees, or a reasonable drive and cross-drive without inside flanks. Inside flanks are a test of a dog's skill and listening abilities. At home, if you had the same gate to hit (where the sheep might not want to go) or mud or an open gate to avoid, it might not matter if the dog overflanked or refused an inside flank. But then again, it might matter.

 

Same at the pen. The sheep are standing still at the mouth. Will your dog flank?

 

How about an outrun? If your dog crosses at home, it might not matter but then again it might if you needed to cover a sharp drop on one side.

 

Shedding: You may be able to gate cut at home but then again maybe not. Getting that ewe and lamb in or that ewe you want off is a true test and in the real world where you often have to take one and the only option is on the head.

 

It is my opinion that people who want ranch type courses, courses with a little outrun and some sorting through a gate and so on, have not thought the issue through or do not know what they are seeing on a regular course or have some personal issue with training outruns, fetches, long drives, penning, and shedding. These issues are related directly, I think, to what they are capable of doing with their dogs.

 

Penny

[SoloRiver]

Here's the next gem. An agility person (who runs Dobes) claims that dogs use balance and eye in agility. I countered that balance and eye are meaningless concepts except in relation to stock, so this could not be the case. She answered that balance is what dogs use to work in relation to the handler's body position, and that eye shows intensity and focus. When she said this, I knew there was no point in continuing the conversation, but I did anyway: I told her she was flat-out wrong. She got offended (as did a couple of other people on her behalf) and said it was a "circular argument."

 

Like I said, I give up.

[Eileen Stein]

Well, of course she's flat out wrong, and of course it's hopeless, but still what you're reporting is so strange it's hard to get a handle on.

 

>

 

I suspect that besides knowing nothing about livestock these people are not breeders, right? But surely they understand that if you are trying to improve a breed, you have to use selection. Even if you're just trying to do something as simple as to create an all-black dog, you can't just keep breeding Shep and Bess together. You basically have to select the blackest bitch you have and breed it to the blackest dog you can find, and then keep doing it. How do you tell which is the blackest dog? That's easy -- you look at them.

 

But suppose you want to breed a better herding dog? It wouldn't make sense to just keep breeding Shep and Bess there either. You have to use selection there too, but selection is harder, because what you're aiming at is more complex and you can't assess it by just looking at the dog.

 

Doesn't it make sense for farmers and shepherds, who know what qualities are needed in a good working dog, to come up with a way of testing those qualities, so they can assess a whole range of dogs and decide which are the best ones to breed? Isn't that more productive than trying to go from farm to farm and get someone to show you their dogs doing their daily chores? Maybe a particular farmer has a dog that's capable of doing much more than he's called upon to do in that farmer's operation. How would you ever find that out without assigning him a more challenging series of tasks, and comparing how he handled them to how other dogs were able to handle them?

 

That's exactly how sheepdog trials began. Those who devised them were working farmers and shepherds who knew what they needed and knew how to test for it. Penny's given good examples of how the elements of a sheepdog trial test the abilities a shepherd needs in his dog. But surely anyone should be able to see how helpful it would be for a shepherd to have a dog who can judge independently how to run out and gather sheep, who can keep them together, who can make them go where they need to be put, who can understand and will obey his master's command about where to put them, who can split one off from the others so it can be caught and medicated or put somewhere else, etc. A dog who can do this with strange sheep he has to size up on the spot, who don't know him, has more ability than one who can't. A dog who can put sheep into a free-standing pen is showing greater ability than a dog shows who is only called upon to drive them through a gate in a fence. Isn't all this obvious? That's why the British trialists, who down through the years have overwhelmingly been real working farmers and shepherds, have used the trials to decide what dogs to breed to. And by all accounts, it's worked. Do these agility folks really think they know better?

 

How exactly would they go about taking a mediocre herding breed and trying to improve it?

[DeltaBluez Tess]

>> herding is a sport no different from agility or flyball, ......dogs who win trials and are useless at real work, in "real-life" situations.<<

 

 

Melanie,

 

You know my Tess and how she rates on the trial field. She did just place 3rd in the California Hospitality series in Open against 55 or so dogs...now for her *farm work*....i have sent her out in marsh lands to gt the sheep and not only she got the sheep from the marsh she also brought back a deer. I had Blackbelly Barbados sheep which look like deer. She brought me a whitetail doe who was not too happy about this entire affair.

 

Only command I gave her was a "sssh".

 

Also, she brought 60 heads with yet the same command from above from a 20 acre pasture in waist-high grass. I waited in the 3 sided shed, the open front was facing away from her and she had no idea where I was nor could see me. I was setting up the worming gun and figured she knew what to do and sure enough all 60 head of sheep appeared and she put them in the shed and held them while I turned my back to her and wormed them all. Never gave her another command until I was done and it was a "that'll do" She kept all 60 sheep in the shed so I all do to was to worm and mark them.

 

Guess she can't be a trial and farm dog at the same time?

 

Tell the "friends" we can do a match...have their dogs dupe what Tess did and I'll run her in an agility course.

 

Wonder if they will take the challenge...guess, I won't be holding my breath

 

Diane Pagel

[SoloRiver]

Thanks guys. I needed some sane people to remind me that not everyone out there thinks like Them.

[PennyT]

My satellite receiver went wonky before I could post again on this subject.

 

The position that all doggy sports are equal is the fault of the appalling American compulsion to apply relativism and egalitarianism to every situation.

 

Border collie trials are not just another sport in a sea of dog sports if you care about keeping and improving the border collie as a breed.

 

To see a classic example of the kind of drift that selection by the dog fancy can create, look at those Australian bred show border collies.

