got some sheep - Page 2

Corgies and border collies are used regularly for herding work, for cattle and sheep. ( I had a Corgie given to me in the late 70's that was city raised, never saw a hoofed animal in her life, that I used to work our roping steers through the chutes when they got jammed up and needed the short dog ducking under fences to get the steers moving)

 However, the GSD is seldom used for working livestock in the USA...that's why I wanted to post this. It takes money and work long term for a project not everyone has the space for. (building secure place for the sheep to prevent coyote predation, spent a lot buying the sheep after finally finding some young healthy ones available, spent an hour washing the van and crates after offloading).

The German Shepherd Dog is supposed to be a herding dog, but unfortunately that trait is so disregarded in the selection of breeding dogs, that the breed is seldom used for jobs such as seeing eye.....a job that put the the dog into the hearts of the public.

Border collies and corgies and any other breed besides the GSD herding need their own thred, as this was not meant to be an all breed herding thred.
Because altho watching breeds like border Collies herding is a pleasure, it is not unusual or novel. Therefore, I ask they not be imposed onto this thred which is meant to be a reflection and emphasis of the dedication to the German Shepherd Dog as the versitile breed it was created to be. Thank you.

Joanro, I´d LOVE to have the ability to do this!
My dogs mostly have been out of IPO/showlines - their ancestors within at least 5 generations didn´t see one single sheep during their whole life...
My last male "escaped" when he was a little older than 18 months, running into a herd of Highland cattle - it was amazing, like a dance, a choreographie made for dog and cattle. I have never seen something like this before - a perfect symbiosis, perfection in movement, never trained, never expected.
I´wasn´t able to call him back for almost 40 minutes ( not proud of THAT part of the story ), and I´m still glad the farmer didn´t see this happen - he´d shot my young male for sure - but it was just beautiful, like a perfect dance, can´t describe it with other words.

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=2207228-warbonnet-etta-james

I have produced two GSD litters that had a ton of herding instinct .. they would use their eyes and body language to play and control their play mates and other animals. It was just hard wired into them. The mother (dam) of the litter is a half show female who is extremely athletic, fast, and high energy .. that's where the herding instinct came from.

Susie, I know exactly what you are saying. The instinct is there with many of the gsd, no matter what blood lines. As you said, they don't get the opportunity to Express the dormant genes for herding. What concerns me about the GSD breed, is that the emphasis for over the top prey drive is creating a breed basically in conflict with its drives/instincts. A herding breed during act of herding must have suppressed desire to culminate the controled prey behavior with biting. Without the ability to suppress or control the biting/killing instinct during herding, all that remains in the breed is a livestock killer...equals child, weak person biter. By no means are all my dogs born to herd, but some of them have the instinct, and as my verterinarian/border collie breeder told me, you can't train a dog to herd, but you can teach a herding dog control.

Bubba, seeing the instinct to herd, and keeping it in the breed through selection is what the gsd breed needs. There has been no emphasis for the trait in breeding selection for too long....herding instinct and ability is what is responsible for many of the desirable traits the breed has been known for.

Etta is very pretty.

Joanro, sorry you feel that way but you can't dictate who posts to a sheep herding thread and I for one hope others post. This is an International site and while it may be rare in the USA to have GSD's herding it may not be as rare elsewhere. More rare is the Corgi, there are many breeds that have there roots in herding but are no longer used or even needed for that job. So yes it is rare to see many other breeds doing what they were intended for, shame really.

I really hope other breed owners feel they can contribute to this herding thread and I would hope other members allow them without chasing them off as usually happens, thank you.

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly - few GSD's are successfully herding/tending sheep? If I got that straight, I'm not sure I'd agree with that. There are many GSD's that are worked successfully with sheep in AKC herding. Every month new titles are reported in "The Review" and I see quite a few new herding titles and herding instinct titles being awarded. Some owners don't work for titles, they do it for fun, so those figures are not representative of every GSD trained with sheep. Every year at the NS there is a very big herding trial held inconjunction.  There seems to me to be quite a few working their GSD's in herding venues.

If the point is that few actual  shepherds use GSD's since they prefer other breeds that might be true. I don't know. Kintzel still uses GSD's and there may be others. I would think that there aren't very many people in the US who have large flocks to tend.

Blitzen, take those same gsd and compete against border collies . gsd walk circles in a kennel, getting them to akc style "tend" is NOT herding, its tending. If you had any experience working dogs with hoofed stock you'd know the difference. 'Herding instinct' test is a joke, my fox terriers could pass it. Id like to see videos of all your gsd every month with 'tending' and 'instinct' 'titles' work goats. 

Guess you have tons of actual herding dogs down their in Tampa? So, ok, blitzen, gsd 'Herding' is so common place, ill post some pictures of some border collies herding, hope you can tell us id they are as good as all those great gsd 'tending' dogs of which you speak.

 

Mod edit, this is an All Breeds Pedigree Database and NOT a GSD website, thank you. mrdarcy (mod)

Read my post again, I revised it. 

Look, this was not intended to be a 'herding thred' . I said gsd are seldom used for actually working livestock, forget 'tending' large herds, that's not fesable in the USA on a regular basis. You can turn this in to a thred listing all the gsd owners you can find on Google who use gsd for herding.