Trial dogs vs. farm dogs

[Mary & Dogs]

I don't think it does any good to argue. It just makes other people mad. People who are involved in dog sports or AKC are going to have their own arguments to satisfy themselves.

 

You are correct in saying that people will never understand until they get out and start working their own dogs. That is why it is so important to get people out to watch trials and clinics. When they actually see what a good dog looks like with stock they will begin to "see" what the point of the argument is.

[Northof49]

That is why it is so important to get people out to watch trials and clinics. When they actually see what a good dog looks like with stock they will begin to "see" what the point of the argument is.

Mary, a lot of times unfortunately that doesn't even do it although it is a very very good starting point.

 

A lot of people come away from a stockdog trial commenting on how impressed they were that the dogs are "so well trained and listen so well to their handlers". They are still under the impression that the dogs have been well trained to work stock, just like they have been well trained for obedience, agility, etc.

[Mary & Dogs]

North of 49

 

That is why it is good to get people to clinics. There they can see what an untrained dog is like on sheep. That's where you can really tell the difference between a working dog and a non-working dog.

 

But there are people who will never care. They just want to do their own thing and could care less. I've met obedience people like that. They want to buy dogs that are unusual colors and then train them. They want something really unusual. And they don't care about breeding.

 

So, we of the working world, just keep on talking. I think it does some good. Some of the very top trial people in the US today started out in obedience and got hooked on stock work. So it does happen.

[Denise Wall]

Some of the very top trial people in the US today started out in obedience and got hooked on stock work. So it does happen.

 

Like who?

 

I don't mean this in an offensive way - I started out many years ago in obedience myself. I'm just asking because I don't know of any big hats that started out that way. They were all stock people first.

 

Denise

[blackacre]

John Atkinson? No?

Damn. I never win the free cup of coffee for answering the trivia question of the day at the local coffee shop either.

A.

[Mary & Dogs]

I'm not sure I can put a name out on the web. But he had a little dog named after a character in a major novel and then got interested in working dogs and off he went. And he's still out there and is still a top competitor.

 

But, I have other friends who had obedience dogs and then got interested in herding and ended up with sheep and farms and have spent years working dogs.

[skd]

Although I will not mention a name, I have the privilege of knowing one of the very best USBCHA handlers who competed well in AKC with another breed before becoming a part of the national scene in the Border Collie world, and winning many prestigious trials including the two that most people consider the top two in the nation.

 

I don't often read the boards, but happened to have time to kill at work. As a "city girl", I've learned from the ground up, and I have to admit my learning curve is an abysmally shallow curve. I started by "playing with sheep" twice a year,10 years ago, but had the good fortune of those bi-annual clinics being the best possible exposure I could have found. God, that clinician is patient. I've heard the same identical information over and over again for 10 years now. I just attended another session, and commented to a friend that although the concepts, method, and even the words are the same as 10 years ago, I HEAR on a completely different level now. I SEE on a different level, and I APPRECIATE what I'm hearing and seeing and what the dog and I are doing on a completely different level now. I ask better questions (well, most of the time) than I did when I started. I suspect that I will continue to grow in my ability to comprehend the subtlety and beauty of what a Border Collie is for at least another 10 years. And I'll look back at this time as a time when I still didn't get it. I?ve heard a lot of top handlers say that it takes 10 yrs to ?get? this work with the Border Collie, and that?s for those who are focused exclusively on livestock work with the dogs.

 

Now the agility people are masters at what they and their dog can do. At the top level, they are playing a complex intellectual and athletic game for which the Border is eminently suited. They are bright people (not nearly as dense as I am). But how can they possibly be expected to grasp the depths of sheepdog work by watching a trial once or twice, or even attending a clinic? How can we expect them to ask the right questions, or understand the answers?

It takes many of us 10 yrs or more. They can only ask questions based on what they comprehend at that point. If we treat everyone with dignity and patience, their minds will remain open, and their ability to understand the answers will grow over time. If they are treated with scorn and haughtiness, their minds will close, and bottom line? The Border Collie will suffer.

 

Just my two cents.

SKD

 

>>>Some of the very top trial people in the US today started out in obedience and got hooked on stock work. So it does happen.

 

Like who?

 

I don't mean this in an offensive way - I started out many years ago in obedience myself. I'm just asking because I don't know of any big hats that started out that way. They were all stock people first.<<<

[Sue in France]

I think a lot of those working stock with their dogs have met the agility person who, for one reason or another, wants to belittle the real working dog, or conversely wants to inflate the meaningfulness of what they do with their dogs. I have had this conversation too and when I told them that the day their dog can cast out, stop at the right distance behind the A frame and bring it to me in a straight line on balance without a command,I might think about discussing the issue.

My young dog is just three years old and has reached Open class before his last birthday. He can do a nice course but I knew something was missing. This coming year I shall do very little trials work with him and use him a lot more around the farm. Already, after two months, I can see a confidence and a more settled attitude to his work. ISTM that to do anything like an Open trial the dog has had to know lots of farm work.

