Herding Beardies | PAST EVENTS ARCHIVE

BEARDIE & ALL BREEDS HERDING EVENTS HELD IN NORTH YORKSHIRE

I hope the following pages give you a idea in words & photos of the Herding Events held in 2008 & 2009 in North Yorkshire Whilst it is possible to conjure up the atmosphere of the day in some respects - there is no substitute for being there & taking part - its great fun !

These pages are now held as an Archive.

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TESTIMONIALS

Heather sent us these comments after attending the Herding Weeeknd with Carl. ZORRO is a lovely black GSD - his first time with sheep - a perfect gentleman!

Thank you for such a wonderful day on Sunday at the herding event.The weather, the food the tuition and company were exceptional. I learned so much about sheep, dog behaviour, instinct and the Swedish aptitude test that it will take me a long time to digest it all. And as for Beardies, I had never met any really as 'people', just seen them preened for shows, but to see them doing what they were I presume originally bred for was wonderful. Flowing coats and a happy friendly spirit. What a happy lovely breed, and what enlightened folk that owned them. ZORRO had a ball and I was so glad to be invited back sometime. Please may I join your list for
another event, please please.

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After his visit to the Herding Day on November 24th, Ron sent us this interesting report on BESS's first encounter with sheep.

I was so pleased when I managed to book our brown beardie girl Bess and myself onto one of Jackie and Liz's herding days on 24 November. My own interest was stimulated by Elizabeth Kershaw's enthusiastic report from having attended the May meet this year. What I was wanting to know was just how Bess would react when confronted by a group of sheep face-to-face, when she has shown such avid and vocal interest in them on our walks. Having been assured by Liz that the initial encounter would be under very closely controlled conditions, I enrolled eagerly.

I arrived at The Glebe bright and early and after enjoying a very welcome coffee and bacon sandwich was soon invited by Jackie to have Bess put through her paces. Exchanging Bess's lead for a much longer leash, Jackie, Bess and myself entered the paddock where a flock of five sheep were waiting. Straight away Bess's attention locked on to the sheep who had gathered at the edge of the paddock against the fence. Keeping her on the leash and at a respectful distance, Bess was led barking excitedly to the sheep. Bess's initial lunging at the sheep was kept checked by Jackie and with a combination of body language and verbal commands she gradually settled down.

To sum up, the day was thoroughly enjoyable, culminating in a 'proper' display of how trained herding dogs (albeit borders!!) CAN work,followed by a free runabout in the big field where we saw the usual social interaction of beardies getting along so well with each other. It
had been a long but worthwhile day for us and the dogs, and I thank Jackie, Liz and Hugh for staging the event and giving us and our beardies the opportunity to explore the hidden talents in this wonderful breed. We'll be back!

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Christine, CAWLEY's Mum sent us the following after a cold but enjoyable Herding Event in November.

I too would like to thank Jackie and Liz for a great day yesterday. I have been with my 8 month old pup Cawley now 3 or 4 times and he loves it. It's amazing to see that even the youngsters seem instinctively to have an idea of what it's all about - though of course I shouldn't be surprised, beardies are herding dogs after all. All the beardies seemed to thoroughly enjoy their 'herding lesson' and we will certainly be back for more. I was so impressed with Liz's Diva who
coolly and calmly gathered the sheep and moved them from one
paddock to another like she'd been doing it all her life!

Give it a try folks, your beardies will love it!

Thanks again, especially to Jackie for her endless patience, for a really
enjoyable day, great company, great food, (fairly) great weather and of
course great beardies!

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Elizabeth Kershaw sent us her thoughts on her experiences with GUSSIE at the Herding Weekend held in May '08

I have always been interested in discovering whether or not my Beardies would be capable of doing the job for which they were originally bred. In the past I have been able to go on a variety of herding days with a variety of dogs and much to my disappointment none of the ones who have had the opportunity so far, have shown the slightest interest in sheep. While this has its advantages in that I can walk in most sheep “infested” areas without the fear that my dogs will be out of control, it also has its galling side! With this in mind and with some trepidation, I enrolled GUSSIE on the herding weekend up in Yorkshire, held in Pickering in May 2008.

