By: The Urban Herder » A great post and the reason I tried herding

The Urban Herder » A great post and the reason I tried herding — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:27:57 +0000

[...] Here is a blog post from my instructor and Scot’s breeder, Terry Parrish on “A New Reason for Herding.” [...]

By: Barb Easton

Barb Easton — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:02:15 +0000

Herding commands do come in very handy when you live with a herding breed. My male GSD loves to hang out when the farrier is working on the horses. Horse hoof clippings make good chew toys but to have a 100 pound GSD under the horse waiting for treats can be rather annoying to the ferrier (not to mention dangerous for all involved). So I place him in a specific spot on the lawn and the ferrier throws pieces to him. If he gets up and tries to get closer I use “get outs” and flanks to place him back in the exact same spot each time. I don’t have to interupt the ferrier by letting go of the horse to physically place him back on his spot. I send him back to the same spot each time so that he is being obiedient to me instead of chosing his own place to be and gradually getting closer and closer to his target (the horse).
The “lay down” command is also very helpful with GSDs that like to race to the fence to bark at anything going by. One command from me no matter where I am on the property and he stops which then allows me to recall him without having to yell at him to get his attention off what ever is going by the fence.
He doesn’t have much ranch work to do at home so anytime I can use his herding commands at home to get him to be more compliant it pays off when we are actually working livestock.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:31:06 +0000

Great post, Terry! I’m sure this will help a lot of people trying to figure out how to balance having a pet with also having a keen herding dog with a strong instinct.

Comments on: New Reason for Herding

By: The Urban Herder » A great post and the reason I tried herding

By: Barb Easton

By: Tim