Dog and Herding story of Kennel Arddun. ( only in English)

By Karen Bechmann

I am completely overwhelmed by the big interest that people from so many different countries has shown my herding. So many people has asked me about the story of my herding experience, if I could tell about how it started, about my dogs, about the different herding abilities of the dogs, so I finally decided I better write this story. Pls. be aware that I am not very strong in writing english but as many requests have been international, this story will be in the best english I can do. I am sure that there will be a lot who disagrees with my input and as I say in the article all herdismennn have different opinions. Anyway I hope that this may give answers to the many questions asked to me.

BORDER COLLIE HISTORY.

In 1994 we bought our first Border Collie, B.C., and a year after her litter sister, 1 year younger. Bessie and Fay we called them.

We decided to work with our dogs at a farm of our friends that had approximately 100 sheep including lambs. My dogs knew what they were doing but I did not.

Looking back I can see that all herds have their own religion, but one thing they have in common is that they do not practise the verbal communication very much. They are like their dogs, completely visual and communicate through eye and body language.

This has generated a huge problem to me as I am learning by doing and hearing. So it has taken me a long time to get the point and experience with herding.

Also I can see the high impact any authority gets in newbees herding life, and I hope they are aware of this big impact.

E.g. I went to a herding clinic with my Bessie, and the trainer said when she was on the field for the first time with free sheep, that Bessie did not have herding instinct, only hunting instinct. Today I know that my dog did her very best, but was very uncertain of her self, and as I did not have a clue on what was going on and did not help her,she took a decision. I was wrong, my dog was OK. But I stopped training Bessie on sheep due this “hunting instinct”.

Our Bessie had hormone problems from the very beginning and after 2 years with no heat and getting more and more crazy in behavior, we had to put her down.

Fay and I enjoyed the lessons very much, but we did not get to work very much as I was much to slow to understand what was going on.

But I had a lot of theory and a lot of experience watching the others work and the feedback they had from the trainers. I’ve got a god memory of any spoken word, which has helped me a lot to progress with my herding later.

Unfortunately my Fay had hormonproblems too, and her behavior became more and more abnormal. She was in particular very asocial to any dog og strange persons. We had experts of any kind to help us and at some point it seemed like everything was going to be alright. I remember we had a wonderfull holiday in southern France with her, walking in the Pyrenees with her without ledge and she was so relaxed enjoyed herself. Even in the little cities she had a good time talking to strange people and dogs.

START OF CORGI HISTORY

We came back to DK, and I decided that it would be good for her to have company. I was looking for a herding dog, as I knew she hated any kind of huntingdog behavior. And one day I watch the T.V. a program about a little dog, that was a problem dog and was delivered to a shelter, as the family could not control it. A voluntier worker here had a B.C. and she took the little dog with her. She was working agility with the B.C. and the little dog was taken along just for fun. However this was a little corgi, that immidiately demonstrated its skills within agility and this woman managed to get the Corgi Cardigan to win best prices with agility competitions. I decided that I wanted a corgi as company for my Fay.

After a worldwide search I ended up in the south of Denmark, where a 5 month old male pup was available. We made an appointment to come at get him in August.

In the time before picking him up, we had an accident with Fay. On a daily walk she was attacked by a bull mastiff, who came out of a garden without ledge. We let Fay of the ledge and she defended herself very well. Nothing happened to her but the mastiff was bleeding and limping back to the owner.

However this changed the behavior of Fay again, and she became aggressive towards all strange dogs. So we were so nervous when we had to pick up our little corgi boy.

The day arrived and we went down to get him. First Fay did not want him with her at all and I was ready to leave without any corgi. But the breeder suggested that we went for a walk. And everything seemed to settle for the dogs. We went home, and after 24hours the 2 dogs were unseperately for the rest of Fays life.

After our corgi Niffer came, Fay started to go into heat very often. And then she started to develop tumors in her breasts. Her behavior became more and more stressed and nobody was able to help us with that. So finaly we decided to put her down.

When Niffer became almost 10 month we decided that we should work on sheep with him. And now the huge task started.

WHERE TO TRAIN A CORGI TO HERD?

At that time nobody took anything in but B.C.’s. I was rejected anywhere I tried to get permission to train him. This was a big “downer” to me.

At that time I also decided to get Kennel permission and started the education as Danish Kennel Club Breeder i Nov 2002. And here I got lucky. A co student, breeding Kelpies was training in the northern part of the island I am living at. And I got a mail adress.