 

Eye and balance: I wonder if the person Melanie spoke to is confusing using the eyes to focus on a goal or object (being able to see plus being able to concentrate) with the concept of eye on livestock.

 

Same with balance: a dog doing an agility course can avoid falling over the handler's leg or doing the course in the wrong order by paying attention to where the handler is and to the handler's cues. This ability to stay on its feet and concentrate on the handler is probably being confused with balance on livestock.

 

Given that words "eye" and "balance" have obscure meanings only as livestock working terms, I can see how easily the confusion arises. For example, when a border collie keeps his eye on the ball in a game of ball or, stretching out the cliche, wins that agility class by keeping his eye on the ball, everyone understands the term "kept his eye on the ball" means "kept his focus and used his skill."

 

"Balance" in agility is also a good thing and easily understandable in its common meaning. No one likes to have their dogs tripping over them or falling off of teeter totters and balance beams.

 

This is actually very funny when you think about it. And it is the only explanation of how someone could confuse eye and balance in livestock work with what a dog needs to do agility well.

[Cholla1]

I wonder of many people confuse the crouch and stare so many dogs show, especially border collies do in the extreme, with "herding instinct"?

That stalking is done by many dogs in different situations. Since herding seems an extension from stalking, it would be expected to show there too, but is not what herding is all about.

 

It is a very common expression during herding but not necessary for control and direction of the stock, really, although most dogs herding will do so.

Plenty of times a dog is on it's feet, standing up and handling the stock just fine.

 

Cause and effect are not the same here.

[Pipedream Farm]

There's a TV show on the National Geographic Channel this weekend that fits in with this discussion on what we as humans are using to select breeding stock and what we are breeding for. Designer Dogs is something I've been waiting to see. Here is the description of the show:

 

"Explore the development of new dog breeds that are being custom designed to fill the new needs of our lives. From dogs bred to be allergy friendly, to the wild untouched dogs of nature, to new 21st century companion canines. Each of the six stories adds a new perspective to the current state of man's best friend, and spurs debate about just what form the dog may take in the future."

 

The adds for this program show flyball dogs, frisbee dogs, etc as goals of new breed development.

 

Mark

[concrete]

I guess what comes to my mind when I hear stuff like this is the expression " You should not argue with and idiot because people watching can't tell who is who."

When I hear stuff like this I tend to smile at the person then walk away and keep my distance in the future.

 

Kevin Brannon

[Northof49]

Here's the next gem. An agility person (who runs Dobes) claims that dogs use balance and eye in agility.

Oh pu-leese - if that wasn't so stupid, it would be funny.

 

There seems to be a real thing about every breed supposed to have "herding" ability and originally being used for herding way back when. I don't know what that is all about. THere are sighthound people that claim their breeds were originally used for hunting down game AND for herding as well - nothing could be further from the truth. People are trying to claim that Bichons, Havenese, etc were originally used as herding dogs as well. Perhaps up here is it because the stupid Canadian Kennel Club has set up their pathetc herding trials as being open to all breeds of dogs, so yes, you can take a miniature Dacshund and get herding titles on it!!!!!

[Margaret M Wheeler]

As my capacity for BS might suggest, I got my BA in Sociology and Philosophy. Twenty year hence I still have enough sociological perspective to get the heebie jeebies when my patch of the social fabric starts to tear, and boy oh boy does the new dog culture give me the willies.

 

Whatever else we might say of "The New Work of Dogs," I think that the title is dead on: more and more people want dogs that they can put to work as made to order friends and family members. My sense is that there is a growing number of breeders and dog "professionals" who are finding all sorts of ways to capitalize on this phenomonon.

 

Five will give you ten that the doberman's "eye" and "balance" are directly attributable to some flavor of the day trainer who is busy raking in $$$ from the new age dog crowd.

[Rave]

Melanie,

 

At what kind of place are you training??? You need to come down here instead of hanging out with those quacks.

 

Being mainly a sports person who is also training my newest pup for herding, I was trying to understand this other sports person's train of thought. My only guess is they see a herding trial as a "sport" because trials in themselves are unnecessary. Triallers don't NEED to move parts of the flock all over the field again and again on that particular day. It's not needed to test and showcase herding ability for breeding purposes, as that can be done on the farm with "real work", just like putting a horse through it's paces for a potential buyer. Sports by [my] definition are competively proving who's the best at X on a given day. And while the skills, ability, training and level of competition required for a herding trial in no way compares with other popular dog sports, they are all by definition a "sport". Now I'm NOT saying herding is unnecessary or frivolous like these other dogs sports are or conversely that there's a NEED for flyball or agility, just that the act of trialling can be considered a sport and perhaps that's what this person was thinking. While I tend to agree with that, I in no way agree with anything else that person or the dobe person said!

 

-Laura

[kajarrel]

I really am not surprised that people who don't have a border collie, or who don't work their dogs on stock don't understand . . . I don't think it's something that you CAN understand by simply watching or by listening to others - really understand . . .

 

We've had border collies for over 20 years now and sheep for about 10, and I'm still learning about the dog/handler/sheep relationship. I have a friend who is a full time shepherd (they are his livlihood) and he always remarks how he's still learning after 25 years in the business. And I don't think this lack of rural/animal (not sure how to express this) knowledge is limited to our dogs - how many people really know why someone is a "sitting duck" or what getting "goosed" means? Sadly, much of urban society is totally ignorant of the rural experience.

 

I'm not saying that I don't get frustrated with people who don't understand, but I do understand why their misperceptions occur . . .

 

Kim