To say that a trial is a sport just shows a lack of understanding about the subtleties of what is happening. In addition, in ISDS trials in the UK, the organisers often add elements to test the flexibility of the dog and how he responds to the handler's comands. Sometimes there is a Maltese Cross, sometimes you have to run sheep through a trailer and pen them on the other side. Often the dog has to find a hole in a stone wall or hedge on the outrun. That happened to me when I was trialling there two years ago...I had to be very calm and wait for him to find the hole. Now THAT is reproducing real work and no dog which had just been trained for a sport could have done it.

Distance is the other factor. When a dog is working on a farm he is often out of sight of the handler or he has to do blind fetches through scrub, woods etc. He has to have the instinct to do the job. This then translates back to the big courses and no dog which hasn't had this work to do at home can do it in a trial where the stresses and so much greater. These aren't sports dogs...these are dogs which know how to use their genetic inheritance anad have been allowed the opportunity to do a lot of it.

I have never sold a dog as an agility or obedience dog because the usual owners of these dogs don't understand what a good BC is and how to use these talents. It is a waste of a well-bred dog.

Sue

[Pipedream Farm]

This discussion has me thinking about analogous competitions in other walks of life. One that has stuck in my mind is lumber jack games. Here we have people competing with skills that were/are used in an everyday job; but doing it under specific conditions. Now is this a sport? Perhaps, but one could argue that it can be a means to select people with the highly honed skills needed to do the job very well. Of course mechanization has replaced many of these human skills; but it still is a means to select people with the best skills. I see herding trials in a similar light; they are competitions to test highly honed skills that are used in everyday herding. Now can it be considered a sport, perhaps? But if so, a sport unlike agility or flyball in that the developed skills can be used to perform a real job. I see agility and flyball as sport much like golf and tennis; these require highly honed skills to excel at the sport, but these skills are not directly applicable to a real job.

 

So Melanine when you hear "herding is a sport no different from agility or flyball" ask this person what occupation they and their "working" dogs can perform with their highly honed agility or flyball skills.

 

Mark

[Shoofly]

Hey Mark -

 

Funny you should post this. When i was responding to that other thread, NASCAR came to mind. Like most people can learn to drive a car but not everyone can drive around a track at over 200 mph and live to tell about it. It's competition based on something useful everyday.

[Pipedream Farm]

I'm sure there are other examples of "sports" that were developed from occupations like lumber jacking and moonshine running. As opposed to ones that are based upon recreation.

 

Mark

[Cholla1]

Calf roping, to doctor, mostly started to treat for screw worms. Dragging to the fire to brand is a different kind of roping

 

Team roping, to doctor the bigger cattle on wheat pasture and grown animals.

 

Cutting, for obvious reasons, except that many of todays show cutting horses, being better than ever in the pen, would not know how to get around in a pasture and maybe even get highcentered.

 

I won't add team penning, as it is a wild event, detrimental to the hurried cattle and horses, not resembling the way we should work cattle.

[SoloRiver]

Here's how I feel about the issue, and it's the argument I ultimately made. This experience has taught me, finally, to just not bother discussing these things with sports people (not to mention stop wasting my time by reading Usenet), because they have too much invested to be receptive to anything but what they already believe. Pet owners are actually much more likely to listen and be rational about these kinds of things. Hooray pet owners!

 

Anyway, I personally believe that sheepdog trialling is a sport. This is because I define "sport" as competition that people indulge in primarily for fun. The Sport Collie folks believe this, but they also believe that all sports are more or less interchangeable, and that therefore an agility-bred dog is no less a "Border Collie" than a trials-bred dog. This is where I vehemently disagree, and will refer back to our prior (and fascinating) discussion about the definition of a Border Collie, for my position on just what a Border Collie is.

 

Although I believe trialling itself is a sport, I also believe that it is different from most other dog sports because it serves as a very precise and useful tool for selecting dogs who excel in real-life working situations. Real work is not a sport -- it is not optional and it is not competitive.

[Bill Fosher]

Melanie writes:

 

Real work is not a sport -- it is not optional and it is not competitive.

 

Two thirds right. Real work is not a sport, not optional, but it is very, very competitive. I am able to produce lambs profitably (at least that's what the projections say) because I have a competitive advantage over many of my fellow sheep producers. I can run more sheep per person, and I can run them on ground that most others couldn't. A lot of that advantage comes from the dogs.

 

Without good dogs, I would be like so many other New England sheep farmers -- bound to small numbers of sheep, lacking economies of scale because of limited access to skilled labor and affordable land.

 

That is real competition. We all get the same prices for our lambs (more or less). I just have a way of reducing production costs without reducing quality.

 

As an example: the farm I'm currently on was run before me by a manager who didn't use dogs. He had about the same number of sheep that I do, and had a staff of eight people working full time. I have two full timers (including myself) and three or four seasonal part time helpers. He sought his economic advantage through direct marketing to obtain (theoretically) higher prices for his production.