Instinct Test on Sheep

J

JoonieB

Forums Regular
Hi all,

I'm looking for some tips or suggestions from those of you who have had your dog instinct tested. I have a Sheltie boy that just turned one in April. I couldn't find any local herding folks so I decided to bite the bullet and enter him in a herding clinic/instinct test which will be taking place this weekend about 3 hours away. He's never seen or been around livestock of any sort other than my chickens. Do most people expose their Shelties to sheep before instinct testing or is the instinct test the first exposure to sheep?? I'm worried that I haven't prepared him properly for these two instinct tests! Should I be concerned? Help!
 
I'd say it depends on the judge doing the testing and the sheep.
my brown shelties had seen sheep before and kinda liked it.
we went to a herding instinct test- the judge passed one of the two that I had there and failed the other. she said he needed training- which implied that he had instinct to train..... so it was like she was evaluating for a higher level than just instinct testing.
took the other two to a different instinct test with different judges- great judges who worked with you- but the sheep were terrible. not dog-broken and had just had lambs- very defensive and not willing to be moved by non-trained dogs......
so they both failed and we haven't tried the test again. did put them on sheep a couple months later and one wouldn't even look at the sheep. the other after some encouragement did show some interest so he might get another shot....
 
I took a herding clinic/instinct test with Edan and CJ a few years ago. This was NOT an official AKC instinct test just a workshop to see if the dogs would show any interest. The sheep we used were use to dogs herding them.

It was our first exposure to any kind of livestock and the shepherd in the pen with us made sure both the dog and sheep were safe as well as providing guidance on what to do in order to move them.
 
How it runs depends on the judge. I've seen 2 judges automatically have the owner in with the dog, and 2 who vary it depending on personality. DH or I always went in with Olive.

Olive never saw sheep before we went to our first two tests in 2013. She Q'd once but wasn't quite sure about it. We let her grow up a bit (she was rescue so very nervous) and tried again last month. This judge had me treat it as a game (sort of keep away with the sheep between Olive and myself.) This made all the difference. You can watch her video here and compare to the two others on my channel.

It's only to see if the dog is interested in grouping/working the sheep instead of chasing or attacking, or just not interested. Don't stress :yes:
 
Oh, good! Thanks everyone. This is going to be an Intro to Herding clinic followed by two AKC instinct tests. I believe he'll be okay, but I have worked through some fear issues with him so I'm concerned about how it'll go if I'm not allowed in with him or if the judge is "in his face". We're working on agility currently and he's fearless of equipment etc. so hopefully something "clicks" when he sees sheep. The video was really helpful. I guess I'll have to wait and see how the judges are...and the sheep as well. We're dog number 7 in both tests so maybe the sheep will be in the routine of things by the time we're in.
 
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