You Herd It Here First
An inside look at herding dogs.
Welcome back, readers, to the blog that celebrates the professional and private lives of working dogs of all disciplines. I’m so glad you’re here! In this post, the name of the game is herding! I share with you excerpts from my conversation with Terry Parrish, who has been working with dogs to herd livestock for 35 years! She’s a dog trainer, dog handler, sheep trial judge, breeder, owner of Action K9 Sports in California and cofounder of American Herding Breed Association. She talks about how she got into herding and how the AHBA came to be, the differences between herding for trial and herding on a farm or ranch, and how challenging but rewarding it is to partner with a dog to herd.
You can hear the rest of this conversation by tuning into The Hero Beside Me Podcast, Episode 7.
Welcome, Terry!
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for joining us. Tell us a little about yourself and your relationship with dogs.
Well, dogs started out being my hobby, and rapidly became my vocation. Now, it’s a more- than- full-time job. I saw herding dogs when I was twelve years old. [I] went to a little trial up at UC Davis [at its] “Picnic Day.” I saw my first herding trial. I’d already been playing with dogs and training dogs from the time I was a little kid, but just obedience and tricks, nothing of any substance. And I fell madly in love. And I went home and I told my parents, “I want a border collie and I want to train herding dogs.” They laughed.
Fast forward [to] 15 years later. I lived at the beach in northern San Diego County, and I finally got a border collie. However, there are no sheep at the beach. And there was no one that I could even find who did herding. So, I did some obedience training with one of the more famous trainers who was very, very respected. She was an obedience trainer…and I made it very clear to her that, “I’m only here until the herding comes along.”
Finally, [I] went to [the] Del Mar Fair, and they had a little herding trial in the arena out there. And I was three months pregnant with my second child and horribly, horribly sick. So, I would have to leave the bleachers, puke, and go back and watch the dogs some more. But I did finally find people that were doing it. And so, I began doing it with my little border collie, but there were still no sheep. All we had were ducks. And this was in August, so it was very, very hot, and I would have to go all the way to Lakeside where the duck place was, and I lived, of course, at the beach, and it would be like 100˚ and 95˚and 105˚ — so it was always hot in Lakeside. And we would train dogs to work ducks.
And finally, somebody said, “I know where there’s some sheep!” And they were giant, 4H, FFA Suffolk sheep. I was, at that point, six and half months pregnant with my son, and I was out trying to help my dog learn how to work sheep with sheep that really hated dogs. But it was so exciting because I finally got to work sheep! Another person who was also involved with it at the time said, “Hey, I know somebody who’s got some land in San Marcos, and she said that we could get a little group of sheep and rent the place from her and have our own little sheep.”
So, we found this really great place on Twin Oaks Valley Road. The lady was the sweetest lady. And we went and got like, five sheep, and we started our own little co-op. In the meantime, what I rapidly began to realize was — there was no point. It was just for fun. Which is fine, but there was nothing goal-oriented for us to do because we don’t have farming and ranching and that, really, in Southern California. By that time, it was already starting to rapidly leave Southern California. And I had grown up in farm country, I’d grown up where it was more active. So, I really thought [that] what I needed to do was figure out a way to make this a sport that people could go and do little competitions and have fun. During this time, I was actually a business manager for a man who lived on the Kona coast of Hawaii. I was managing all his property, I was managing his business, I had two little kids, and I was still training these dogs — on ducks, mostly. I had ducks in my back yard and I’d take them to a school and train ducks. But I told him I was resigning and gave my notice and he said, “Well, what are you going to do?” And I said, “I’m going to set up a herding facility and I’m going to get people to start herding dogs.” And he goes, “Terry! Are you crazy? San Diego? Nobody needs herding dogs in San Diego!” And I said, “I will find a way.” Because I knew this was the future.
I put on the very first border collie trial, big trial, in Southern California. And I met Bill Whitman, who was the largest lease handler of San Pasqual Valley, and he introduced me to Ken Oliver, who had the biggest cattle ranch. And they gave me permission to put on a herding trial. And we put on the very first, big herding trial in Southern California. During that time, Ken and I became friends, and he needed somebody with a dog to run his cattle ranch. He had 200 head of replacements and 100 head of beef cattle. And I said, “Well, yippee ki -yay, I want to be a cowboy. Sure!” So, I went to work with him, and he set me up a way to do training of these dogs.
We started getting people who did not have border collies, who did not have Australian cattle dogs, who did not have Australian shepherds, starting to say, “Well, I have a sheltie! My dogs are supposed to herd; I have a German shepherd, my dog’s supposed to herd…I have this, and I have that…” And all these breeds are coming out. And the Sheltie Club came to me and said, “We want to start an organization that will sanction trials,”– sanctioning means they license them, so there’s credibility involved — “and we want you to design the courses.”
So, myself, Carol Nobel, Nancy Balmer, and Linda Rorem started the American Breed Herding Association. This was in 1986. Our goal was to get the AKC to recognize herding as a viable sport. So, we did our first AHBA trial, and it was just a few dogs, but it was a huge success and people just came out of the woodwork when they saw that we were doing this. Our goal was to get AKC to look at our program within five years. Within three years they knocked on our door and said, “Hey, that herding thing you’re doing over there? It looks pretty good.”
