# How do I start training my Collie to herd ducks?



## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I was enjoying the Border Collie thread so much that I wanted to start a training thread. I have a one year old Smooth Collie ***** that I believe has a good amount of drive and instinct - her breeder breeds for a working Collie and does a lot with them, including herding tests. Now, I know that an instinct test isn't the best possible indicator of ability, but its better than nothing! 

Tango is very smart, very willing, loves to learn and sometimes a little bit naughty. She is fascinated by the ducks, but always there is a fence between them or she is on leash around them. She has gotten loose with them once and wanted to pounce on them - but when I told her to "leave it", she left that duck and bounced at another one. She does sit and down pretty well, her come isn't so solid. 

I live in town on about 3/4 of an acre, I have 17 ducks atm. They have 4 pens for night time or for me to use to separate them for breeding. Those pens have gates into a smallish yard and that has a gate into a large yard. The smaller pen is roughly 30' by 20', the large yard is more like 100' by 100'. 

What I would like to be able to do is to have her help me gather them up when there are out foraging in the evening. Honestly, they know the routine pretty well and are often waiting for dinner, but sometimes I need to separate some of them and they get pretty silly. It would be fun for Tango to have a job working the ducks, but some of them are meat breeds and awfully big, fat and slow. I don't want them hurt or overstressed, they are my pets. 

I'm interested in advice on how to train her to work with me on herding the ducks safely and quietly. That's a lot to ask for a pretty high energy/high drive dog. I think she could learn it, not so sure about me training her, I have NO experience training a herding dog. I do know how to herd ducks myself, been doing that for several years. It takes mostly being very quiet and putting just enough pressure on them to get them to move along. I am familiar with their "bubble" and how close to be and how to read them, if that is any help!


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## Otter (Jan 15, 2008)

Seeing as how you love your fat slow ducks and neither you, pup nor ducks have ever done this before I'd look for a herding club or trainer in your area, who should have all the good hands on advice you need and some dog-broke runner ducks.

Some things are nearly impossible to learn without someone to show you. I'm not saying that you can't do it, but the likelihood of losing a duck or scolding her at the wrong time so you _don't_ lose a duck (and inhibiting her) - it's pretty much a given


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I was afraid of that... we live in a very small town in the dead center of nowhere! Could be hard to find someone to help train. I can live without her herding for me, it would just be fun. Maybe I'll try and, if I inhibit her, no biggie. She's not what I would call a "soft" dog, she's quite rambunctious, but really wants to learn and to please. It might be enough to make up for my lack of herding training experience.


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## wendle (Feb 22, 2006)

Here is a youtube video I found similar to what I was talking about in the other thread. I have no idea who it is. You don't really need the fancy gates, but can use a hog panel made in a circle if you want. Put a few posts in the ground as a very keen dog might push on the fence and upset things. After the initial adrenaline tapers off you'll find it's a little easier to get him to switch directions and be responsive to your actions. Work on this for a while until your dog starts to think circles are great. Collies tend to be in thinking dogs, so getting your dog in the habit of going around will be a good thing to start with. 
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvMpUzi7UGA[/ame]

Never mind what happens after they turned the sheep out of the pen and the collie kicked into chase mode. This is a great way to get sheep hurt or killed. It would have been better if they spent more time with the sheep penned and/or used less flighty sheep for starting the dog. Bottle lambs work decent at first since they just want to be underfoot and are oblivious to the dog. Even though you have ducks and not sheep, maybe you can get a little bit of an idea on how things need to work. Ducks typically don't stick tight to people, so the pen really helps at first.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

I trained my border collie by myself. I really wanted help, but it just wasn't available.

It was actually easier working my dog with the sheep than with the ducks.


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## wendle (Feb 22, 2006)

Maura said:


> Put your left arm out as you step to the right so that she can learn that when you do that, she is to move to her right/your left. Ditto with moving to the left.
> 
> .


If you decide to do this, please don't share the video, it will seriously make me crazy. It's like mixing agility, point to where you need to go, with blocking the dog. The actions are contradicting.


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## Otter (Jan 15, 2008)

GrannyCarol said:


> I was afraid of that... we live in a very small town in the dead center of nowhere!


 Ask around everywhere. Are there fiber festivals anywhere near you? I've never been to one without a herding trial. Ask your breed club, look up herding clubs, get in touch with 4H, ask at the feedstore. It may take some hunting but I'm sure there's someone in a reasonable distance.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I'm sure her breeder would know, she does herding trials with her dogs. I could do a couple of things - they'd be about 90 miles from here, but in the town my kids (and grandkids!) live in. I suspect the little ones would love to go watch (ages 5 to 9 and well behaved). I'll ask around. I can see I need to really see and experience what is done and how the training starts before I can do much. 

Also I am heavy and slow, I can't be running around the ducks (not that they'd tolerate that much activity without pretty much freaking out, I always work them very quietly). They are used to seeing Tango - they share a fence line. She won't be in the position of never having seen a duck before and they are getting somewhat used to her and not freaked out by her presence. I need slow motion herding! I'm sure it would be a lot harder to train than working her with sheep, which would be faster and more natural for Tango. I can herd my ducks with a finger wiggle at the boundary of their "bubble", or a hand wave if they are resistant. Heck, if Tango would do a down stay where I wanted her, she'd be like a moveable fence and a lot of help! 

