Herding Dogs Are an Invaluable Addition to Farms and Ranches

a farmer who whistles while she works and a dog that loves his job and there you go he's gone over the hill and you see the sheep's heads i don't know where the dog is but i can tell because of their ears the sheep's ears where that dog is see there he is look he just came up over the hill i find that beautiful i love that that's why it's my passion in great britain the shepherds there needed dogs to help them too and so the great dogs that were of use would be bred together but basically the border collie in the pack of dogs was the ones that would gather the prey together while the others went in for the kill so those are the ones that were then incorporated into the farming operations not the killers but the gatherers and so now the this breed is working in partnership with the handler or the farmer to go gather that stock and bring it towards us what's the most common situation you see with herding dogs in virginia is it with sheep is it with cattle is it used occasionally to load the animals or is it trialing in a competitive probably because i i do trial i'm i'm in the thick of it i see it most often that way as for me when i started out i had a need um because i had a bunch of sheep they had foot rot i needed help and so i got a border collie and i went to clinics and learned how to train that dog and used it desperately on the farm then i wanted a social life and i saw a sheepdog trial and so i got hooked and was you know went to the dog trials well the same happens with the cattle farmer they've got cattle dog trials to go to the the other the sheepdog the sheep herders also the same thing they often get involved and so these dogs are not only a farm dog but a trial dog the best ones in fact are farm dogs and trial dogs what are the most common breeds in virginia border collies obviously i'm biased towards border collies but there are australian shepherds they're um australian cattle dogs those are pretty much bearded collies some people will breed a bearded collie to a border collie and while our dog trials our border collie trials are open to any breed the border collie is a kelpie i'm sorry i forgot a kelpie the border collie and the kelpie are the only ones that show up okay i have to think that it would be a thrill to see an animal that you have perhaps bred and trained and traveled 2 000 miles with and you put them into a competition and they perform flawlessly i'll let you know no i love it oftentimes when i do really well at the top dog trials it's still not a flawless performance but it is a thrill it's wonderful it keeps us going back it doesn't make any financial sense we just do it because we're hooked how do you reward the dog allow them to go keep working that's all they want and so many times after you finish a run you try and call your dog over and pet it and it is focused on the sheep or the cows that's it just let me have him dad let me have him mom take another step yes he's going in a big long loop here because he doesn't want to get them running i don't i don't want him to run if he ran my livestock around they would lose weight so i want him to come in and see how he gears down when he's beginning to get to the first couple of steps that's what you want nice and easy just get them going quietly don't run them around verbal commands are they universal would would a verbal command in montana be the same as it is in virginia there are some slight variations if i want the dog to move in a counterclockwise motion what will i say way to me way to me okay and if i want it to go in a clockwise motion come by some people say go by okay if the flock is across the field and i want the dog to go bring the flock to me what would i say you could use either way to me or come by so regardless of the direction it still means go out and get the flock and bring them to me right all right if i want you to freeze hold the flock right where you are i would say lie down or give it the lie down whistle i accept a stand for my dog some people will accept a slow down so you'll you'll hear them say lie down and then the situation changes and they need to keep going or move a particular direction and so a person watching a dog trauma i go boy that's a terrible dog did you see it never did lie down but it was because that's how the trainer actually trained it explain how the whistle is used i use this to project the commands at a great distance a stern whistle means go faster a light whistle means easy as easy as you go everybody has different whistles my low whistle and i'll have a ding ding on that at the end of that because out west you can't hear a low whistle you know in the wind and so far away that that last one was a turn in there turn in i have to walk up he's just supposed to walk towards i'm not flying around a little way to me now i haven't given you the come by yet okay so here it is my come by starts high because i don't want the dog to confuse so one side starts low the other side starts high that's common with mothers we immediately went clockwise and brought them in and i'm going to get them opposite of each other come by is to is clockwise you know we have gloves that the red and green i was from the navy come by on the top of the glove and some shirts will come by on this sleeve and waited me on this list way to me okay okay come by the way to me port and starboard is there there you go here lie down and now i want the dog to go out and to gather the flock and bring it to me and i want it to go in a clockwise direction so what i'm going to say is come by and the dog is going to ignore my commands don't take that personally because i'm i'm not i'm not its master i'm not so go ahead and give that dog the command to go in a clockwise direction come by immediate response fascinating and it's going to go in a wide arc the dog is not to affect the sheep until it gets to the 12 o'clock point the balance point which is directly on the other side we're six o'clock dogs 12 o'clock it's driven to bring them in a straight line to us so you see he goes right and he goes left tuck in the right side the left side bring him straight we're going to ask him to to flank now so we're going to go counterclockwise to demonstrate counterclockwise is going to be way to me way to me way way walk up that's to walk directly towards and walk up okay and if i want