What happened is that now we have all kinds of dogs, and all they have to do is demonstrate that they have the ability to herd. They don’t have to be a special breed. I was involved in bringing the Rottweilers to the AKC herding, which I can tell you terrified me. Because when they first came to me and said, “Oh…Rottweilers used to help the Romans take the cattle over the Pyrenees Mountains — of course they’ll herd!” I said okay, but I was kind of scared — Rottweilers on sheep doesn’t sound like a good combination to me. But gosh, what a wonderful group of dogs and people — well-trained dogs, and the people were magnificent. And we were beating down the door of the AKC to consider letting the Rotties into herding…it took us probably four to five years…
Then, the door opened. Boxers said, “Hey! We want in, too!” And I went, “Boxers! Who lets boxers on sheep?” Well, guess what? Boxers are now in the herding program. The wonderful thing about the organization that we started, American Breed Herding Association, is that we realize that dogs should not be stereotyped by their breed. Really, what they’re capable of doing — that’s what should be recognized.
Describe the difference between herding trials and herding on a ranch.
Well, there’s not the precision on a ranch, and usually there’s a routine on a ranch. But the dogs also have to really think on their own with ranch work. I had to move 27 pair with me and two dogs one time, two and a half miles down a paved road, making sure they [didn’t] get in the neighbors’ yards. And…the youngest calf I was moving was five days old, and the others were anywhere from a month to two months of age, so I had a little stagger there. And my one cow dog had to stay with that one mom and that calf and keep her coming, while I was keeping the rest from running away. My other dog was out keeping them from taking off down the road. And I knew that dog would get that cow and that calf back to the pasture I was going to, and sure enough — took him a little while, I got 26 pair in the pasture and then I went back, and I didn’t have to go back very far, he was bringing her.
So, the difference is, they can use their mind and they know the job. Trialing is much more handler-oriented. The dogs kind of know the course — they know there’s a gather, they know there’s a drive, they know when we set up for a shed, and all that — but, they don’t know the field they’re going to be in. They don’t know the kind of sheep they’re going to have until they actually get there. Our outruns are a half a mile away, and the dog has to trust us when we say, “They’re out there!” And we have to tell them sometimes how far to go, but we get hit for that, point-wise. Dogs are supposed to that by themselves. But because there’s precision and perfection in trialing, it’s not just, “Go get her and bring her home,” it’s, “Gotta get those, now you gotta take them through those gates and you have to keep these over there, and now you gotta go around the post this way, and now you gotta go through those gates.” It’s precision. Trialing is like driving an RC car. That dog goes left, right, stop, walk straight, now go this way, now go that way — that fast.
Walk us through a trial. If I have never witnessed a trial, I know nothing — my only exposure to sheep trials is the movie Babe…
Okay, well let’s start with that, because that was more based on the border collie style of trialing, even though they kept it in a very small field. In a typical border collie trial, the size I was describing, the sheep are substantially far away. They’re anywhere from 350 to 400 yards to a half a mile away. There [are] usually five sheep. Generally speaking, the sheep are not “dog broke” — that means they don’t go, “Oh, there’s that dog, let’s go that way now,” they’re like, “Who are you? Are you a coyote? Let me kick your ass right now.” And that does happen. Sheep sometimes beat the crap out of a dog. It’s sad when that happens, but it does. The sheep also don’t like being in little groups. They’re used to being in a big group, and as soon as you isolate them into a small group, you get a different personality because they’re vulnerable now. It’s the big group that keeps them alive. The small group makes them vulnerable to death. So, the prey-predator relationship really kicks in.
What happens [is], the dog walks up and says, “You know I’m here, you better move.” And the sheep,“I don’t want to move! I want to go back to my buddies, I don’t want to be here by myself!” And the dog’s got to have the ability to communicate to those sheep, “You’re not going to get away from me, but I’m not going to hurt you. Go. But I’m not going to back down.”
The handler, our job at the post — remember, we’re really far away, sometimes you need binoculars to see what’s going on out there — our job is to tell the dog, “Now you need to go a little bit right, because the gates are to the left. Now straighten it out, straighten it out. Now go a little bit left because the gates went to the right.” And you’re telling the dog, literally, where to be to make sure those sheep are on the course that we’ve been given to run. And we’re judged on straight lines.
By the time the dog gets the sheep, usually, to the handler, the relationship between the dog and sheep [is] established, for good or for bad. It can be for bad. Then the dog has to begin taking those sheep away from you — again, straight — to another set of gates that are 100 to 150 yards away. And then they have to make a turn, and they have to go to another set of gates 100 to 150 yards away, straight line the whole way. Get all the sheep through the gates. Then they’ve got to come back and after the dog has worked for ten, twelve, fifteen minutes, keeping these measly beasts together, finally got them convinced they can’t get away, then you step in and you go, “Oh, by the way, dog, these three are going to leave, but we’re only going to keep these two.” And that’s the brilliance of the border collie, that they can do that. It’s the brilliance of these dogs that they can go, “Oh, okay. I know I’ve been keeping them together all this time, but now I know we’re going to split them up.” And they have to come and take control of just the ones you want, and then you have to put them in a pen, etc.
