Learning from my Dogs

I'm fascinated by dogs - working dogs, in particular. Since we got into the sheep business as a commercial enterprise nearly 15 years ago, I've been blessed by the opportunity to work with, and learn from, a variety of dogs. A good number of these dogs have been working border collies; others have been livestock guardian dogs of various breeds. In every case - whether I trained the dog or not, I've learned something. And as I've grown older and gained more experience, I've realized how much I don't know!

I told someone recently that I have re-read several books on training herding dogs over the years (The Farmer's Dog by John Holmes and Talking Sheepdogs by Derek Scrimgeor). Looking back, I realize now that both books, while interesting, where way above my head at my first reading. I didn't know enough to know how uninformed I was! As I've re-read these books, the subtlety of working with sheep dogs in a variety of settings and situations has informed my understanding. Real-world experience, in other words, has complimented my book learning.

Livestock guardian dogs, I've found, are every bit as complicated as herding dogs. When we purchased our first LGD, a female Akbash named Scarlet, I assumed one big white dog would be as good as any other. This seems silly now that I write it - I absolutely know that some border collies have greater herding abilities than others; why wouldn't this be the same for LGDs? I'm still learning this lesson, but I'm finally able to see that my training needs to respond to a particular dog's experience, behavior, personality, and instincts. Yet another outstanding dog book, Brave and Loyal by my friend and fellow shepherd, Cat Urbigkit, has added to my understanding of these complex canines.

Which brings me to a few observations about a handful of young dogs that I'm working with currently. We kept two border collies out of a litter of pups that my dog Mae had last summer. Gillie and Sage are just over a year old, and both are proving to be more challenging to train than their parents. Sage had some time away from training due to a surgery - I've just started him on sheep again. Gillie had some time off while we were lambing (I just didn't have enough time in the day). Both pups are not nearly as confident as their parents, and Gillie is especially sensitive when I try to correct her. We're taking it slowly; Mae was doing real work by the time she was 18 months old. I'm realizing that I might need help from a professional trainer - I'll probably try to take a lesson with both of them simply to get some suggestions on MY approach to their training.

We're also starting a young Akbash-Pyrenees cross named Dillon. He's just over 6 months old and looks to be a promising guardian. He's currently with a handful of yearling ewes, and he seems to be well bonded. He's so well bonded, in fact, that he frantically dug under a gate to be with them after we had to sedate him to remove foxtails from his ears. He's proving (at least so far) that he'll stay in all kinds of fencing (electric fence as well as hard-wire field fence) as long as his sheep are there. And he's developed a deep, impressive bark - which he uses whenever there's something he deems a threat. As an inexperienced pup, this threat might be coyotes singing in the ravine north of his pasture, or it might be the neighbor kid riding her bike down the gravel road.

Another friend and fellow rancher, Liz Hubbard, once told me, "When you're working a dog, you need to be totally present and totally focused." Perhaps that's the biggest thing I've learned from my working dogs. When I work with my herding dogs, I can't be daydreaming or fretting over a bad day at the office. Every bit of work we do together is a training session - for all of us! Being present and focused with my livestock guardian dogs is a different matter; I have to be observant without disrupting their bond with their sheep. In both cases, the responsibility for communicating lies with me - it's not the dog's fault if she doesn't understand what I'm asking. I suppose in some respects, being totally present and totally focused is one definition of empathy - I find that it helps me see the world through their eyes. And I learn something every time we work together.