Our subject

(We’re both going to contribute to this post, since the experience was quite different inside and outside the pen. BTW, some of these photos link to our Flickr page, which means that you can see bigger versions by clicking on them, then clicking on the “All Sizes” tag above the photo.)

This morning we hustled the family into the car and drove to a farm an hour outside of Toronto to throw Photon in a pen with sheep. This is a test to see if she has any “herding instinct”.

The procedure is: Dog, owner (in our case, Laura) and shepherd/instructor go into the pen with four sheep. Owner tries to keep the sheep between her and dog by a lot of running around the sheep! Hopefully at some point the dog gets the idea to run after the sheep and exhibit herding behaviours of chasing, circling and wearing (going back and forth to keep the herd together).

The herdees

The session was like old home week for Stoverly Aussies: Photon’s breeder, Sue, was there with several of her young dogs; James and Lori were there with Cobalt and Denim; at least half a dozen other mini aussies and their owners were there as well.

The gang’s all here!

“Um…Photon…the sheep…”

For the first few minutes of her test Photon paid no attention to the sheep, and not much to Laura. She spent a lot of time sniffing around the pen’s perimeter, or nibbling on sheep poop. (Photon had refused to eat her breakfast, knowing something was going on before we left, so she was starving when we got there.) Laura: It was a bit dispiriting, running after the sheep like a loon while my dog was ignoring us completely (the thought going through my head: Great, with a crowd watching Photon will be the only dog this morning to fail!).

We’re now thinking that, aside from confidence, part of it might be that the combination of two years of obedience training and being with her primary trainer meant she wanted to stay on her best behaviour, so she just mentally tried to disengage from the sheep.

Photon: “Wait a second…”

After a few minutes Photon started getting the idea. She started chasing after the sheep, and circling around them to gather the herd. The behaviour came in bursts, short at first, as though she was testing how Laura would feel about it, or was awakening an old instinctual muscle.

“Step lively now!”

She wasn’t consistent. But over course of the 10 or 15 minutes she went from being a dog that didn’t seem to know why she was there, to being a dog who wanted to keep those sheep just-so.

Photon shows a bit of teeth and circles to keep the sheep together

Even better, when one sheep split off from its flock Photon would run after the singleton, trying to move it back.

“Get back in the flock, straggler!”

What are ewe looking at?

Laura didn’t get to see too much of this since she had to keep moving around the sheep away from Photon. But those were the times where Photon’s quick instincts really shone: as soon as one sheep broke off from the herd, she was on it, driving it back.

“What did I say about stragglers?!”

“I could get used to this!”

At the end of the test Photon received an evaluation sheet (comment at bottom: “Took a while for her to kick in, but she did gather sheep & fetch them — just lacks a little confidence”) and a spiffy certificate showing that she’s Herding Instinct Certified and can actually list the initials HIC after her name, were we so inclined.

Addendum: The following quote is from the book Herding Dogs: Progressive Training by Vergil S. Holland, which we think pretty much describes Photon to a tee:

Problems that may occur during your dog’s introduction to stock

Dog does not seem interested/does not “turn on”: Some breeds, particularly if they have had a lot of obedience training, may be reluctant to leave the handler or are not sure that this is really something that they should be doing! If you discourage them at all during their initial encounters with stock, it is as if they say, “I knew this was too much fun to be right. I’d rather please my master than obey my instincts, so I just won’t work stock!” … You may have to get right up on the sheep and pat them (which I was told to do!—L) to encourage the dog to get close to them…. Dogs who have been well trained in Obedience may need more help in beginning to focus on the sheep instead of solely on the handler.

Basically, she’s overeducated! 🙂

aka

My Owners Filed Their Taxes But I’m the One That Got Otter-ded

Dateline, 11:30 Saturday evening, Georgian Bay. Photon is out on the darkened beach for a quick pee before bed, Peter at the base of the steps of the deck. As Photon starts her return, a sleek black blur darts across the beach, making a break for its home in the far rocks. Photon, being a herding dog, immediately swerves and accelerates to intercept, heading into the darkness. Silence. Peter calls Photon two or three times. Then back into the light slinks Photon, slower and decidedly less chipper, smacking her lips as she starts to foam at the mouth…and smelly.

I knew she’d been hit, and I immediately assumed skunk, but it wasn’t long before I was started to doubt it. A skunk had hit our the side of our house a few years ago and the immediate drift from that hit me like a truck, stinging my eyes and lungs from a room away. The smell on Photon wasn’t “skunk classic” (it was more like pure burnt rubber), and Photon was still standing after getting blasted in the mouth.

Laura and my parents and I all went into high gear. Laura got the deskunking recipe—not tomato juice!—and I did my best to scrub her down, though our mix didn’t have much hydrogen peroxide, and it was old to boot. Luckily, it wasn’t critical, as the smell wasn’t nearly as bad as a skunk. It dissipated quickly outside (though it did linger in parts of the cottage for a while).

As to what it was, we have some river otters living in the rocks near our beach, and there isn’t much doubt that it was one of them. They’re in the Mustelid family (weasels, ferrets, wolverines, minks, badgers, etc.) and all of that family, except for sea otters (I have learned in the past 24 hours), have scent glands. River otters only use them in situations of anger or fear. And they’re nocturnal. Proximity, means and motive. Case closed.

It made for a quieter dog for the rest of the weekend, though I don’t think Photon learned any big life lessons. But for us, it was a big reminder to use a leash at night, and stock up on the H₂O₂ for next time.