Kerby the Herding Dog?
By Stephanie Keesey-Phelan, Ph.D., BCBA
When we brought Kerby, our miniature Australian Shepherd, home in April of 2021, I was excited for the opportunity to do all kinds of training that I hadn’t with my previous two dogs. In particular, I wanted to compete. I wanted to train my dog in a fun sport that we could love and bond over together and do so to a high level. And it wasn’t just any sport, I wanted to do agility with him. We started off with some basic puppy classes featuring Control Unleashed and socialization and then… life happened. Over the course of the next two years, it seemed like every time I was ready to sink my teeth into dog sports with Kerby, some major life event happened that resulted in everything but the necessities being put on hold.
Fast forward to 2023 and finally, finally, the time seemed right (and just in case, let’s add some superstitious behavior *knock on wood*). I was starting to research options for training classes, equipment, and various philosophical approaches to agility when I was invited on a trip to tour the countryside of Holland. What does this have to do with dog sports you might ask? Well one thing that the countryside of Holland has a lot of is sheep. As the trip went on, I relished getting to be outside on farms, surrounded by fresh air and animals. I wondered how I could capture more of this feeling in my everyday life and that is when I remembered about herding. I am not someone who can juggle multiple projects but I began asking the opinions of friends and family (and of course Ran!): Should Kerby do herding, or should Kerby do agility? Person after person confirmed: we should do herding. (Why did they feel this way? I have no idea, but I was really just looking for some validation and encouragement and I got it in spades!)
As a researcher, the task in front of me was clear if not easy: Learn everything I can about herding, find mentors and colleagues, and then do my best to teach and learn with Kerby.
Step 1a: Learn everything I can about herding: The sheep
If you’re going to do herding, there is one really important step that can’t be skipped: you have to learn everything you can about livestock (aka “stock”). With two sisters who work with horses for a living, I am very familiar with a barn environment, so that didn’t feel too overwhelming for me. And in college I had the unique experience of being tasked with training a sheep for an animal behavior class (see evidence below). I am by no means an expert, far far from it. But I wasn’t intimidated at the idea of being around stock and that felt like a strong starting point.
Finding sheep was going to be the bigger challenge. If you’ll allow me an aside, every summer my husband and I sit around asking ourselves “who do we know who has a pool?” and every summer we can’t think of anyone. I was very surprised when I asked myself: “Who do we know who has a farm?” and then “who do we know who has sheep?” to find that there are more people in my life with sheeps and farms than there are pools. Who would’ve thought? After all, it’s one thing to know about sheep, it's something else completely to have experience with sheep. So one of my first tasks on this journey will be to identify places to go to spend more time with sheep.
Step 1b: Learn everything I can about herding: The herding part
If you know about our values and ethics at DBI, then you won’t be surprised to read that one of the most important things to me from the start was training using positive reinforcement and avoiding as much as possible if not eliminating the use of aversive control (i.e., negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment) from my training plans. I reached out to two farms nearby that offered sheepdog training to inquire about their programs. I let them know about my background in dog behavior but was quick to point out my lack of practical experience or knowledge about herding. When the topic of methodology came up. Here are some of the responses I received:
“...there is no such thing as pure positive in herding.”
“ There are other lives at stake, and it is dangerous for the handler at times as well. Corrections, appropriate ones, are expected to teach the dog what is not acceptable vs letting them try a bunch of stuff until they get a reward marker.”
“Our training involves all 4 quadrants of operant conditioning.”
One trainer suggested that I could do it all positively but it wouldn’t be effective for a working dog or a competition dog and that it would be:
“...not as fulfilling for dogs with strong instincts, but most Aussies don’t have strong instincts to begin with.”
These were not the responses I was hoping for. I am the first to admit that I have heaps to learn when it comes to herding and I am not naive to the safety concerns that come up. I respect the knowledge of those who have experience when it comes to things that I do not as first and foremost I want to avoid putting anyone, my dog, the livestock, or myself in danger. That being said, as a crossover trainer myself and with a background in behavior analysis, I am intimately familiar with the fallout, the negative side effects, of aversive control. Thus my first maxim of herding: I will tackle this project consistently with my values and ethics or I won’t do it at all. Thus began Step 2: Find mentors and colleagues (note I am in no way done with Step 1, just multitasking!).
Step 2: Find mentors and colleagues
I am someone who loves to read. Books and articles are often a first stop for me when it comes to learning something new. In the case of herding, there was one resource that was recommended again and again: Barbara Buchmayer’s Positive Herding 101: Dog Friendly Training. It turns out that this is the only book on the market that tackles herding from a positive reinforcement-based perspective. Although I’m not finished reading the book (book review pending? Let us know in the comments if you’d like a book review on this one!) I have loved the approach that is recommended: Teach the component skills away from stock, build engagement around stock, and then bring the component skills to stock in controlled, thoughtfully designed training sessions. I joined the associated facebook group for positive herding and signed up for a clinic that Barbara will be holding in the fall.
I am a big proponent of telling people about one’s big plans. You never know what sorts of advice or resources might pop up and in this regard Ran has been my biggest cheerleader. Ran pointed me in the direction of two incredible colleagues who were doing herding. These individuals have been incredibly generous with their time (and in one case farm and stock!) answering my questions, nerding out with me about the analysis of herding behaviors, and pointing me in the direction of even more resources to dig into!
Step 3: Do my best to teach and learn with Kerby
Here is the part where imposter syndrome and nerves began to creep in. It’s one thing to know about something and another thing entirely to do something. Fortunately with the Positive Herding 101 system, there is a very low barrier to entry. The first thing to do is shore up our obedience skills including: sit, down, stand, heel, and recall. Kerby has a good foundation for some of these and so my first task has been to assess where he is with each of these repertoires. I’m asking myself questions like:
What is his current latency to engage in each skill (e.g., how quickly does he sit when I say “sit”?)
How long can he maintain each behavior?
Under what conditions can he maintain each behavior (e.g., what kinds of distractions can be present and he’ll still engage in the behavior? What kinds of distractions result in him not engaging in the behavior?)
Where are the gaps between what he can do now and what I want him to do?
The answers to these questions helped me formulate our training plan for each of these skills. I have written down my plan and am taking data on our progress, an effortful but important step.
Now what?
This is the exciting part! This is the part where I dig in. As I mentioned above, the learning everything parts of this process will be ongoing, we never (should) stop learning! So that’s what I intend to do, I’ll keep reading and watching what I can find online and in print, I’ll keep identifying mentors and colleagues to learn with and from, and I’ll put it all together in a plan that I’ll try to implement with Kerby. The goal as in all things is to train for joy. So that and my commitment to my values and ethics will be my guideposts for this endeavor.
And the last thing is, because I’m so new at both herding and at any type of real competition in dog sports, I am going to document as much as I can. I like to have written records of the things I do and writing helps me understand and process my experiences. I hope it will be of interest to you too, whether or not you want to explore the world of herding, there’s always more we can learn about behavior.
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