#stockdogs

[landmodsblog]

SAFETY FIRST: PROTECTING YOUR CATTLE AND YOURSELF IN THE RODEO ARENA

Rodeo, a captivating and perilous sport, demands utmost attention to safety, not just for the riders but also for the cattle involved. In this insightful article, we shed light on the paramount importance of prioritizing safety at every stage of rodeo cattle training and handling. By adhering to proper equipment usage and being vigilant about recognizing signs of stress or injury in your animals,…

[afrotumble]

Artist Moni Heil

Gypsum, Colorado

Heil graduated from The Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA, majoring in painting and silversmithing. After graduating she followed her dream and moved to the beautiful Colorado Mountains. Her art went from formal portraiture to portraying the essence of contemporary western life. She gets inspiration for her paintings from her lifestyle and surroundings.Her paintings are noted for their strong composition, detail and capturing the fundamental nature of her subject. In addition to her painting, Heil enjoys her horses, Border Collies and cycling.

In the winter of 2012 Moni spent five weeks in South Africa. She had the opportunity to study with internationally renown stockdog trainer/handler Faansie Basson. While there she also enjoyed photographing the wildlife and the spectacular South African landscape.

[pandalinks]

go 👉 www.pandalinks.in . @pandalinks.in . #stockcarracing #cstock #cstockholm #cstockdestockage #cstocktonpoetry #cstocks #stockdisponible #stockdog #stockdreamshoe #stockdoesntturnheads #stockdale #dstock #dstockvalence #styledstock #stpdstock #stdstock #stockexchange #stockexplos #stockedupfeeling #stockente #estock #estockeaglessoar #estocklin #estockholmo #estockholm #stockfootage #stockfunday #stockfish #stockflower #stockfoto (at India) https://www.instagram.com/p/CizVmnJvyZQ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[herdingbear]

First post before work starts in a few days! This is Ursa's current condition on May 29, 2021. Hope to see some big improvements this summer as she gets fitter!

[aubreycobra]

This is Martin with our driveway chicken (who lives in the driveway). He also pecks my feet. For premium Martin, Chicken, and general farm content, you’ll have to watch my IG stories. #texasheeler #herdingdog #stockdog #farmlife #drivewaychicken #aussiesofinstagram #cattledogsofinstagram #chickensofinstagram #dogsofinstagram #herdingdogsofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CD39OvnhjhY/?igshid=4q7nu6vvpc5s

[doggos-with-jobs]

Harvest helper/stockdog/gaurddog

[mariostrim]

Mara, keeping an eye on the sheep in the barn  |  Millarville, Alberta

[sheepdogsandsidesaddle]

hey i hav a question! my roommate is in vet school and wants to be a large animal vet, bc of this she wants to get some sort of herding/cattle dog since she wants to focus on cows. i told her “oh yea u just need to find a good breeder who focuses on that” and she said “oh no i’m gonna rescue one” and i went ?????? do u hav any advice on trying to explain to her she is never going to find a cattle/herding dog in a shelter and she should find a breeder instead

Hey! Thanks for calling in!

I don't really have much advice besides just reiterating that a well bred dog for the job will be better suited to it and will have fewer genetic health concerns, assuming the breeder does all relevant health testing.

Honestly? If your friend decides to go with a border collie from a shelter or rescue, let her tough it out. A few herding lessons with a good trainer will either show that the dog is too predatory, a natural talent, or a nervebag. Cattle are HARD to work, and many dogs that are good with other livestock fold under the pressure of an animal that fights back violently.

I know several people who started with rescue dogs, off breeds, and dogs that were generally going to take a lot of dedicated work to train to a workable point, and after that first, more difficult dog, really jumped in with both feet on a well bred second dog that had much more success much sooner. Sometimes, people just have to work it out on their own.

Other than the obvious option of buying a puppy, I would encourage your friend to try to find a trained adult. This will be expensive, but worth it if she wants to get started ASAP. Buying a trained adult dog is the recommended route for getting into stockdogs, as it will only take you a few lessons with a good trainer to learn how to work the dog, and then you're pretty much set, with a few lessons here and there to maintain the training. This is also a good option health wise, since an adult dog may already have his health testing done, which removes ~$400 from the "things to do for puppy" list and you will have concrete results on, for example, hip screens that can only be certified after the dog is 2 years old.

Good luck! I hope it works out for your friend.

[halftametigers]

I spent the afternoon training my dog to obey stock dog commands, and now my neighbors think I have tourettes syndrome

[landmodsblog]

MASTERING STOCKDOG HANDLING: UNLEASH THE POWER OF IRISH TRAINING METHODS

Welcome to the captivating realm of stockdog handling, where precision and control intertwine with the rich heritage of Irish training methods. If you’re a permaculturist seeking to elevate your skills to new heights, prepare to be captivated by the secrets of Irish training techniques. In this blog post, we will embark on a journey to unlock the hidden treasures of these time-honored methods,…

[singingforsupper]

Who says I was in the bird cage? #blueheeler #stockdogs #cattledog #texasheeler (at Entropy Acre) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo0pw4IFD5h/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=qb0po195p4ly

[texasbelle22]

Do what you were bred to do!! That’s the quote for a successful and happy life! #allshookuppets #whidbeyisland #whidbeyislandpets #rebelbenedict #aussie #australianshepherd #aussiesofinstagram #stockdogs #herddog

[blissed-out-australian-shep-blog]

Puppies available

[laurenlove1126]

What would happen if 100 golden retrievers were trained to live in the wild and just released in a forest somewhere?