I contacted Team Egemosen immediately and was there for the first time in january 2003.

Niffer turned on immediately. And I started training him on regular basis. However training a corgi is much different than other races so progress was very slow, and the structure of the training was absolutely at beginning level at that time.

In February I received the sister of Niffer, Soffi, to stay with us, as the breeder was in a personal situation where she could not handle 3 bitches at the same time.

I took Soffi for the herding training as well, and she turned immediately too. But still I did not work very well with the training, which at that time was based on how to train B.C. as nobody knew how to do it otherwise.

The trainer, who is one of my best friends was very aware of this and started a huge research to find out how to improve the training for all races. And at the same time I started to search for contacts worldwide if anybody knew how to train with corgis.

Finally I got success. I got contact to two good American herders and breeders.

And then I past on any relevant training information to Team Egemosen, which took action immediately by integrating the input to the training program. Furthermore my friend started to participate in herding clinics for Aussies only. And this became a big advantage as Aussies and Corgies have a lot of similarity in their way of working.

B.C.´s work naturally on big distances and have a natural long wide outrun. Normally you will have to train them how to work close to the beasts. They work with a “hard” eye and are normally very silent in their work.

Aussies and Corgies have a tendency to bark during their working. I will say that the aussie barks during work while corgies barks before and after a command has been executed. But this is an issue that I have discussed with many others and as I wrote in the beginning, any trainer and herd has his/hers own religion/conviction.

HOW TO TRAIN A CORGI TO HERD?

Working with corgies demands the understanding of the breed. They are made to drive cattle from place to place, healing, pushing on shoulders and barking the beast trying to drive them forwards. So when you work on sheep/ducks/geese you will demand some things that are against their instinct.

Distance to the prey is a difficult skill to train your corgi which is nessesary working with sheep and birds. Also a laydown on short distance is hard, as the low dog will seek distance before it laydown. So you must be aware of this and use an out before you say laydown.

Using commands should always be done when there is a reasonable chance that the dog obays otherwise you train the dog in disobdience.

Being such a little dog with such a big mind training in beliving the leader is a highly demanded thing. And it is very important that the dog can put his trust to the herdisman, knowing that he knows what he is doing. Otherwise you loose the dogs respect, and the dog will take charge over the prey.

We have had several training clinics with experienced trainers, and they have all given valuable input. Especially B.C. trainers that has reversed their belive about only B.C.’s can herd, have done a huge work in studying other herding dogs, and helping out us newbees in the herdingworld of Denmark.

One aussie herder came to me in a training session and said to me: you need to have complete leadership on your dogs, before you will ever learn to herd. I must have looked like one big question mark. I had never heard about this before. One thing takes another and today I am trainee with the person that thought me my first leadership. I have now been on the that course 7 or 8 times, and nobody can buy a puppy from Kennel Arddun, without being committed to go to this training. You will find articles of leadershiptraining on my homepage under litterature, sorry only in danish, but on request I will try to translate.

YES I AGREE, WITHOUT COMPLETE LEADERSHIP YOU CAN NOT HERD

Be aware that leadership is not the same as obedience. We have seen many obedience dogs trying to herd, but without succes. If they are too hard trained in obedience, they expect any initiative and signal to come from their owner, and then they are very handicaped in working with sheep.

Basic commands/signals are also important but the most important of all is that you at any time can stop your dog.

SO LAYDOWN

Must be in place.

ATTITUDE REGARDING HERDING

It is a complete misunderstanding when people think of herding as a game. It is for the dog the matter of food, meaning life and dead for dog and his gang, so any herd should show the respect for the dog and his instincts and take in that this is not fun but an activity that makes you and your dog the strongest survival winner team.

COMMANDS

We have the basic commands/signals:

Away

Come by

Walk on

Lay down

Back

Out

And we all have variations how we do it. Further more you should be aware that the way of saying these commands ( variation of voice of movements) can alter the command significant for you and the dog.

B.C. WAY AND THE AMERICAN WAY

When I started training my corgies we were recommended to let them loose with the sheep on the field and make it a chaos training. However my experience on this on is that my corgies are too clever to start this way as they enjoy their freedom and liberty so much so it is hard to teach them not to afterwards. But this is how the B.C.´s are trained to my knowledge.

