Sheep and Goats

Last week, we had another few days of herding practice, and then a fun day for interested dogs and owners.

I took Chance, who is always thrilled to have an excuse to run after and bark at anything, and Kate, one of my smooth girls.  Kate was sent over to me from the US when she was about three years of age, after having already gained a herding title there, and having produced one litter of puppies, most of whom achieved herding titles by the time they were a year or so old.

Kate is a gentle soul, and it took her quite a while to really adjust to being in a new home.  She wasn’t sure where she fit into this new pack, and why her life was so different.  She was sent over pregnant, and had little time to adjust before having a litter of nine lovely puppies.  She was an excellent mother, but the demands of a family didn’t give her a lot of opportunity to think about her new surroundings.

So it has been at least three years or more since Kate worked with sheep, and I thought I would take her along and see what she thought about going back to work.  And, of course, I had to see if she and I could understand one another and work together.

When we first got to the farm, she was confused and suspicious – why had we come to this new place?  Then she spotted the sheep, and immediately perked up.  This was something that was familiar!  Although she and I were not too well attuned as to how she was supposed to respond to my commands, she was definitely interested, despite her doubts about the new place, in moving those sheep.

There are quite a lot of different breeds of sheep in the world, and the ones we have here are what the professional herders would call “heavy” sheep.  They are a breed called Awasi, are quite large with a lot of rather long and very thick wool, and a very big, fat, heavy tail.  They are very passive sheep; it takes a lot to get them to move.  In the conditions of this country, there are no large lush green fields for them to graze in.  Rather, there are rocky trails with scarce vegetation here and there, and they just keep walking and eating.  One doesn’t run much around here – it uses too much energy, and using energy means that you need more food, it uses too much water, and water here is certainly not plentiful, and it can be dangerous on some of those steep and slippery tracks.  So these sheep walk, and sometimes may break into a rather heavy and clumsy jog.  When it is hot and sunny, as in midday, they all stand in a tight group with their heads down, sheltered in the shade cast by their big bodies.  If something really annoys them, they are likely to turn around and butt with their heads – and they do have tough skulls.

Kate did try her best to get these sheep to move to where I wanted them.  But despite her barking, running at them, staring them in the face, and other actions, they just stood there with their heads in the shade, totally uninterested. And Kate is a gentle and polite dog – no way was she going to grab them or do anything rough.

Chance was a different story.  Chance is a tough girl and very determined, and the more they tried to ignore her, the more pushy she got.  She had no qualms about shoving them hard with her nose, or grabbing a mouthful of wool and jerking them around.  Her techniques were quite effective, she did get those woolies to move.

But then the fun day came around.  And on the fun day, we didn’t have sheep to work with, we had goats.

These were young goats of a native breed, rather small, and were very accustomed to dogs, the guy who keeps them also breeds border collies.  There were a number of dogs that were in turn to have a try at taking these goats around a simple herding course.  The goats were not easy to work with; they were much more prepared to split up with each one going in another direction, and to come up and stand pressed against the legs of the shepherd and start to eat his shirt.  (One of them managed to eat the wire of the microphone of the announcer…)

Then it was Kate’s turn and we came into the field. She took a look at these animals moving actively around and her eyes lit up!  With my first command, she took off after them in total joy!  They were moving!  They were running!  They were splitting up!  She dashed after the strays and happily brought them back and expertly herded them after me across the field.  This was how sheep should behave – even if they did look and smell a bit strange…

Kate was very reluctant to end her turn.

Now it was time for Chance to show what she could do. I have to admit that I was a bit worried – Chance had no qualms about grabbing sheep, and if she grabbed these goats, that didn’t have the protection of that thick long fleece, she could hurt them.

Chance came in and looked at the goats, and calmly started running around them, at a much bigger distance than she kept from sheep.  She approached them quietly and gently, hardly barking at all, and herded them without touching them or even, most of the time, getting very close to them.  She had immediately understood that these needed to be handled in a different way than the sheep – for goats, she needed to be gentle.  I was so proud of her!

I am consistently amazed at the ability of our dogs to understand new situations…!

Kate and Chance are impatiently waiting for the next time we can go to work with stock.

Manners

I was brought up by a mother who insisted that we grow up to be pleasant and cultured people (remember when things like that were important?) – and on the top of her list for that was manners.

Dogs naturally have good manners.  Puppies know that they have to be polite to adults, to say “please” in doggy language when asking for something, to very, very clearly say “I’m sorry” if they have done something to offend, and certainly to give a “thank you” tail wag.  Youngsters know that the adults have right of way and first choice of anything that is important, and woe to the puppy that ignores the rules.  Adults get respect, and that means no pushing or shoving in front of them, no grabbing things or demanding access or attention – definitely a breach of manners and totally unacceptable. 

Dogs respect one another’s personal space, and follow a well defined pattern of behavior when meeting each other.  There is no rushing up and taking unwelcome liberties, unless you are prepared to take the consequences.  And a dog never ignores another dog – if someone else is there, he has the right to be acknowledged.