And that’s not the big trial, that’s just your typical trial.
What about the differences between the different animals they herd? You mentioned ducks.
Mmhmm. Ducks are fun.
Tell us about that.
To my mind, I’ve had all three animals — ducks, cattle sheep…I’ve had pigs, I’ve had goats, I’ve had all that — to me, working ducks is similar to working cattle.
Really!
With the exception that ducks stay together a little better than cows do, in general, but as far as how the dog has to work the pressure on the livestock, it’s very similar. Ducks don’t want to come to people. We don’t want cows to come to people, we want cows not to run over us. Sheep run to people, once they know. I could walk out there and call my sheep and they’d actually come.
What are the different strategies that you use for different flocks/herds?
Well, if you’re working very docile stock, your dog doesn’t have to be as quick to stand his ground or be super pushy. If you have sheep that are really flighty and light, the dog’s got to be a lot farther away. If you have sheep that are like, “We don’t care about you,” you have to be closer.
American cattle don’t flock very well, they don’t stay together, so the dog really has to work at keeping cows together…ducks want to stay together. But it has to do more with the flight zones on each animal. That’s the ticket when you’re working stock.
What’s a flight zone?
It’s the bubble around stock that makes them feel safe or not safe. It’s the fight-or- flight syndrome…if you have a dog that comes in really hard on a flight zone, that’s when you get panicky animals.
How does a dog know the job?
Training.
How much of it do you think is instinct?
Instinct is the motivator, but training is what makes them what they are. If they don’t have instinct and they don’t have drive, you cannot force a dog to herd. If they have bad instinct — and a lot of dogs do, they’re just lousy natural herding dogs, but [if] they will let you train them, they can be good herding dogs. But it all depends on their drive and trainability.
There are some breeds of dog that have demonstrably strong eye, and it’s usually border collies and kelpies — they are the two with the most eye. And that eye acts kind of like a pressure regulator. The dog actually feels the contact point with the sheep before the sheep even move.
Literally?
Uh huh. And so, what happens is that…if a dog has too much eye, they’ll lock up, they won’t move. If they don’t have enough eye, they don’t feel the pressure regulator and so they’ll get within that bubble to an extent that doesn’t make the sheep or the goats comfortable. The dog that has good eye uses the eye to steady things and keep the contact, but doesn’t stick up or get too pushy. And again, training is involved in that because I’ve trained a lot of dogs with strong eye, and you have to take the eye out of them, and I’ve trained a lot of dogs with loose eye, and I had to put eye in them. My rottweiler had eye. I had a rottweiler that had advanced herding titles, and she would get in front of her sheep, drop her head, and stare — just like my border collies. It cracked me up. So, you can do it. It’s not natural but you can show them how to use it and they do. But the dogs that have what you need just naturally make your life easier. That’s one more thing you don’t have to train. A dog that’s got balance, that’s a dog that knows exactly where to be to bring the sheep to you in the beginning. The dog that does that naturally, that’s just one more thing I don’t have to train. A dog that has a natural cast, a natural, big, wide flank around the livestock and knows when they’re outside that bubble and when they’re coming in, that’s just one more thing I don’t have to train…I like a dog with some eye. Most of my dogs have medium eye.
And what is eye?
Eye is the staring. They drop their head and they go, “Gotcha!” and they don’t look away. They’re staring at their animal.
Have you seen this sport have a positive influence in people’s lives?
Yes, absolutely…it makes them better [dog] owners, too, because one thing about herding…it’s the hardest thing you’re going to do. It’s hard because it’s an exact training protocol. Your dog must do what you say when you say it and not three minutes from now — it’s NOW. And if you can’t do that with your dog, if you can’t say “lay down,” and your dog lays down right then, you’ve got a problem. People don’t do that, and they get these dogs who get [into their brain] that, “Oh, there it is, I’ve got to go get it!” And they have no recall, they have no stop. This will put that on them. I’ve had numerous people tell me that coming here has saved [their] dog’s life. Why? The dog went to take off across the street and there was a car and they said, “Sit,” and their dog put [its] butt on the ground and so they would call me and [say], “Terry, this just saved my dog’s life.” So, yes, it does have a positive effect. It’s good exercise, too! I had one gal that was coming out and after a few months she called me and she [says], “I’ve lost 20lbs, I want come twice a week.” This is hard work! You run. Yesterday I did almost five miles just teaching people. I typically do four to six miles every teaching day. And the dogs get tired, which is even better.
Readers, after my conversation with Terry during which she insisted several times that training your dog for sheep herding trials was the hardest thing you could do as a handler, I decided to try it for myself. I went to her facility and took a lesson with my dog, Lucy, and I recorded it. You can hear the rest of my conversation with Terry and find out how Lucy and I fared at our first lesson on The Hero Beside Me Podcast, Episode 11.
Check out Terry’s work and get in touch with her at http://actionk9sports.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ActionK9Sports, YouTube, or Twitter.
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