Lilly’s Herding Lesson #1, Part 1
Between bouts of silly cold and small-ish snowstorms every 1-3 days, we finally squeezed in Lilly’s second herding lesson on Friday. The weather was clear, with temps in the 60s, which was great. So, all this week, we’ll be talking about herding.
The Bigger Goat Herding Story
I harbor a million and one thoughts about how Lilly’s first official herding lesson went, but I’m attempting NOT to prejudice you with excessive narration. I promise all will be revealed as the week goes on, including what happened before and after the videos I plan to post:
- Monday: Goat Herding Challenge #1 – Moving stock from one working area to another (video)
- Tuesday: Goat Herding Challenge #2 – Herding in tandem with experienced herding dog (video)
- Wednesday: Goat Herding Challenge #3 – Herding a larger group of goats in a larger pen (video)
- Thursday: Goat Herding Challenge #4 – Herding with a clueless shepherd (me), narration
- Friday: Goat Herding Challenge #5 – Working on fetching stock (aka “Away to Me”), narration
Later in the week, I may even work up a little online poll so that you can vote on various insights and scenarios because I’m curious what you see in her compared to what I see.
Lilly’s First Approach
Once again, because I was giving Lilly the attention she deserves when we first approached the small round pen full of goats (many more this time), I did not catch her initial movement and effort on camera.
HOWEVER, Lilly showed strong impulse control and dropped her head when she first rounded the goats in a decent stalking posture. In other words, she did not simply blast at them, bark, and harass individual goats … like she did during her herding instinct test last month.
Goat Herding Challenge #1
We gave Lilly the opportunity to move the goats from the smaller round pen (where we did her entire herding instinct test), through the barn/feeding area, and into the bigger working area.
The video below (just over a minute long) shows how the first part of this challenge went:
If you’ve come to our herding stories already in progress, you can catch up via these posts:
Lilly’s Herding Instinct Test, Part 1
Lilly’s Herding Instinct Test, Part 2