The question: What would happen if 100 golden retrievers were trained to live in the wild and just released in a forest somewhere? Short answer: death within about two to three months. The only variants would be whether it was via predator or via starvation. Better answer: in all canids, there is a chain of behaviours that must be performed in order to live by hunting. The details vary but the overall behaviour chain goes something like this: know how to identify prey (rabbit vs tennis ball, for instance); scan environment for prey; spot prey; freeze to evaluate the best hunting strategy (ambush vs chasing vs pouncing); execute hunting strategy; grab the prey; kill the prey; evaluate circumstances to decide whether it is better to consume the prey right there vs taking it somewhere else; dissect the prey to get inside the skin; rip the prey to pieces; consume the edible parts. Normally, every link in the chain must be performed pretty much in order and the opportunity to carry out the next link in the chain is the reinforcement for the link just completed. Howevah! Here we get to the role that domestication and purpose breeding plays. Humans can mess around with the hunting chain and those dogs will still survive because the humans make sure the dogs are fed. Broken hunting chains are not found in wild animals because those animals born with a broken chain don’t survive to reproduce. Retrievers have been specifically bred for a broken hunting chain; a well bred retriever (not just a Golden, any retriever—there’s a reason their names all include the word retriever) has a hunting chain that is broken after grabbing the prey. The interesting thing to me about a broken hunting chain is that animals (not just dogs) with a broken hunting chain are almost always much more obsessive about performing their truncated hunting chain than an animal that has an intact hunting chain. This is why retrievers will keep playing tennis ball well past the line where they are harming themselves either by overheating or wearing all the skin off their pads. A broken hunting chain is why cats seem to play with their prey. It isn’t play to the cat, it’s performing their hunting chain until they get to the point of killing the prey. Those cats do not know what to do next, so they release the prey. Predictably, the prey makes a run for it, which triggers prey drive in the cat, lather, rinse, repeat. My theory is that what the animal is feeling inside is akin to having an earworm: they know something must come next but they don’t know what, so they are constantly going through the part of the prey chain they have, trying to figure out what should come next. The other thing to know about instincts is that they cannot be permanently altered. That’s actually a handy way to differentiate between learned behaviours and instinctive behaviours: learned behaviours stay learned but with instinctive behaviours, the day you stop training the alternate behaviour is the day the instinctive behaviour starts to re-assert itself. Retrievers instinctively have soft mouths, meaning that they can carry a bird without piercing it with their teeth. If they are handled wrong, they can learn to clamp down on things in their mouths but put an end to the incorrect handling and the soft mouth will come back pretty quickly. So teaching 100 Goldens to hunt is not impossible but the day the training ended would be the day they started to revert to using a soft mouth. It is almost impossible to eat prey if the animal cannot bite down hard enough to get through the skin. Sure, they can and do swallow mice whole but that is a very inefficient way to get calories; it’s not common but not rare for an owner who lives in an environment with lots of mice to find one in the dog’s poop. If the mouse is still recognisable after a trip through a dog’s innards, the dog didn’t get much or any nourishment from it. A dog in normal health can fast from food for up to 30 days without suffering permanent harm to their health (if they are re-fed carefully). Of course, the longer the dog fasts, the weaker and less capable they become. And the faster their instinctive behaviours will take over. For a retriever, those instincts would just lead to death in the wild. Tangential note: many behaviourists posit that herding is a broken hunting prey chain. Maybe so and maybe no. Why I say maybe no is that I have owned two herding breed dogs who demonstrated that they had fully intact hunting chains. I used to tell Bidge, my fully trained stockdog who the late great Bob Vest called the best herding Belgian he’d ever seen, that he was the chlorine in the local rabbit gene pool. Any rabbit stupid enough to venture into an area often frequented by dogs was too stupid to reproduce. I could call him off a rabbit even when his mouth was fully open and about to clamp down on the rabbit but if I didn’t see it, he knew what to do. If I saw him eating the rabbit, I could tell him to bring and give it to me. Treating him for tapeworm was a regular item on my budget. Hunter, who was not fully trained but showed good instinct and was used to work ewes with lambs because he had such a soft approach with lambs (so, about half trained), didn’t care for rabbit (thank goodness—two dogs that dined on rabbit would be twice the bills for treating tapeworm) but he loved pheasant. Fresh pheasant. Very fresh pheasant. On two different occasions, I had the thrill of seeing him go up into the air to catch a pheasant on the wing (pheasants take off at a low angle). He got his bag limit every year. He had no problems with killing and consuming his prey. Like Bidge, I could call him off the prey at any point. Unlike Bidge, Hunter would look for me in order to present me with his trophy but if he couldn’t find me in a reasonable amount of time, he’d eat it.