Herding!

Tomorrow bright and early I get to make a 2 1/2 hr drive to get my almost 2-year old dog, Kumo, instinct tested for herding! I'm so incredibly excited by this prospect that I had to share. I will be bringing my camera to take pictures of this momentous occasion for my pup.

Kumo is an English Shepherd http://www.englishshepherd.org/ (think border collie on steroids with less neuroticism) and Blue Queensland Heeler mix. Mom was a clear sable and white (think Lassie) while dad was a blue merle. Kumo takes after his dad most with regards to coloring and coat, but otherwise he looks little to nothing like a cattle dog. He's a pain in the butt, thinks too much for himself, and is one of the biggest joys in my life.

So... now I will throw puppy and more recent pictures at you until tomorrow!

*ps: My dog was the cutest puppy on the planet, and so loving that you can clearly see how big his heart is on that puppy picture...In fact, you can see the second heart-shaped mark on one of his adult pics too. A little smaller, but so much love he needed two hearts to show it all.

Very beautiful dog, lovely merle-ish colouring! I've never seen a pure english shepherd around here, I think they are more of an british breed.

Anyway, hope all goes well tomorrow. Herding trails are a blast to watch, the dogs are so in tune with the sheep and owner -amazing to see if anyone hasn't!

Very beautiful looking dog! Best of luck to you tomorrow :0)

Love his heart patterns :0)

Nice looking dog!! Our dog is a border collie and is a natural hurder, but does not obey commands . We have seen her try to heard birds before. She likes to do all of the farm work with us. But if anyone is planning on getting a border collie, DO NOT GET ONE if it is to be in the house. they will rip every single thing to shreads. Were lucky, we didn't have that problem.

Sadly I forgot my camera, and kumo failed his test pretty much. He clearly wanted to move the stock, but unfortunately, "move the stock" turned into "eat the stock" after about 5 or 10 minutes. His prey drive is a little too strong for him to be a good stock dog without getting him extensively trained.

Calift: English shepherds are actually an all-american breed. They're sometimes called Old Time Farm Shepherds, or Farm Collies. They're very related to the old, mostly extinct Scotch Collie from which English Shepherds, Border Collies, Show Collies, and even australian shepherds to a small degree, are descended.

ES's are used to hunt, herd, and guard. Unfortunately, that hunt instinct coupled with the cattle dog hunt instinct seems to be strongest in my boyo.

However, we were sent by the herding trainer over to another woman who does something called Rally, which is like obedience trials, only fun. Just the little we did shows that Kumo could be really really good at that, so we're going to go and Rally Ho! first, and maybe branch into either canine freestyle or agility afterwards.

He is very handsome!
Sorry he didn't pass the instinct test, maybe with some training you could try again.

Good luck with the Rally, I love it and have titled three dogs. I also do Obedience and Agility with my guys.

Here are some pix of my Swedish Vallhund doing his instinct test an an American Herding Breed Assoc. trial.
(Sorry about the quality, it was a cheap digital)

What a gorgeous pup! I can definitely see the heeler in him. We have a heeler/German shorthair (mom was half and half, dad was pure heeler) cross at our farm (in addition to two Australian shephers) and my house dog is a boxer/heeler cross. I love what the heeler influence does to dogs (although I'm not a huge fan of pure heelers, for the most part, there have been a few exceptions though....).

Sorry to hear he failed his testing.

Thankies both for the condolences. I was actually half expecting it because of the strong prey drive I'd seen in him already. Mostly I'm embarrassed that he chomped a sheep. >_< Sheep was fine, but yeesh. Some ES show a stronger hunting tendency, some a stronger herding, and some a stronger guarding. That's what happens when you have a breed meant to do three different things. And dingo + hunting-type dog = "eat the sheep".

Dogsndragons... your vallhund is *stunning*!

Hallie: I have to agree. The mixes are stunning, but I'm not terribly a fan of the typical short, rectangular, blocky stocky stubby dog that is bred. I've met some that showed a lot of dingo influence that I really really liked, but most of the purebreds just don't do it for me. Give me an ACD mix any day of the week!