to freeze everything put on the brakes lay down lie down lie down you really have total control over these animals yes with this valuable tool yes if i needed to take some of the income some of these back and doctor on them i could separate out so i don't have to take the whole flock to the barn if you wanted to separate the black one out just one animal that one can you do that it's actually why i keep black sheep so i i can't cheat lie down you lie down we lie down lie down grant grant here here you're here come look come by lie down lie down this grant come come come ah we're here good dog down grand salute lie down wait walk in this this is this good dog good dog easy la come on atta boy grand good boy good dog look at that i lie down look and that's amazing it you know it took two or three minutes to but you know and the big picture for a farmer that's right in competition we're not they're not allowed to touch them okay okay but on the farm so now he's going to put them back together yeah i asked him go back and get those yep can i purchase a border collie puppy and go on youtube and look for training videos and train that animal myself you really can hardly replace going and learning live probably the best investment you make is with the trainer yes yes i would say so and if you wanted to get in uh quickly buying a older dog that somebody else is retiring is a great way that way you can focus on your mistakes learning yourself while the dog takes care of you okay now i go out and i purchase a border collie puppy and i bring it to you to train how long is it going to be with you first off you wouldn't bring to me that border collie puppy until it is about 10 months to a year of age it needs to have physical maturity mental maturity before coming i would grill you on the way you need to raise that dog before it gets to me certain expectations because i don't want to have to spend my time undoing the bad habits that it may come up with well while rearing so i have a minimum of three months that customer or that client they're going to have a fully trained working dog it would depend on the dog not all dogs are capable of doing this um so some of them would blunk out and usually i can tell you within two weeks whether it is no longer economically feasible for your dog to be here are there good books or other resources that you might recommend for novices like myself who you know maybe just want to get into this as a as a lifestyle yes there are wonderful resources the united states border collie handlers association the united states border collie club and the american border collie association which is our registry all three of those have fabulous websites and ways for you to be able to to plug into those resources sticking with the border collie what's one thing about this breed that people don't know they are looking for something to do all the time and unfortunately a person who may get a border collie puppy and think it's going to make a great pet doesn't devote enough time to give it activity and keep it busy so the dog creates its own activity it might be moving the furniture rearranging the house gathering up all the children in the park or the cars so many of them chase cars because they're trying to control anything that moves that'll do that'll do so when we leave and all the work is done is the animal gonna come in your home this animal not that muddy animal that one would have to be hosed off and dried off completely before coming in my house but a lot of people do have their border collie their working dog as their pet that can be done okay in fact i think the working dog would make a better pet than the border collie that doesn't have the work right yeah they're hyperactive always trying to figure out something to do let's see how he responds he's good he's a friendly guy yeah i'm a dog person and you know that yeah right behind the ear that's it oh yes good massage now let's see if you'll listen to me try it go ahead come by come by give a shush and see what he does shh she knows my swisher in your shoes doesn't it susan rhodes farms in clark county virginia working dogs changed her life hurry hurry fun george george tell me about this dog this is my right hand man george he works with me every day here on the farm anything that needs to be moved or done he comes out and helps me with dupont was my first border collie i bought him to be a competitive obedience dog i had never dabbled in hurting didn't even know it existed in my contract with the woman that bred him she wanted him to go to livestock at least once to see if he had instinct because she didn't want to breed the instinct out of the dog and so when i took him to the sheep the glow in his eyes when he went around and laid down on the other side of the sheep it just said this is what we were meant to do so i became determined to get my own place and be able to compete you know at the bigger trials and on a national level and i moved out of a condominium to come live on 70 acres and work seven days a week because of a little dog named dupont so it sounds to me like you bought a virginia farm because of a dog yes for the dog so now you've been into it and you're now a professional trainer first of all tell me the distinction between a guardian dog and a herding dog um your herding dog moves livestock around his instinct is to to move the livestock and you just train him to move where you want to take them so that you know you can move from one field to another you can take them to food you can take them to water your guardian dogs live with the livestock and their job is to protect them the herding dog is going to work with the person the guardian dog is going to work on his own so would you necessarily have both dogs with my guardian dogs they have learned that my border collies can come in with the livestock when i'm here and that it's not a stranger you know that it's not going to hurt the livestock are there any cases where you shouldn't think about working dogs when a farmer goes to get a dog he needs to figure out pros and cons the dog can go get that livestock bring it to him but he's going to have to also know that when he's not working the dog the dog needs to either be supervised trained to stay away from you know the rest of the livestock or have his own you know kennel to be put in that would be the thing is is he going to be