The Use of Sheep Dogs and Anatole’s

Border Collies

Border Collies have been used for years to help in the herding of sheep. A well-trained Border Collie can be worth several labourers in the field. In the United Kingdom, several competitions are held where dogs herd and handle sheep. Border Collies have a great temperament for this task and are very clever dogs which can be trained quite easily and effectively.

Border Collie working sheep

Training Ability of Sheepdogs – Border Collies:

Border Collies are an athletic, high-energy, intelligent dog breed, originally bred for herding sheep and livestock. These medium-sized dogs (growing about twenty inches tall and weighing fifty-five pounds on average) typically have black and white fur (with black ears and eyes and white chests, snouts, and underbellies). Since they are very affectionate, they also make popular family dogs.

Studies also show that Border Collies are one of the most intelligent dog breeds, capable of learning up to 200 words when their owners train them properly. Owing to their strong herding instincts, you may also notice them running behind you and, family members.

Training Tips

1. Give them plenty of exercise. Owing to their extremely high energy levels, Border Collies need to get plenty of physical and mental stimulation daily, or they may become restless. To maintain your dog’s attention during training sessions, give them plenty of time to play and run around.
2. Have consistent, short training sessions. It’s best to make training sessions short for your Border Collie, or their attention may wander. Stick to a consistent training schedule of ten- to twenty-minute sessions and track your furry friend’s progress along the way to ensure that you’re hitting the necessary milestones.
3. Socialise them well. When your Border Collie puppy is young, expose them to various people and situations. This type of social exposure at a young age will encourage them to follow your commands in crowded places.
4. Start training right away. Border Collies are intelligent dogs that will respond to training from a very young age. Start teaching your pup basic training commands at three to four months old.
5. Use treats. Like other dogs, Border Collies respond well to positive reinforcement during training. Reward your furry friend with dog treats when they respond correctly to your commands.

Chocolate and white border collie

Step-by-step instructions to train your Border Collie:

1. Choose the first command. Before you start training your dog, pick a basic training method or command on which to focus. Some early training efforts include walking on a leash, crate training, house training, or teaching your dog how to sit, stay, or heel.
2. Gather supplies. Ensure you have the right supplies to train your pup. Depending on what you’re teaching them, you’ll need training treats, a dog toy (to get their attention), and a leash and harness. Learn about other dog training tools.
3. Use basic commands. When teaching your pup new tricks, use short commands and say them with force, which will help them differentiate directions from regular ones.
4. Reinforce good behaviour. Give your dog training treats when they correctly follow your commands. For example, if you are potty training your Border Collie puppy, reward them with a small treat and praise them when they use the restroom outside on a leash.
5. Be patient. Puppy training happens over time, and your dog won’t understand a command the first time you say it. Be patient as your furry friend learns new things. Maintain a kind yet firm tone of voice throughout your training efforts.
6. Work with a professional. For additional support (or if your dog is exhibiting behavioural problems), consider using a dog trainer or sending your pup to an obedience training program. Similarly, if you want your dog to receive advanced training (like agility training), consider sending them to a training school, where the trainers use professional training techniques.

Taking Care of a Sheepdog:

• Feed your sheepdog good quality dry food once or twice a day, supplemented with some canned food if desired.

Therefore, look for a food made with whole meat proteins as the primary ingredient, with a carbohydrate content of no more than 20%, It only takes a few minutes of watching a Border Collie on an agility course to understand just how nimble and flexible this beautiful breed truly is. However, all that twisting, turning, flipping, and jumping puts a great deal of strain on bones and joints.

While the protein needs of a Border Collie will decline slightly through life, they’re still very much present. That’s why the best pet food for Border Collies should include plenty of high-quality protein among its list of ingredients.

In addition to protein, carbohydrates are an essential part of this energetic dog’s food ingredients. The best food for a Border Collie’s needs is a premium formula with natural, high-quality dog food ingredients. This food allows the carbohydrates to be consumed quickly but burned slowly, resulting in steady levels of energy throughout your dog’s busy day.

• Walk your sheepdog for about one hour every day and spend as much time with him as possible.
• Prepare for grooming at least twice a week.
• Spray the dog’s fur with water to dampen it.

Health and Genetics:

To be considered a genetic disease, a health problem needs to have been demonstrated to be heritable, that is, passed on through one or both parents. Some diseases have high heritability, which means if the genes are present, the individual will have the disease, and some diseases have low heritability, meaning both genetic and environmental factors are involved in whether the disease occurs. It is generally easier to control diseases with high heritability because all individuals with the genetic makeup for the disease can usually be identified. The term heritable disease should be distinguished from the term congenital disease or problems that are present from birth, which may or may not be heritable.

