Sheep dog

OK, this is nothing to do with electronics. But this is rather fascinating. I was in New Zealand last week on holidays with my family. We went to a farm where this old guy was walking around leaning on his walking stick. "Poor guy," I thought. "He can hardly walk". Well, I was soon shown to be wrong when he wrestled a fully-grown sheep onto its back and sheared it.

Before that he had this dog trotting alongside. It looked pretty placid, it rolled onto its back and let the children pat it. As you can see from the video, he wasn't that placid when faced with half a dozen sheep. He didn't bark once, nor did he touch the sheep, but he had them well under control. Also, he did exactly what the farmer told him to do (maybe with one exception).

Apologies for the slightly poor video quality, but this was just a hand-held still/video camera of my daughter's.

For the first 20 seconds I thought what clever sheep pidgeons they were :slight_smile:

It is amazing to watch them work. I have had 2 Borders, not trained, but there is still a large amount of that behaviour that is instinctive in those dogs. AMazingly smart dogs.

When we were in college, my wife had an amazing herding dog. She would say to her, "Sapphire, bring em home!" Sapphire would bolt off into the woods. After a few minutes, the cows would complain. Moo. Moo! Moo!!! We'd walk up to the barn. The cows would all be inside with Sapphire happily guarding the gate.

Sapphire frequently tried to herd the farm cats. The cats didn't think that was too funny but everyone else certainly did.

my wife had an amazing herding dog.

out of interest , was it also a border collie ? they seem to love the task.

Blue Heeler + Australian Sheppard.

That sounds an interesting mix, according to Wikipedia thats a cross of an Australian cattle dog and an American sheep dog, no wonder it loves to herd.

Yeah, she was something else. She was the size of a Blue Heeler (~30 lbs) had the brindle of a Blue Heeler and the spots and patches of an Australian Sheppard. Given her relatively small size it was amazing how well she could work a small herd of cows.

...no wonder it loves to herd

Cats. Other dogs. Children. Adults. Chickens. Geese. Everything had to be rounded up.

Nice video Nick.
Now we need a dog to herd politicians

Nick, thank you for posting the video.