Herding Sheep with my Australian Cattle Dog

Today I went to a place that lets you take your dog to a to train it to herd sheep. I thought my dog would be a natural for it since its bred to herd cattle. There is a place here in Long Beach, Ca about 5 minutes from my house that has this very setup. I thought bitchen I am getting the ball throwing thing down with my dog pretty good now and she listens to me, let’s go chase a bunch of sheep around and see how she does with that.

Here is a video clip of me and my dog learning how to herd sheep.

Australian Cattle Dog has befriended you, they are a friend for life….but that friendship must often be earned. Australian Cattle Dog are often referred to by their owners as “velcro” or “shadow” dogs…because wherever you go, there they are!
As my health concerns continue to rise, fitness is no longer considered a fad; it is considered a way of life. I am no exception to that rule by any means. I am fat, overweight and as I found out today very out of shape. Smoking sure doesn’t help my stamina and not doing any exercise sure isn’t helping either. I have found the need to start doing some exercise and I want to do it in a fun way I just hate going to the gym.

The deal is you pay $30 and they let you bring you and your dog out with a trainer and they give you two runs and getting your dog to run the sheep. The basic concept is that you get yourself in front of the sheep with the trainer and you try to get your dog behind them to herd the sheep towards you. The sheep are trained to follow the humans around and all you have to do is get your dog to pick up the rear and keep them moving. Well one thing I didn’t realize is that you need to be walking and running backwards the whole time so you have the sheep looking and coming towards you and you can see what the dog is doing and keep her off of your heels.

I was pretty excited about bonding this way with my dog and what a great way to get some exercise for myself. Well what I learned is that you are pretty much running backwards around the corral the whole time because once your dog starts nipping and the sheep’s heels there is no more walking around the sheep are trying to run you over and your in thick dirt which eventually led to me falling on my ass once but I am proud to say that I didn’t let a sheep knock me over because that also happened to one of the other people that were out there to do training. This was one of the best experiences I have had in my life, my untrained cattle dog when not being distracted had a few moments when it went into natural mode and we were working as a team. Of course this scenario only played out about 5% of the time but that 5% is going to get me back next Thursday to see if we can make some improvements.

So basically it was a big mess I was trying to run backwards, get my dog off my heels and on to the sheep’s heels which is no easy task. We did manage to get the sheep around the course the 1^st time with the help of the trainer and the second time my dog Bonnie wasn’t interested in the course so much so the trainer told me to just get in the with the sheep and try and make it fun for her. So here I am running full speed backwards, trying to give me dog commands all while not trying to fall down or get run over by sheep.

When I finished the second time I couldn’t even finish up properly I felt like I was going to pass out I was exhausted and ready for some water. I gave my dog praise and we both had a great time. With a little work I think we are going to have to take the I out of Louie and the I out of Bonnie and become a team because that is what it is all about.

Original here