 A dog in the hunting field will respect his partner in the hunt, standing behind him at the point,  and never rushing ahead to frighten off his birds.  A sheepdog will honor his work partner’s right to run forward first, if that is what the shepherd requires, and will never interfere. 

Our dogs start their lives with us with a very good basic knowledge of manners, which they have learned from their mothers and litter mates.  And then they come to live with us…

We push our way into line when it is not our turn.  We drive our cars on the highway as if there is no one else there, weaving back and forth through the lanes with the assurance that no one else has the right of way but us.  We honk our horns at the slightest provocation or non-provocation.  We shout when we don’t get our own way – immediately!  Our children are positive that nothing counts but their own opinion, and that they must be served first.   We talk on our cell phones, ignoring the fact that there are real people there who need attention.  And…

We wonder why our dogs don’t have manners. 

One can ask – who is really the animal…?



"Hey kids, behave!!!"




"Daddy, please come and play!"



Navigation

There are a lot of famous stories about dogs that have found their way home, or even to less familiar locations, over great distances and overcoming tremendous difficulties on the way.  Not all dogs have such a well developed sense of orientation and the ability to navigate so well from place to place, but all of them have it to a certain extent – certainly much better than mine…!

Just over the last few years, I know of a few Canaans that have proven their abilities.  One dog (who happens to be Habibi’s grand-uncle) was given to a new home when he was about two.  He had spent his entire life, until then, in one place, and had never even been for a car ride, and suddenly he was loaded into the car and transported about 50 kilometers to a totally unfamiliar area with new and unknown people.  He was tied out on a cable and his beloved owners left him.

Well, this definitely was not a situation that he was willing to accept.  Like any good Canaan, it didn’t take him long to figure out how to get free of his collar, and he disappeared.  The new owners called to tell his former owner that the dog was gone, they drove around looking for him, but there were no signs of Pashosh anywhere.

Two weeks later, a very thin and sore-footed Pashosh was found sitting on his first owner’s doorstep.  It had taken him time – it was a long way, and there were several major highways in the way that he would have had to cross – but he got there.  Pashosh, after demonstrating his devotion and navigation skills, was welcomed home and no further attempts were made to rehome him.

The second case was Indi, a four year old female who was placed in a new home after her elderly owner passed away.  She adjusted well and was very happy – until on one of the national holidays, fireworks were set off in the vicinity.  Many dogs every year go into a panic from fireworks, and this is what happened to Indi.  She took off and disappeared.  Her owner, who was very attached to her, even though she had only been with him for a few months, did everything possible to try and find her, with no luck.  No one had seen her, she had not been reported to the veterinary services, she was just gone.

When I thought about it, what occurred to me was that she would try to go home to her old home.  It was only about thirty kilometers away.  I suggested this, and her owner went to look, but didn’t find her.

After three and a half weeks, a tired and dirty Indi came home to her new home.  Subsequently, with some bits of information that we obtained, what seemed to have happened was that she did indeed go back to her old home – but there she found strangers living in the house, and not her beloved owner.  Seeing that this was no longer the home she had loved, she turned around and found her way back to her new home, where she had been quite happy. 

Habibi certainly shows a great sense of orientation and the ability to navigate when we are working in the field.  He always knows which way to go to get back to the road we came in on, or to get back to the car, even if we have been walking for hours and he has been doing nose work to find hidden people for his SAR practices.  He always knows where he is.

I am not so good at this, especially if it is a matter of getting around in town, in all sorts of crowded and unfamiliar streets, with traffic and one way streets that somehow seem to change from day to day.  I try to avoid going into town as much as possible, but sometimes it can’t be avoided.

So now I have a GPS.  I always thought that Israel, being such a small place, would be no problem to navigate in, and that a GPS here was silly.  But my daughter got a new one and gave me her older model.  Well, if you get something for free…!

I rarely use it.  But once in a while, when I have to find some obscure address in town, or some tiny little unobtrusive turnoff somewhere in the country, I turn it on.

My GPS is female, and she behaves like a real bitch. I can’t help it if I am navigationally challenged.  I know she has told me to turn in 23 and a half meters, but I don’t see a place to turn.  And then she starts to shout at me, “Turn now! Turn now!”  Well, it is too late, I have missed it, and then in a totally scornful and disgusted tone, she tells me, “Calculating a new route…”  Like, how stupid can you be, and now you are putting me to extra work!

I have finally managed to figure out what the various symbols on the screen mean – but I am really supposed to be watching the road, not these little arrows moving around.  And they seem often to be moving in the opposite direction from the way I am driving.  I know they are moving according to compass directions – but I am not driving according to compass directions!

One day, I was trying to get to a place in the country, where I had never been before, and I really didn’t know the way.  I was counting on GPS (no, I haven’t given her a name, if I did, it would be a very impolite one) to show me.  As we got to the general area, she went silent and the screen just showed a blank empty field.  Well, it seems that the road to my destination was a new one, which she didn’t even know existed – so no directions.  After driving around in circles for some time, I finally found my goal, but with no help from the bitch.

I really think that Habibi should learn to drive – he would do much better than me at navigation.