We recently returned to Willowside Ranch for Vinnie’s first herding lesson. He started panting and pacing in the car as soon as we turned off of Highway 1 to Pescadero. The closer we got to the ranch, the more excited he got. By the time we parked the car, he was emitting short quiet whines and scratching at the window. I was certain he knew exactly where we were – the glorious place where he gets to herd sheep.

My husband gamely agreed to be the handler – the human who goes into the pen with dog, sheep and herding trainer. I watched, curious about how you train a herding dog to do his thing under human direction.

The first instruction from Marian Pott, the herding trainer, was that Vinnie had to sit before he got to herd. No way, I thought. He was too worked up. The sheep were too enticing. As we’d waited our turn to herd, Vin had been rearing up on his leash, barking, whining in a warble, and unable to focus on us or keep still. I’d never seen him in such a state.

Now that he was in the pen with the sheep, he was even more amped. The sheep were so close. Vinnie couldn’t take his eyes off them. My husband asked Vin, then kept stepping in front of him to block him from the sheep. It took a few minutes, but the unbelievable happened. Vinnie sat! The immediate reward? He got to herd!

My husband kept repeating the exercise and each time he requested a sit, it took VInnie a little less time to do so. Minutes later, not only did Vinnie sit, he stayed while my husband backed away from him and moved towards the sheep.

Ahh, the power of Premack, I thought. For non-dog geeks, Premack’s Principle, a powerful training strategy, states that more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors. In plain language, a behavior your dog really enjoys doing can be used to reinforce a behavior he’s less inclined to do. In Vinnie’s case, herding — an activity he adores — was used to reward and reinforce the sits and stays in the sheep pen. Once he was rewarded with herding time for sitting in the pen — something he was very uninclined to do — it was easier for him sit again, and even easier the next time, and so on.

Premack applies to humans too. People use it all the time without realizing it. Parents tell kids they must eat their veggies (something the kids are less inclined to do) before they get to eat dessert (something the kids are happy to do). It’s Premack at work when kids have to clean their rooms before they can watch TV. People motivate themselves to do things they’d rather not do using the same approach, like exercising 4 times a week for the reward of eating ice cream on the weekend.

There are abundant daily opportunities to use the veggies-before-dessert approach with your dog. Ask your dog to sit before you offer a toy to play tug, or to lie down before you toss a Frisbee, or before you take her for a walk. Every day presents plenty of these potential training moments. Take advantage of them — start Premacking ‘em! It’s great practice for doggy manners, and helps train and maintain doggy impulse control.
Not only that, more and more your dog will offer desirable behaviors when she wants something – the canine equivalent of saying please.

With a wee bit of time and effort on your part, “Premacking it” yields lovely behavioral results. And surely that’s preferable to jumping up, nipping, barking or whining for attention, play and other good stuff!

When people ask me what my dog Vinnie is, I say he’s a herding mutt, a term that up until this summer I’d been using loosely. When we adopted him from a shelter, all we knew of his past was he was found on a dairy farm and his mother was an Australian Kelpie. But as for the rest of his DNA, who knew?

As he grew, I became convinced that he was mixed with another herding breed because he acts like one. He’s got their intense energy, smarts, focus and drive; he LOVES to train; and well, he herds. He’s tried to herd our cat and sometimes rounds up other dogs. When he’s out for a hike with his humans and one strays, he runs back and loops around the person until he/she rejoins the group. If given the chance, he’ll also “herd” moving vacuums, mops, brooms or rakes. That’s funny stuff!

This summer I learned the reason for Vin’s compulsion to herd things other than livestock. He earned legitimate herding dog status when I took him to Willowside Ranch in Pescadero for a herding instinct test. To my delight, he passed.

Dog behaviorists and professional stock dog trainers say that herding isn’t something a dog can be taught to do. A dog is either born with a hard-wired instinct to herd livestock or she isn’t. A dog with the instinct automatically “knows” how to work stock without any prior experience or training, and without trying to kill the stock. And you don’t need treats to get a herding dog to herd; she works the stock for the sheer pleasure of doing so.

That’s not to say that working stock dogs don’t need or get training. A dog with the instinct can be trained to perform specific herding tasks under the direction of a human handler. Their natural herding skills are honed and refined through lots of training and practice.

On test day Vin was in the excellent experienced hands of longtime positive trainer Marian Pott, who trains, competes and judges in the herding world (www.miramardogtraining.vpweb.com). In the pen with Marian, me and three sheep, Vin, often a nervous guy, was unsure about the strange new situation. Though he showed interest in the sheep, he seemed far more worried about whether my husband, who was outside the pen, was going to leave.

After a break we tried again in a larger pen with different sheep and suddenly something kicked in. Vin’s ears went up and stayed that way and he began a high-pitched yipping I’d never heard from him before. He forgot about his humans and went to work on the sheep. Whenever one broke away from the flock, Vinnie raced after it, cut in front of it so it reversed direction, and drove it back to the others. He was energized in a way I’d never seen him before. I could practically see his neurons firing. My dog was herding!

When Marian had me walk away at one point he completely ignored me. Instead he stayed with the sheep, intent on their every move. I heard Marian say, “Those are his sheep now; he wants to stay with his sheep.” Later when we put him back on leash, he reared up and tried to go after the retreating sheep.

It was thrilling to see this completely different side of my dog and watch him do the work he was designed to do. He was still Vinnie but a revved up more vibrant version — Vinnie in all his dogness! When Marian told me he’d passed I couldn’t stop grinning. I know I had nothing to do with his passing the test but I felt like a proud mama anyway.

He can’t do competitive herding – that’s reserved for purebreds – but he can still take herding lessons. Those will provide another legal outlet for some of his energy and drive, and it might boost his confidence. I in turn, will learn what I’m supposed to do in the pen vis-a-vis the sheep and Vinnie. I suspect I will be the slower student. (Look for more on that later in Part 2 of this post.)

While we were at the ranch we watched some experienced herding dogs in action. Talk about awe-inspiring! A border collie moved a flock of sheep move from one pen to another through a narrow gate. Then he separated them into two groups and moved one group into yet another pen. It all took a matter of minutes and no sheep got away.

If you ever get the chance, watch herding dogs at work. That precise subtle choreography between handler, dog and sheep is nothing short of poetry in motion.

If your dog has had herding adventures, we’d love to hear about them so please share them in a comment below.