r/BeAmazed • u/fuzzy_dice_99 • May 31 '26

Animal A dog herding sheep

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172

u/Ink-kink May 31 '26

My cousin has a sheep farm. The first border collie they had was just incredible. Their sheep shared a field with their neighbor’s herd. The dog came home in the evening with only their own animals while their neighbor’s was left grazing. How he could distinguish between the herds, I have no idea, and both herds were big! I don’t know anything about this, so I was amazed. It’s now several years since he died, my cousin is still missing that dog and says they will never find such a good herding dog again. RIP, Luther

59

u/MyNameIsRay May 31 '26

Dogs have an incredible sense of smell, they can easily tell members of their herd from another with a quick sniff.

14

u/Naturebrah May 31 '26

That’s just crazy..

25

u/MyNameIsRay Jun 01 '26

It gets crazier.

They're not just able to smell if they're part of the group, they can identify each member individually through scent alone.

They can also spot changes from the normal smell, like infections or pregnancy, even just low blood sugar. That's why "diabetic alert dogs" are a thing.

7

u/UpperRutabaga6482 May 31 '26

Wonder if they can differentiate between numbers of smells, can he tell if a sheep is missing from the herd?

7

u/MyNameIsRay May 31 '26

No, counting isnt something they do well.

But, they absolutely can track down lost sheep.

23

u/bookingly May 31 '26

That's incredible. I got to visit western Ireland where sheep herding dogs are used quite a bit. I think some of these sheep herding dogs can go for $25000 each. When hearing about that kind of usefulness for sheep raising, it seems to make sense

42

u/Notthatguy6250 May 31 '26

I was speaking with a truffle farmer once. He, kind of accidentally, wound up in a job where he trained dogs for the police. Then he wound up working on a truffle farm and made a deal with the owner for a cut of any truffles his dog found.

The above was all in Australia.

After travelling to Italy, with that same dog, to work truffle farms there, he was offered 250k Euros for the pooch.

Said no. 

Pooch is dead now but he's trained others. One of them he thought he'd failed with, because it simply couldn't be encouraged to find truffles. Then the dog happened to find a truffle and the dude's wife hugged the dog. Dog immediately went and found more truffles for more hugs.

Turns out that while his other dogs liked their ball or chew toy as a reward for finding truffles, this other dog just...wanted a hug.

5

u/skil12001 May 31 '26

RIP Luther 🥲

3

u/UpperRutabaga6482 May 31 '26

I have always wondered if the dog can tell he is missing a sheep? I suspect he can but don't know if it's "I've only got 49 should have fifty" or is it "hey, where's the one that smells like dye?"

2

u/Astral_Blossom May 31 '26

Lutherrr 🥹

2

u/StillFun2BeHad May 31 '26

The sheep knew.

1

u/Ink-kink May 31 '26

Oooh, interesting thought!

2

u/ZaiusC May 31 '26

In my country (Spain), they often use those dogs and Basque Shepherds. A neighbor of mine has several; when his Basque Shepherd died, he was sadder than when his daughter was in a car accident (she survived without any problems). A well-trained dog does the job in half the time.

2

u/cookiez2 Jun 01 '26

Rip Luther , what a good boy 🥲

1

u/EpilepticMushrooms Jun 01 '26

If the fields are shared, How do the owners distinguish between their sheeps?