Bronwen’s baptism of fire

As we announce our latest sheepdog training tutorial, Bronwen faces a stiff challenge in the shearing pens

Yesterday, we released our latest sheepdog training tutorial, Bronwen and Scylla, Part 6. As the title suggests, this is the sixth instalment in our fascinating series of videos comparing the training of litter sisters Bronwen and Scylla.

While Scylla’s still untrustworthy around sheep, Bronwen’s quickly becoming our “go to” sheepdog for everyday work

The inevitable time lag between a training session being filmed and then appearing in the Tutorials Library means you won’t see any video of Bronwen gathering sheep at Dean Farm for some weeks, but in real time, while Scylla’s still untrustworthy around sheep (but improving) her sister’s fast becoming our “go to” sheepdog for everyday work.

Little Kay, who’s been a gallant little worker for us ever since she earned herself a starring role on our sheepdog training DVD First Steps in Border Collie Sheepdog Training isn’t quite as gallant as she was when she was younger.

She’s still a great little sheepdog, but unless she’s close to me, these days she doesn’t want to take any risks, especially with aggressive sheep, and who can blame her? Kay’s still feeding a litter of puppies!

When we gathered sheep for shearing at Dean Farm yesterday, a Jacob sheep and her two lambs managed to separate themselves from the rest of the mob so I sent Kay to bring them back.

Unfortunately, as Kay approached, one of the lambs struggled through a wire fence and ran away. This dramatically increased the frustration of the mother who showed her anger by stamping and threatening to charge at Kay, before running off, taking the remaining lamb with her, but in the opposite direction to the missing lamb. Kay set off in pursuit and eventually managed to turn the little ewe back towards her lamb.

The Jacob mum eventually spotted her errant lamb and ran to it, firmly placing herself between her babies and Kay. It was not a challenge that Kay felt able to take on, so to ease the situation, I walked right up to the sheep while Kay walked close behind me.

Meanwhile, the rest of the flock had grown bored with the novelty grazing they’d been enjoying on either side of the farm drive and were walking back over the railway bridge, into their field. Their timing was perfect because the Jacob ewe spotted them and hastily took her family to join them.

The flock was heading the wrong way though, so I sent Kay to push the sheep back over the bridge and down the farm drive but she was very reluctant and frequently looked back at me. This is unlike the Kay that I’m used to, and although I’d like to think it’s because she’s still feeding her pups and feeling protective towards them I suspect it’s a much longer term sign of Kay’s increasing age.

We eventually brought the sheep to the farm buildings, and I put Kay back in the 4×4 because I thought Bronwen would be better for pushing the sheep into the handling pen. The youngster was over-enthusiastic and aggressive though, and quickly found herself back in the car! Having been given a second chance, Kay did a surprisingly good job by skirting around the sheep and not stopping long enough for a sheep to focus on her, let alone threaten her.

Once the sheep were inside the sorting pen, the next job was to push them through a narrow “race” which has a gate system at the end of it, allowing the operator to direct some of the sheep one way, and the rest somewhere else. In our case, the sheep for shearing were to be kept in a pen ready for the shearers, and all the lambs would be sent back to the field

Kay, however, was anything but enthusiastic about the task. She refused to approach the sheep unless I did too. I decided to see how Bronwen would cope. She had been over-aggressive in the yard, but I hoped that inside the pen I would be close enough to control her.

Sheep recognise a dog which can look after itself, and they will treat that dog with great respect. A good reason to preserve the dog’s confidence

Initially, Bronwen was confused by the prospect of being “trapped” in such close proximity to the sheep, and she even barked at them a few times, but remarkably quickly, she took the work seriously and proved that she’s more than a match for the more aggressive ewes in the flock.

On several occasions, a ewe threatened to attack Bronwen, and her immediate reaction was to bite it on the nose! Not one of the ewes came back for more once she’d given them “the treatment”, and they’ll remember it next time she’s in the yard, too.

It’s worth remembering to put some sort of command on the dog defending itself by nipping the sheep in this way, so that the dog will know that it’s allowed to use force when it needs to.

We have a chapter called “Sometimes nice is not enough” which deals with this topic in our Online Sheepdog Training Tutorial Videos.

SHEEPDOG TRAINING VIDEOS ON DVD

With nearly FOURTEEN HOURS of our SHEEPDOG TRAINING TUTORIALS now available as FOUR double DVD sets, you can SAVE up to 20% if you buy all four, together with our original “First Steps in Border Collie Sheepdog Training” DVD set. More details. OR BETTER-STILL – watch ONLINE!