Listed are upper estimates of incidence rates within their gene pool along with published inheritance modes for these diseases. Available clinical tests to identify affected dogs and genetic tests to identify carriers and affected dogs are also listed.

 

Estimated incidence rates of the identified disease.

Disease	Estimated Incidence Rate (a)	Inheritance	Clinical Test	Genetic Test
Collie Eye Anomaly (CEA)	<2.5%	Recessive	Ophthalmological exam (b)	Optigen, Paw Print Genetics,  Animal Genetics
Hip Dysplasia	<11% (c)	Complex	Radiographic: OFA, Cornell	None
Epilepsy	<5% (d)	Complex	Physical and neurological  exam	None
Early Onset Adult Deafness (EOD)	Unknown	Recessive (e)	BAER test	None
Exercise- Induced Border Collie   Collapse (BCC)	Unknown	Complex	None, diagnosis by  exclusion	None
Imerslund-Gräsbeck Syndrome   (IGS)	Rare (<0.5%) (f)	Recessive	Physical exam and  bloodwork	UCDavis, Animal Genetics,  Paw Print Genetics
Trapped Neutrophil Syndrome  (TNS)	Rare (<0.5%) (f)	Recessive	Bone marrow biopsy	Optigen, Animal Genetics,  Paw Print Genetics
Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis  (NCL)	Rare (<0.5%) (f)	Recessive	Physical and MRI exams	Optigen, Animal Genetics,  Paw Print Genetics
Multi-Drug Resistance Gene   (MDR1)	Rare (<0.5%) (f)	Recessive	None	Vet Clinical Pharmacology  Lab at WA State U, Paw Print   Genetics, Animal Genetics

Explanation of the Table above:

1. Estimated incidence rates are for affected dogs, carrier rates will be higher.
2. Exams are recommended before 12 weeks of age.
3. Hip dysplasia rates are from OFA data for all Border Collies (any registry) where radiographs were submitted from 1974 to 2014.
4. There are no published reports for incidence in Border Collies; incidence rates for breeds have been reported to range from 0.5% to 5% with Border Collies having one of the higher incidence rates.
5. Genetic studies by Dr Mark Neff suggest (not proven) recessive inheritance.
6. Based upon a published study from Border Collies without distinction of registry or country.

Anatolian Shepherd Dogs

At Grootfontein Agricultural College research with Anatolian dogs is currently underway in co-operation with the NWGA. Where lambing areas are not too large, the practice of employing these dogs is highly effective. Under extensive farming conditions, some success is also recorded when good management is applied. Cognisance should be taken of the fact that the training of Anatolian Shepherd dogs is not without its problems and requires absolute dedication.

Male Anatolian Shepard

General Appearance: Large, rugged, powerful and impressive, possessing great endurance and agility. Developed through a set of very demanding circumstances for a purely utilitarian purpose; he is a working guard dog without equal, with a unique ability to protect livestock. General impression – appears bold, but calm, unless challenged. He possesses size, good bones, and a well-muscled torso with a strong head. Reserve out of its territory is acceptable. The fluid movement and even temperament are desirable.

The dogs are alert and intelligent, calm and observant. Instinctively protective, he is courageous and highly adaptable. He is very loyal and responsive. Highly territorial, he is a natural guard. Reserve around strangers and off its territory is acceptable. Responsiveness with animation is not characteristic of the breed. Overhandling would be discouraged.

It is important to properly train the Anatolian dogs

Training Process of Anatolian Dogs:

Training a stubborn Anatolian dog can be frustrating, but here is some process that can help you train your dog.

• Relationship-based training.

A relationship-based training is teaching more than training. It attempts to meet the needs of both trainer and the dog. It is a lot like raising children.

This process needs a lot of time and patience, the trainer must understand the body language of his dog and what rewards can make them thrive to motivate the dog.

• Positive reinforcement.

Purely positive reinforcement is a very popular method to train a dog. As a simple belief, Anatolian Shepherd dogs learn good behaviour by being rewarded for what they did well.

For positive reinforcement, you need to use verbal cues such as; treats, clickers, their favourite toys, and even games to help modify behaviour, correct bad habits, and even teach tricks.

If you train your Anatolian Shepherd using positive reinforcement, you will get a trained dog and you will maintain the spirit of your dog.

Socialisation.

If you are owning an adult Anatolian Shepherd, then they need to be socialised among others. Socialisation involves everyday sights and sounds that he will encounter during his life as well as interaction with people outside of the family unit.