Liz and Jackie had arranged for the Swedish herding expert Carl Borgstrom to come over to the UK, work with our dogs and give us the benefit of his experience. Sadly I could only manage two days but it was well worth the trip. Interesting exchange of ideas, a lot of really good tuition, some fabulous Beardies, good food, good company and good weather. What more could a Beardie owner want? What was most helpful was having the help of people who were Beardie owners themselves and who understood the different aspects of the working temperament between Beardies and Border Collies. Previous courses that I have attended have been taken by Border Collie people with little apparent interest or knowledge of our breed and its history.

I had booked GUSSIE in for three sessions. It is no secret that she has not been the easiest dog that I have ever trained! I finally managed to reach a relationship with her through working on scent related activities including tracking and searching. Once I discovered that, we have gone on to work well in other disciplines and we now enjoy our joint efforts. I had no preconceived idea as to what reaction she would have to sheep. I knew that, like my 12 year old brown dog Herbie, she was very interested in chasing birds! Why should anything with wings want to sit on the ground! Sadly GUSSIE made it quite clear that she preferred to use her nose and spent most of her sessions inspecting the ground rather than interacting with the sheep. I suspect sniffing became a displacement activity for her and she made it quite clear that sheep were incredibly boring!

So, a five hundred mile round trip to discover that Gorgeous GUSSIE has virtually no herding instinct in spite of several of her ancestors being very gifted in this area! Yet again I have a non-herding Beardie. Oh well at least I can walk on the downs without worrying about the sheep!

Was it worthwhile? Yes it was. It was a great weekend and I now know much more about my dog. I met many people whose names were familiar and whom I can now put faces to. Would I recommend it for you and your dog? If you want to find out more about your dog’s instincts towards sheep this is certainly the place to go. The teaching is excellent from people who know what they are doing and who know our breed. Go for it!

Sheep - what sheep ?? - GUSSIE looking extremely gorgeous but not the slightest bit interested in sheep!

Elizabeth's website http://www.canineeducation.com/

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After her first visit to Jackie's with her boys, an enthusiastic Lyn Armour says ;

Having just had a wonderful day ......... letting my boys do the
Herding Instinct Test with Jacky Goulder, I thought people might like to hear about it?

My two boys, BREAGH (age 9) and GILLIE (age 7) have always liked sheep, and at an early stage demonstrated, by accident, their skill and co-operation in the matter, so I was interested to see what an expert would think of them.

Both boys had a real day to remember, enthusiastically circling the
sheep, moving them up and down the small field. The test only lasts 15 minutes, so the sheep, all neutered males, coped easily. My older dog, BREAGH had a wonderful few minutes, but being Addisonian, he didn't have a huge amount of stamina, so simply stopped and rolled on his back, having a good scratch, then lay down to keep an eye on them.

GILLIE my brown boy proved a great hit, working out how to get them off the fence within minutes, and although inclined at first to nip their coats if he got too close, once he realised the shepherd (Jacky) was there to help, he began to look to her for direction. As he was inclined to look around for me, I went in to stand beside Jacky. Standing in the middle of a flock of sheep (as they are very used to this, they tend to flock round the shepherd!) watching my dog doing something he really enjoyed, responding to Jacky's directions with the crook,
moving round the flock clockwise (come by) and anti-clockwise (away) was quite heart-stopping! GILLIE has done obedience and agility in the past, but always been quite bored by it, turning his back on the ring when all the border collies were going nuts for their turn. He looked a different dog doing what he was bred for! I even found myself contemplating the purchase of few sheep!

Having been home a few days now, and been on several of our usual walks, I can also add that, although BREAGH is showing a revived awareness of sheep, they are both still totally accepting of the usual 'leave it' and 'walk on' commands.
It's almost as though, like my friend's little daughter after one violin
lesson, they've 'done that'!

I can totally recommend the experience!

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