Herding is something that has always intrested me. It is something that I would REALLY like to get Cindy involved in, but I know I do not have the time for it right now.

In order for your dog to be sucessful in the herding world, you have to be serious about it. Once you start you have to be regular and consistant. It is not fair to the dog or the livestock to just make it a "every once and a while" type of thing.

First of that is teasing your dog. Your dog will only get more excited if it only gets to work every now and then. This will cause stress to the dog, livestock, and yourself. No one wants to see their dog about to run a herd of sheep through the fence!

You also need to make sure that you find a good trainer. One that has lots of experience with working dogs. You want one thats been around the block a few times, and probably does some herding daily as part of their chores. You want to make sure that you are getting good instruction, because if you don't it can cause some serious problems.

There are so many aspects to herding. You have to know your dog as well as the livestock, not to mention a small dictionary of terms, and then you have to teach them all to your dog and keep them straight yourself! Herding is no easy task and should not be taken lightly. Reading a few good herding books, and some on livestock before you even begin looking for a trainer is a good idea.

Because I have such limited experience with herding (I have never even been to a herding trial) I cannot go into detail like I have with some of the other activities. So I am going to provide a good sized list of good links. All links open in a new window.


Glossary of Herding Terms

Herding on the Web

The Herding Page

The International Sheep Dog Society

Sheepdog-L

The Sheep Game

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