Belgians di Coraggio

Dedicated to reaching the highest achievements in dog performance

Herding

At puppy kindergarten Krishna, who I’d purchased as a pet, displayed overt herding behaviors.  So I decided to take him out to our herding facility to see how he’d do on stock.

Krishna was intensely interested in the sheep and had a great time poking at them to make them move.

Unfortunately Krishna’s handler lacks the natural talent that her dog has, so herding is definitely a work in progress.  We’ve managed to earn our AKC HT title and our ASCA STDs title.

I hope to continue to work Krishna on stock and to improve my skills as a handler and might take Lana out on some sheep as well.

All herding photos courtesy of Erista Creations. C 2006

 

To the left I am swinging the stock stick up to signal a stop.  Krishna doesn’t look thrilled with the command.

Krishna was just a year old in these pictures, and I’d only practiced with him 7 or 8 times.  So we’re still learning to work the stock together.  You can see here that he’s not rated the stock properly and has pushed them past me.

Here I am competing for my insurance leg on out HT.

Our AKC herding rep had commented that herding struggles to be successful whereas confirmation is the big white house on the hill of dog events.  She felt that herding should do more to become accessible to the conformation crowd.

 

I decided to do my part and dress herding up a bit; make it more appealing to a broad audience.

Here’s Krishna moving to the balance point.

Here we are again, Krishna walking nicely behind the sheep.  What a nice picture!