The socialisation of a dog is very important, and it should begin as soon as possible.

Strategies and Techniques for Easy Training of Anatolian Shepherds:

Here are some techniques which can help you train your Anatolian:

1. Go slowly.

Dogs of this breed are very sensitive; they need a little more time than other dogs to be well-trained. You need to create a positive environment with training by rewarding them for even minor success and once your dog understands that they are rewarded for doing well then bring a little change.

In the second step, deliver a command and when he follows it then add some distraction like the television or another person in the room. You need to keep patience in this technique; if training becomes hard then your Anatolian Shepherd is like to give up.

2. Leader of the pack.

If you have an Anatolian Shepherd dog, then due to their dominant temperament they tend to form packs. And if there’s no one to be the dependable leader of the pack in your family, for sure your dog will attempt to become the pack leader.

So, you need to create a boss in you while training your dog and once you are successful in doing this then he can easily come into your control and will always be anxious to please you.

3. Basic commands and fun tricks.

Basic commands give your Anatolian a structure and they can also help you overcome common behaviour. Identify two training methods for Anatolian Shepard’s problems.

Dog tricks are the best way to take your dog training to the next level and can help your Anatolian to give some mental stimulation.

The fact that the guardian’s behaviour is instinctive does not mean the farmer has no role to play. It is not that you let a guard dog loose with the flock and that’s that. Rearing a pup properly is important. Good behaviour, like alert barking, can be encouraged, and bad behaviour, like chewing on or chasing livestock, must be disciplined. For a guardian dog to work successfully, it must be reared with the flock as opposed to growing up amongst humans. A pen with a group of older sheep that are calm, or the lambing barn, are good places to start a pup at the age of about 8 weeks.

A common misunderstanding is that a herding dog could also guard. Likewise, another misconception is that a guard dog will herd the sheep. Herding and guarding are mutually exclusive. Herding derives from hunting. Herding is a controlled hunt. A herding dog sees the livestock as prey. Guarding, on the other hand, means that the dog views the livestock as members of its pack (hence the need to raise the dog with the livestock) just like a pet dog views a human as a member of its pack.

Training for guarding uses techniques that are much different from those used in training a dog for obedience, hunting, or herding.

Training a livestock-guardian dog is primarily a matter of raising the dog with sheep to establish a social bond between sheep and dog.

8-week-old pups are being raised in the sheep barn. The vertical boards nailed to the feed trough give pups a place to escape from the ewes that could butt. Sniffing nose-to-nose is the start of social binding

It is a process that depends on supervision to prevent bad habits from developing and on establishing limits of acceptable behaviour that are compatible with your operation. Successful training produces an adult that’s trustworthy with sheep, attentive to sheep, and protective of sheep. These factors build on one another, protective behaviour is mainly the result of trustworthy and attentive behaviour.

Basic Guarding Dog Behaviour:

Livestock-guarding dogs have traits that distinguish them from other breeds. They tend to retain puppylike characteristics throughout their adult lives – licking the muzzle of an adult, food begging, playing wrestling, following parents or littermates, staying near a home, or den site, barking when something new or strange approaches and absence of predatory behaviour.

When dogs and sheep are accustomed to one another from early on, they develop a loving and protective nature towards one another

The frequency of display of this behaviour varies between dogs, but it can be encouraged and reinforced in a dog through learning and positive experience. Your dog will direct much of this behaviour towards the sheep as if they were littermates or parents.

Below we find a display of approach-withdrawal behaviour. There is uncertainty here: The dog’s hackles and tail are raised in a posture of dominance or aggression, but his ears are back, and he avoids eye contact with the intruder – the posture of submission. The dog circles between the sheep and the intruder. Will this display become aggressive?

Dog protecting sheep

The change that it might be is enough to ward off most predators. Note how close the sheep are feeding in the background and how calm they are.

It is recommended to raise replacement lambs that you plan to introduce to the main flock. Once the dog has made a bond with one group of sheep other sheep tend to follow.

Each dog handler and farmer share a unique set of conditions. Needs and expectations in predator control are different for a small, part-time producer, and a large-range operator. For example, the small-flock owner may be close to a town or close to neighbours. Neighbours and frequent visitors can be a distraction for the dog. On the small farmstead, extra patting can reinforce the bond to property and familiarise the dog with people. A dog that displays attentiveness to people but moves freely about the farm can provide a degree of protection even if it is not with the sheep all the time.

On the other hand, a commercial producer with several hundred sheep may require a dog that is shy of people. A dog that prefers sheep to people can be fostered by minimising human attention, beginning at the age of 5 weeks of age.