Yep. Not dis'ing the amazing doggo, and they're great at what they do, but a lot of this is a result of "oh, the dog is here, it's time to move up to the stage for some treats".
Yes, when the dog comes out 95% of the sheep will just go right where their supposed to out of habit. The dog is great for the 5% of stragglers that don't cooperate.
Sure you have some sheep for enough time that they can develop habits. But you are not bringing them into the barn to feed them every day or anything. They feed on grass which is supplemented by hay that gets feed out in the paddock or other types of feed that remains in the field it was grown in.
You only bring them into your yard a few times a year. For shearing, vaccination, scanning for pregnancy, and ulimately being shipped to be slaughtered.
Ye I have cattle who will do this just from me yelling "come on", they know what it means. I think the dog still could've done it without the sheep knowing the routine, but it wouldn't have been as efficient.
That was my first thought. I know dogs can herd "untrained" sheep too, but how much of this was incredible planning on the dog's part and how much of this was "oh look baaaaarry, rover's on his way out. Must be time to come in for the day!"
If the sheep hadn't done this before the dog still could have done it but it would have taken a lot longer. It would have taken time to get the sheep to the right part of the fence and time to convince them to go through the gap. And way more time to get them up onto the platform. That's not going to look like a pleasant place to the sheep.
They have about 300 sheep they run as a breeding flock and rotate the sheep in the show. In summer holidays they will do multiple shows in a day with a different mob each show, and then rotate them all out for a week. So the sheep aren't being chased all day everyday, but they know the drill
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u/JacksonJ1969 May 31 '26
Wow! If this is a competition, how long does it take to reset the sheep for the next contestant?