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 vaccums, 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.

As a professional dog trainer, I sometimes have to deliver news that clients aren’t eager to hear. One of the most difficult things to impress upon some people is that training is a process, and sometimes it’s a long one. We live in a world of instant access to information, sound bites and instant gratification. We’re increasingly expected to accomplish more tasks more quickly at work, sometimes all at the same time. We’re all busy. It’s no wonder that so many people want their dogs to master basic obedience immediately, or want behavior modification to happen overnight.

Puppy Vinnie behind baby gates

Without this understanding folks become frustrated and upset with their animals, their relationships with their pets suffer, and often, so do the pets. The rowdy adolescent dog is banished to a yard or basement. The avid barker gets a shock collar. The anxious submissive urinator is given to a shelter.

Believe me, I empathize with how exasperating it can be to live with a pet who has an ongoing behavioral issue. For the past two years, my home has been divided into feline and canine zones separated by baby gates. Ever since we adopted Vinnie at the age of 4 months, in true herding dog style he’s been compelled to chase my cat, Ted. Ted, always a nervous skittish guy, has been compelled to run from Vinnie. You see the dilemma? A dog who simply must chase a fleeing critter. A cat who simply must flee from the dog. Definitely not an ideal combination.

It’s been a challenge preventing Vinnie from having opportunities to chase Ted, supervising closely whenever we allow them to be in the same room together, and making sure Ted’s quality of life continues to be good now that he no longer has free run of the house. A certain undercurrent of tension stems from having to negotiate and manage all the pets’ interactions with each other.

Ted in the sunshine

It’s been a long-term project to train Vinnie to focus on and come to me when he sees Ted instead of chasing him. Very often it’s felt like one step forward and two steps back. However, more and more often these days I’m reminded that though training is sometimes a long process, if you stick with it, it’s a process that yields positive results. Behaviors can indeed be modified. Some behaviors just take longer to change than others.

I’ll never forget the night that a once-seemingly unbelievable scene first unfolded before my eyes. Picture this: me sitting on the floor of my living room. To my right was Ted, rolling around with his favorite catnip mouse. Not six feet away lay Vinnie happily playing with his blanket. I looked back and forth at each of them, unable to completely take it in.

Was I dreaming? Could it be possible that I was sitting there with both of my pets in the same room just a few feet apart, and we were all basically. . . FINE?

Sure, both animals were keeping an eye on each other. But they weren’t focused on each other. They were relaxed. There was no conflict. There was no chase. I was overjoyed.

Even now as I write about that night, I get chills. For all the times we had setbacks, for all the times it felt like we’d reached a stalemate, for all the times I was ready to give up on training and resign myself to living permanently in a Cold War-like home, we’d been making progress. It was incremental, it was slow, but the overall trend was upward and positive.

That first night was no fluke. My critters co-exist tolerantly more and more of the time. Vinnie and Ted may never be friends. But they’re well on their way to becoming peaceful housemates thanks to the training process.

∞

An earlier version of this article first appeared in www.InCirclePets.com.