Sheepdog, Trafficdog, Dogdog?

Kay Laurence Jan 2010

Sheep dogs, or herding breeds are designed for very specific tasks. Their brain responds with  fixed action patterns that are triggered by movement A fixed action pattern is an inherited “hard-wired” pattern of behaviours. They need to control movement.

Different herding breeds do this in different ways. The breeds have been developed to manage specific behaviour patterns of the stock, from sheep, to cattle, to geese, in fact anything we may keep as livestock. Some dogs are generalised, they can manage many different types of stock, these are often referred to as “general farm dogs”. Their skills are average, not too delicate for cattle, and not too rough for sheep. Others are specialised, they have more refined skills to suit one type of stock, and even one type of breed within that stock, these are the collies. Border Collies evolved to work the border hills between England and Scotland, where the sheep breed was mostly Cheviots. More mountainous areas suit a lighter, flightier sheep and have the dogs to match, as low land favours the heavier breeds, and have the steadier dogs. Sheep in Australia and New Zealand are purpose bred for the terrain, usually managed in enormous flocks and have different types of stock dogs with specific skills, the Kelpie, the Huntaway.

The sheep dog or collies I am seeing in classes today can contain some or all of these talents, in many different packages. Their fixed action patterns drive them to contain uncontrolled movement. Not all movement. If the movement is under their control, they can be content, but when the movement is outside their control they need to react. Not being able to control movement causes immense frustration, which is often identified as aggression, or lack of social skills.

The collie that goes to training class, even as a puppy, will feel the need to control the uncontrolled behaviour of other pups, and even people. This is more noticeable when pups are playing, with other pups, or with people, when the collie pup is straining against the lead to “go manage”. It is not aggression, or lack of social skills, it is the fixed action pattern wired into their brains. Hundreds of generations of breeding are not lost because the breeding focus has changed. These fixed actions patterns can mix in variations of extremes. This seems to be occurring with more frequency today, perhaps because the dogs are no longer selected for herding skills. Take a collie to class to “socialise” can actually develop the frustration from their unrealised fixed action patterns. Herding breeds do not socially interact with their chosen stock. One of my collies would actually spend the day herding caged birds, he never “socialised” with a cockatoo. Social skills are developed within the same species, familiarisation is developed across different species.

Sharing my life with Collies and Gordons has made me very attuned to the different FAP within these breeds, products of over a 1000 years of selective breeding. When I have the Gordons in mixed breed company, classes or  dog sports, I need to be constantly alert to any surrounding collies that feel the need to control their movement. They have received many a nip from an unsupervised collie.

As a galloping breed, easily aroused, they are very “untidy”. Their ears flap, their legs flap and their body co-ordination is poor. The Gordons are purpose bred to be loose limbed and energetic to run on moorland heather. They will go well beyond the speed and stamina of a collie on this terrain. In confined areas their behaviour triggers the FAP in the collies. My collies get used to it to some degree, but I am always vigilant around other collies. The Gordons can easily become depressed by this micro-management. All my young collies try to control the Gordons in the field, and fail, which serves as a suitable extinction process to the reaction. They simply cannot keep up with them. The Gordons have the freedom to run, but within the garden the collies can, and will try, to manage the Gordons.

Speck, with assistants, “working” one of the Gordons

The collies that goes to agility class have to ignore the out of control behaviour of both dogs and people. Watch any silent agility video with young dogs under training, and ask yourself whether this is a controlled situation or not? Very often the person is flapping, clapping and shouting, the dog is running at speed, in many varied directions, finishing with a kill-tug behaviour. The entire situation spells an urgent need for collie management. Remember that wonderful Gary Larson cartoon with a bunch of sheep at a party, a collie is standing in the doorway, and one sheep says to another “Thank God, a collie at last”.

What we have instead is several collies try to control the situation, and several owners not managing their own behaviour adding to the extremely high levels of frustration.

It is quite acceptable to require your collie to ignore one bunch of sheep and turn their control needs to another flock. It is quite acceptable to cut one ewe from the flock for husbandry, while the other sheep go back up onto the hills. This is the final task of herding, cutting the single for the kill.

If this situation seems familiar, the class that turns into a nightmare, judgemental looks from misunderstood assessment: “tut tut, they haven’t been properly socialised.” Do not add more to the frustration. Video the situation and watch for the triggers for your collie. Pay attention and expect your collie to behave like a collie, they arrive as a whole package, skills will develop as they mature and you cannot select the bits you want and ignore the undesirable. Uncontrolled actions from people, dogs, traffic, skateboards, children playing will trigger a response. With well crafted familiarisation techniques you can prepare a young dog for these environments. You can work very hard to diminish the response with reinforcement for controlled behaviour, but more practically you need to divert the FAP to other “stock” – such as a toy out of control. You can never extinguish a fixed action pattern, just suppress it. Without continual reinforcement it will recover.

Ideally you build a focus to “your stock”, your game with the ball or tug toy, BEFORE exposure to uncontrolled actions that will trigger the FAP. Once this is achieved, the uncontrolled action should trigger a focus to you, and ideal counter conditioned response in class situations.

If you want to learn more about collies and how to manage this behaviour:

Learning About Collies online Seminar  - A COLLAR class on Jan 16th.

Learning About Collies Seminar is at Wag More Barn on May 30th

Rehabilitation classes for collies starting in February.

PO Box 13, Chipping Campden, Glos. GL55 6WX. 0(+44)1386 430189

22 February 2012