got some sheep - Page 5

If I could go to the NS, I'd try to take a dog for the test.

Zenit, you both will have fun! That's what its about for the dogs, doing something they enjoy and you both can share together.

One of my stupid questions due to my lack of English:
What´s the difference between "tending" and "herding" ?
And is our German HGH trial tending or herding in your language?
I had the pleasure to be a spectator at our National HGH once - I admire the working abilities of these dogs...

It's not a stupid question, others don't know the difference, too.

http://leerburg.com/hgh.htm
American Controversy over German Sheep Herding "The HGH"


Over the past several years there has been a growing interest in a new form of sheep dog training called the "Tending Style" or the HGH. In this work German Shepherd dogs are used to herd sheep.

There is a controversy that has developed over the dog's biting sheep. I would like to express my viewpoint on this subject which I happen to share with Karl Fuller and the SV in Germany.

To better understand the necessity of the sheep occasionally getting bit you have to understand the origins and purpose of the work.

The Tending Style was developed in Germany and other European countries where there are few fences. Shepherds allowed their sheep to graze one pasture while keeping the flock out of the field next door.

We Americans are more familiar with the work that Border Collies do. This work with Collies was developed in countries where the sheep were kept in fenced pastures or unattended in very large open meadows. When the shepherds needed to gather their sheep, they would send Collies out to round the sheep up and drive the flock to where the shepherd wanted them to go.

Unlike work with Collies, German Shepherds never gather sheep into a flock. They never use what is called the "EYE" to control sheep and they are never used to cut sheep out of a flock.

In the Tending style the sheep are trained to come to the shepherd when he calls them. The sheep are trained to follow the shepherd when he leads the flock to a new pasture. The dogs only role is to act as a LIVING FENCE and a Policeman to keep the sheep within the borders that the shepherd establishes.

It is not easy for one or two dogs to control a large flock of sheep. In Germany the flocks I watched averaged between 300 and 800 sheep. The dogs are expected to keep these sheep out of vegetable gardens and fields of fresh plants as the flock passes by or grazes next door. This is a difficult thing to do if the sheep have had nothing to eat all night or if they have been eating dry stubble for the past two hours. The dog's only means of maintaining control is through gripping or biting the sheep.

This gripping is what some people are complaining about. What they don't understand is just how stubborn sheep can be and that the shepherd is going to have to pay for the damage his flock causes if it gets into a field that it is not supposed to be in. It doesn't take long for 300 sheep to do a great deal of damage.

The dogs are trained to only bite the wooly part of a sheep's body. They get strong corrections for biting legs or heads and for shaking their head when they bite. I just finished producing a training video with Karl Fuller in Germany. Karl has won the HGH National competition 7 times. In all the time I spent in the fields with Karl and his dog's, I never saw a dog seriously hurt a sheep

Now I understood the difference ! Thank you!
We "tend" our sheep...
Within your leerburg link there is embedded an old Reivision HGH video from 1986. Love it!

Glad that makes clear, Susie. Interesting the way the jobs change for the dogs with changing culture...here in the USA we don't need Tending. Except...we did used to let the herd of goats out ( only 25-30 animals) to go into the woods to browse on shrubs and low tree branches. My old gsd female would lay down and watch them. The goats never wandered with her there watching them, along with the human. Anyway, the work my dogs get to do is a combination of tending and herding, they must be adaptable.

Thank you for pointing out the 1986 hgh link. Ill look at it.

Herding can entail the gathering style herding (border collie) and the tending style herding (German shepherd and other sheepdogs). These are different styles of herding, depending on the sheep keeping culture and its environment. I don't see the point of reserving the term 'herding' for one of the two styles, but people can use language idiosyncratically. Important is what dogs and people do.

The GSD is bred from land races of tending herding dogs, and GSDs continue to herd in the tending style.

There is some overlap of tasks between the two styles such as bringing the flock into a pen.

Btw, years ago Karl Fuller pulled a good joke on Ed Frawley, the owner of Leerburg and author of the above cited text. Fuller told him that a good sheep dog has to kill one sheep each year. Frawley believed it and spread the word, and the HGH world was chuckling and let him believe it. Frawley has since understood that his leg was pulled. I only speed read the above text but saw that Frawley gets the grip wrong, grips are permitted on the neck, flanks and the back of legs. The latter is called 'Keulengriff' in German. Well, Frawley watched and he tried to understand. No one ever said it's easy.

That bit about 'killing a sheep a year' was in the complete text of which I posted the link for the Frawley article I posted in part.
Most dogs who tend, don't part, separate or shed...the gsd is is a versatile breed and if they have the inborn talent, can be used for those tasks.

The purpose for tending a flock is to prevent the sheep from grazing any area not permitted...to keep the flock in a designated grazing area.

' I don't see the point of reserving the term 'herding' for one of the two styles.'[ herding vs tending]

Because the training is very very different and not all dogs are suitable for both. One dog may have the temp for tending but not herding, as the degree of control is much greater in herding.

Living Fence is so right about there not being much clear difference in practice
between tending and herding; I'd bet that one fact is precisely why so much
confusion exists about who-calls-it-what.

I have known GSDs who could display quite a lot of 'eye', a la Border Collies;
watching the Farm's dogs trying to dominate our small group of Pygmy Goats !
Seriously though, seeing the many Working Sheepdogs (Border Collie type,
but not necessarily by birth) shepherding in the Welsh hills and other parts of
the UK, it is clear that the 'style' and the actions required depend ever so much
on the nature of the terrain, the numbers of sheep to be moved, and the temper-
ament of the sheep too. Most sheep in Wales for example are 'hefted' to a territory
and so do not stray over-far from where the farmer or shepherd expects to find
them; but a bit of 'gathering' is still necessary even then, cos "not very far" in wilder
bits of Wales can still be a good distance. And within that territory there are invariably
unfenced roads, and when you move sheep around - bring them in for shearing or

whatever - you want your dog to keep them from straying into the traffic. So the dogs

will keep sheep away from roads, even where there are no fields of crops to consider.
Driving a big flock away from falling into old mines and quarries, with which the

countryside is littered, is also necessary. This is far from the stereotype of 8 sheep in

a closed field with obstacles that our Sheepherding Trials and "One Man and His Dog"

competitions portray. Collies may generally be a bit better than GSDs at working

independently right away from their handlers, but I don't really see any reason why

Shepherds could not be trained and used to work sheep in these areas, in both 'styles' ?

Probably the lack of access for most handlers to big open spaces and large flocks of sheep

has as much to do with GSDs not being used, as whether the dogs would be able to do it.