My 1st Herdingseminar with Kai Haus, February 2005
Mistress always wanted to know how much herding instincts I had "inherited". But whenever she found out about a herding seminar it was already full. In January she finally succeeded in signing us up for a herding seminar. At the Saturday we`re gonna talk about it was freezing and snow fell from time to time. No good for standing on a paddock all day ;-)
After the teacher and the participants had introduced themselves we got down to business. Some of the participants had already been to several seminars. Their dogs already knew what was expected of them and could not wait to get to the sheep.
With inexperienced dog the proceedings were as follows. The sheep were paddocked of course. Within a round enclosure within the paddock were five sheep. My task was to go around the enclosure (and the sheep). Mistress was amazed how well that went. Clockwise and counterclockwise I went and lay down at her call.
I thought Mistress gained several inches from being so proud - until the teacher said: "We might as well put the sheep away. Nikita does not care for them at all.?!" I was allowed to go into the enclosure to the sheep. I still was not interested in the sheep, I only had eyes for Mistress - would she be as kind just to tell me what exactly she wants me to do?!
The teacher told Mistress to try to make the sheep follow her. Mistress made a good job of it ;-) I dragged the teacher with me still not noticing the sheep; I just wanted to reach Mistress. What did all the wooly-heads want with her?! The teacher had an idea. Mistress was to hide so that I would have time to "see" the sheep. Well, since I just did not want to notice the sheep but kept looking for Mistress the teacher said he had never encountered something like me. (He surely meant that I had eyes only for Mistress and just did not see anything else). He was stumped for the moment.
In the afternoon I was allowed to go back to the sheep. The teacher had thought that if Mistress stayed between the sheep I "had" to see them. We were in the enclosure and Mistress had a hard time to stay in the group of sheep. She was not supposed to talk or even look at me. Since Mistress did totally ignore me and had eyes only for those wooly-heads I got really angry with them. I raced towards one - no I did not want to hurt it, I wanted it away from Mistress.
Three of the sheep jumped the fence in panic - Mistress was looking to the teacher irritatedly but he said: "everything is OK, you just stay with the sheep." So Mistress ran after the sheep and I barking for attention around them. a bit later it dawned on me that it was right the sheep were with Mistress and that it was my duty to see that they would stay with her.
The wooly-heads followed Mistress and I followed them vehemently. Mistress called "Tack" (=down) and I lay down. I was supposed to follow the sheep slowly and a short while later I had to lay down again.. When the sheep were back in their enclosure and Mistress was talking to the teacher I dared to look at the wooly-heads from time to time. They were a bit interesting and I did not know if I should watch them or Mistress, who was talking to the teacher still.
One has to bear in mind that by now I am 5 years old and chasing other animals (besides dogs of course) had always been prohibited. My father has a herding title and my mother, siblings and one of my half-brothers I know are definitely interested in herding ;-) So one could say that Mistress did successfully "heal" a talented dog ;-) Mistress definitely wants to go to more herding seminars with me...
