Chasing? Herding? Context is Everything!
Can you do chase motivated sports where dogs thrive on high arousal and still have successful training sessions in the herding arena with your trainee dog? If you would’ve asked me this a year ago, I would’ve answered with a “HELL NO!” and I wouldn’t’ve been alone in that sentiment. Now adays, I find ecorporating a good game of frisbee or even flirt pole work between herding sessions helps both my now started dog, Willow, but also (to a lesser degree) my green dog gus contextualize work from play and when chasing is and is not appropriate.
Disclaimer: I am not by any stretch of the word an “expert” and the contents of this blog are simply experiences I’ve had with my dogs and my opinion. Take it all with a grain of salt. This is a question I’ve asked and have been asked so I thought it may prove useful to write down my experiences on the subject.
There aren’t a lot of people in my breed are working their dogs on stock and also regularly taking their dogs lure coursing, dock diving, up-dogging, agility running, monidoring, etc.. I’m sure this is something far more prevalently done in border collies. There doesnt seem to be a shortage of “this is a horrible thing to do” opinions among many folks I’ve met doing either or. In fact, a common sentiment I’ve heard both in the herding and agility arena is that pursuing a high level of precision obedience is in direct conflict with the nature of herding/agility and should be avoided. I’ve also heard “never teach a show dog to sit.” both jokingly and as dead serious instruction in a show handling class. I think the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.
Dogs are wonderful at understanding context but practicing or drilling certain behaviors can tend to create some bad habits that you will have to work to break in the context of herding and vice versa. I find that if the task is different enough then it is not a problem. For example, competitive obedience or rally is very different from the context of herding. In herding you do not want such precise obedience always nor do you want the dog to work close to you all the time. But the act of herding is done in open field, with a stock stick, in plain clothing with livestock present. The instincts applied are very different. In rally or obedience, a course is set up and the intent of what you will be doing is very obvious. Your body position, the collar an leash, the ring. I have found that my dog has no issue switching into obedience versus herding mode. In the case of fast cat, which activates a similar instinct to herding, I have found little to no impact on our herding training. Although we are activating a similar instinct, the set up for fast cat is very distinctly fast cat. There is the snow netting straight course, the whir of the engine, the hype up before the chase, the dogs waiting in line. I have found that it has little impact on the dog’s herding training if the dog is started (not totally new and has learned the basic foundations of herding). If you prioritize coursing prior to herding training, you may have to spend more time breaking the dog of it’s desire to chase versus control and depending on the dog this can really delay your progress in herding.
