The Dog Behavior Institute Blog
Kerby the Herding Dog: In Which We Go “Sheeping”
It is appalling to me that I am just now sitting down to compose my thoughts on Kerby’s first clinic that happened last September! It is now eleven months later and we’ve continued to do so much. The title of this blog post was going to be “In which we go to a herding clinic” but at a conference I attended this summer where I met another sheep herding enthusiast, I was informed of the very technical term of “sheeping” as shorthand for herding sheep and I am officially adopting it :) (don’t worry, I will still title these posts “Kerby the herding dog” because “Kerby the Sheeping Dog” sounds like he’s dressing up as a sheep, and we’re just not quite there yet).
Kerby the herding dog: In which we meet some stock
For our first outing, I wasn’t concerned with what kind of stock Kerby would meet. I just wanted to get a sense of how he would behave around farm animals in general. Would he bark his head off? Would he cower behind me? Kerby was born and spent his early weeks on a farm, but to my knowledge didn’t have any interaction with farm animals. I hadn’t seen any stress responses in the face of deer on hikes in the woods, but at the same time he also barked and hid when confronted by my friend’s small turtle. I didn’t have a good prediction for how he would respond to stock.
Kerby the Herding Dog?
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.