The best help I ever have had is my friend from Team Egemosen. She understands how differently people learns and is able to communicate to me in such a way that I can recall her voice in any training situation afterwards so I am quite selfconfident in what I am doing. All the clinics I have participated in would not have had such god effect on me, if I did not have her to do follow up and maintenance on any skill I have learned. I am forever greatfull.

BETWEEN B.C. AND AMERICAN

During the start up period at Team Egemosen, my friend and I started training at Team That will do. My friend gave up after a few times as she liked the B.C. training better than I did with my Corgies. I started training my little beautiful longhaired Jolie. Here we trained in a ledge. However I felt the frustration of the dog after a few months in ledge training and went back for more Team Egemosen training.

MORE INPUT REGARDING TRAINING METHODS

Here my friend had participated in another way of training, and now my training was beginning to progress. Very quickly my Jolie went of on free sheep. She was very high in speed, so you had to be sure of what you wanted yourself. But we became quickly very good in herding skills as driving and fetching sheep. However I would not recommend this way of training as you harden the dog too much and it gets too difficult to communicate without getting into war with your dog. But this again my personal belief.

THE AMERICAN WAY

Finally my friend from Team Egemosen got an American over to teach the American way of training non B.C.´s.

You use the ledge to conduct you dog into what you want it to do. You increase the distance more and more training the dog to obey your signals and commands.

Finally you let go of the ledge within roundpin and train the dog in the signals and commands, still with the lifeline, the ledge, in case the dog drops its hearing.

And finally before going to field you train in big roundpin without ledge all the skills needed before you go on free sheep.

Unfortunately ( but everything happens for a reason) I was not able to participate in this original American training. However one of the Americans students came to give a clinic and here I was so lucky to get in on a cancellation.

This was a dream. Here was a trainer who could use verbal communication on anything she was training us in. I had the most wonderful weekend, and the best results afterwards with my Dusty.

UNDERSTANDING WHICH DOG TO TRAIN?

My Niffer was approximately 1 year when I started to train him. He turned on immediately and there were no doubt about his instinct. Looking in the backmirror I can see that he was to uncertain to himself, and I should investigate more why. Later I can see that his enlarged heart (lung and heart worms consequence) made his condition so bad that he could not enjoy this. But at the time I did not know. The thing I have learned here is that you should always take abnormal behavior as a signal of pain from your dog. It can be psysical or mentally but pain it is.

My Soffi was almost 2 years when she started but we did not train for a long time. She was very late to get into heat and when she did her back started to curve extremely. So due to treatment of this we did not get to train so much. She had so many hormonproblems that affected her back and she was in a lot of pain when we put her down.

My Jolie was 3 month or actually 10 weeks when she turned on. However I waited until she was 11 month before serious training started. She is a wonderfull herding dog but a rough dog that has her own mind. And wrong training has given her the impression that the sheep belongs to her and I have to work for her. So I had to give up herding with her for a long period.

My Dusty came to me in the age of 4 ½ years. She was immediately tested on sheep and turned on same instance. However she had to go through 2 pregnancies, which has prevented her from training. Now she is out of breeding, and she has taken in the training so fast that we are now working on free sheep after 7 training lessons.

My puppy Ursus from second litter turned on in the age of 8 month and is training on regular basis at Team Egemosen, an extremely good herding dog. And the owners of Ursus are true dog lovers, doing anything for their dog.

My puppy Nala from first litter turned on in the age of 8 month and is training on a regular basis at Team Egemosen, an extreme good herding dog, that is the very reason why a incarnated B.C. herdismann converted in his herdingdog religion. And the owners of Nala and her brother are true dog lovers, doing what they can for their dogs.

I have tested my Artiste from first litter but in the age of 8 month he never gave any sign of interest. He was waiting for the dinner to be served instead. He is now living far away with a family that understands his passion for good danish cooking.

I have tested my Bijou since she was 12 weeks, and first in the age of 13 months she turned on. But she really did. Again Team Egemosen backs me up with her training.

My Ballade, Beatrice and Belle from second litter will be trained on sheep as they have shown interest. But unfortunately they live far from us, so they will not train at Team Egemosen.

WHICH DOG SHOULD NOT BE TRAINED?

In my now 12 years within herding circles I have seen many dogs that should be taken out of the herding training. To say exactly why is difficult as there are many borderline situations and training can do a lot of things. Furthermore it is of highest importance that the dog is interpretated correctly in it signals.

Some signs can be

BREEDS SPECIALITY IN HERDING

Following description are not proven, only my personal observations.