able to give the dog enough work or is the dog going to become a problem when he is doing something else besides working the livestock back up to the farmers who are considering getting their very first working dog where do they go are you buying this animal online are you looking at trainers online my suggestion would be to ask around at your feed store they're going to know who owns what and find yourself a reputable breeder if you want to start with a young dog but when you start with the young dog you're going to have to go to someone like myself or a few other people that will train you to train your dog another way you might go is to buy a train dog and again you can uh just talk to your local feed store and place like that that know who's got dogs for sale and who's training them and selling them um because it's not intuitive it's not the you know when you go out to train the dog the dog's idea of what's right and yours are probably two different things so a trained dog is not a bad thing to have tell me about border collies i have heard that they are one of the most intelligent animals on the planet i think they are um they act probably you could trade them to the words of a four-year-old they can you know they learn their directionals they learn to work with whistles um sometimes with the older dogs you go out there they know what to do probably as well as i do that they don't need my directions what would you want farmers to know who have never owned a working dog what's what's the most important thing that they should know that they can make your life a whole lot easier they can go over acres to where you cannot see the dog once they learn their job and get together your livestock and bring it in a good dog will get their stragglers i mean they'll bring every one of those uh sheep or cows whatever it may be to your feet tell me the story of how you met tom i met him at a sheepdog trial and just uh run into him there all the time and come to find out he lived just down he's 45 minutes from me we became friends and he comes out and helps me with trials and he works with my niece and helps her train her dog lie down right there let him hey come how do you use border collies on your farm well everything i do is stock i do at dogs i don't have to go get anything the dog does that and if i go out in the field i want two or three sheep i don't take 40 or 50 to the barn to get them i take what i want this to me shows the value good herding dog because i have seen cattlemen chasing their own cows their own animals and the cow is going to react in 18 different ways sometimes go through a fence these these animals are not agitated nope the dog is being very kind to them if she has to she can get in and be more forceful but the goal is to to get them to think it's their idea of where they're going but tom is managing this 50 yards away yep and he's you know i've seen him in trials do it much further away i got the border collision 77. they're affection dogs they bring everything to you then you've got to teach them to drive away from me because they don't want to do that now the australian shepherd in the hills they're driving dogs they want to drive everything away from you but they do too much barking and biting so do you train your dogs or do you have them trained by someone else i don't know anybody could try to dog for me i know a lot of good trainers but they couldn't train one for me and why is that because they don't train like a dog like i do you remind me tom that every farm in virginia is different oh yeah and everybody knowing them farms are different and every dog has to meet different expectations oh yeah now they're not going to want to go into this pen because it looks like a trap it'd be similar to loading them onto a truck okay that's going to be a challenge yeah it is that's going to be a squeeze and this takes a good dog and a good livestock person and that's where tom's got all those years of experience where he can read those cows and know basically what they're going to do before they know what they're going to do and there's going to be some teamwork here probably when you see tom moving a little bit he's got to work his side while chris works her side and you'll see all the patients in the world and the trick is to not put your dog in a position that it can't get away from the cows here we go we very rarely ask them to go between a fence and a cow that you know that they can't get away i noticed tom there hadn't even broke a sweat no and that's the beauty of the dog he makes it look easy and it's not so tom farmer comes to you and says you know i've bought a piece of ground and and i want to have a flock of sheep and i want to have a working dog what do i do first you watch it work and if it don't work like you want it well then you look at another one all the old dogs are different even dogs within the same breed you can take a litter of pups six or eight pups they're gonna be six or eight different ain't no two gonna be alike so you just gotta pick one that you like and if you like a dog you'll do more with it than if you have one that you don't like just like every farm is different oh yeah every working dog is different oh they all work different working dogs on virginia farms they work hard and they love their job you can't ask for a better partner on the farm [Music] 90 years ago the virginia farm bureau made our local farmers a promise to protect and preserve a way of life they work so hard to establish we want to keep virginia virginia anyone can be a farm bureau member and there's a local farm bureau in every county more information is at va farmbureau.org virginia soybean farmers are hard at work growing soybeans to produce products you use every day candles soaps even crayons can be made from soybeans remember when you buy soy you're helping to support american jobs the economy and our nation's energy security

Channel: VPM

Views: 97,637

Rating: 4.8463726 out of 5

Keywords: PBS, Harrisonburg, Virginia, dogs, working dogs, herding dogs, farm dogs, dogs with jobs, dogs on farm, dog training, farms, ranches, livestock, lambs, boarder collie, Sheep farm, Sheep hearding, Sheep, Sheep dog, sheep headers, austrialian shepherds, bearded collies, Kelby, dog commands, Dog Training, herding

Id: aXbH5K1vyiw

Length: 24min 50sec (1490 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2019