But I can see that you are right, the next step is to find someone and watch or be involved. Thanks!


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

I have 2 labs that herd, Ducks, Chickens and Goats. This is what I was taught many years ago.

1st: Tie the dog to you, around your waist and no more than 1' from you and then go about your routine of taking care of the Ducks. Much easier to correct a dog that is within arms reach. Then as time goes on you let the rope out, a foot at a time.

2nd: Yours is a natural herder, mine are not. But they are trained in the same manner. Hunting or herding dogs are trained to hand signals and voice comands. When playing with your dog and you throw the ball/stick to the right, you use both voice comand and hand signal to let them know where you are going to throw it. After awhile when you hand signal or voice comand, they get it. The herding part comes natrual to dogs, it's controling the behavior

3rd: You don't want the dog herding all the time, my poultry free range, but when I but the dogs on chicken, duck or goat WATCH (my word) they know it's herding time.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

Fortunately we have a lot of fences, she does not have access to the ducks unless I give it to her, so I can control that part! I may start taking her with me to feed, etc, but I doubt they will come into their pen if I am standing there with the dog... I guess I'd get things ready, then go back behind them to drive them in. Doing even a little of the herding thing is going to be really different for me!


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## cybercat (Mar 29, 2005)

I would contact the breeder. She will have the best advise for teaching herding to Collies. They are not like border collies when herding so need to be handle a bit different. AHBA is a good place also to find local training group. Again you want a trainer that does loose eye upright stance. That is how collies herd. Not the sharp eye crouch stance of border collies.




GrannyCarol said:


> I was enjoying the Border Collie thread so much that I wanted to start a training thread. I have a one year old Smooth Collie ***** that I believe has a good amount of drive and instinct - her breeder breeds for a working Collie and does a lot with them, including herding tests. Now, I know that an instinct test isn't the best possible indicator of ability, but its better than nothing!
> 
> Tango is very smart, very willing, loves to learn and sometimes a little bit naughty. She is fascinated by the ducks, but always there is a fence between them or she is on leash around them. She has gotten loose with them once and wanted to pounce on them - but when I told her to "leave it", she left that duck and bounced at another one. She does sit and down pretty well, her come isn't so solid.
> 
> ...


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## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

I am assuming this is an adult? If so...get involved in herding groups. They are out there. Ask around at the local trainign facilities. You may need to travel, but she really needs to have the concepts down before using her with poultry. Personally, I have always watched pups for the natural instinct and started working with them as early as 6 weeks to watch me and worked from there. They went with me into the poultry pens at that age and learned not to chase- to watch me. Its not about chasing, catching, etc- it is about learning what you expect and where you want what animal moved to- its about communicating with your dog. Any collie can run the animals...many have a high enough prey drive that they will injure them as well. They need to have solid obedience IMO before being started on actual herding. I required a solid down...the dog has to drop at the signal. To get that signal...they had to be watching me, checking for direction constantly. I had one boy that we communicated so well I swear all I had to do was think it and he did it. He naturally knew how much pressure to apply depending on the animal. He usually helped me gather chickens when a storm was coming or helped me separate breeding sets. He would place a paw on the hens and hold them...run the roosters who liked to attack him and snatch them out of the air by thier tail feathers before he held them. ...and when we lost baby turkeys in the tall grass, he would lie down and gather it between his paws and lay his chin on it and wait for me to find him. When I wanted a specific bird, all I had to do was point. If I wanted them all in the coop, I have the command coop and he would gather them all and get them into the coop. He never harrassed the livestock. 
Now another dog I have (and still do)- a smooth boy, I worked with him when he was a pup, but then did not use him again till over 5 yrs old as I had lost heart for it after my special herding boy passed away. I had gotten goats a week before that I could not catch to get wormed, so decided to get him to help. I gave the command and pointed at the goat I wanted and he cut that goat out of the herd and took it to the corner of the fence and I was able to get ahold of it. I praised him and went about worming the goat...but failed to keep watch on him. It was my mistake. He set about getting another goat on his own...and proceeded to mount it like a ***** in heat. I commanded him off and to drop as soon as I noticed and he did, but it was too late. The goat fell to the ground. I thought for sure the goat had a heart attack and died. Fortunately, the goat did come to and poor Randy got labeled by my husband as Randy the goat ****er. Not the dogs fault...mine for failing to keep up on his training and then expecting him to perform flawlessly when he was clearly excited with a species he had not even been introduced to before and for not keeping communication with him while he was working. In hind sight it could have ended in disaster.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

She is just over a year old. She was five months old when I got her and had her back leg broken in an accident as a young pup. I think she spent a lot of time in a crate and on a lead and going to the vet. She's very smart and could use a job. I think she has instinct, she was bred for it as far as I can tell. I'm not an expert on herding dogs though - I'd know what to do for a Beagle or an English Setter.  

I'm not about to let her in with the ducks loose until I am confident I have control over the situation and her and she has a really solid down. At this point her down is pretty good, but not good enough, we've done more play training and messing around than anything serious. She's a blast to work with. 

I'm planning to find someone to help us learn before she gets to work on the ducks here! She did manage to slip the gate once and get in with them... she pounced the first duck, left it when I told her to "leave it" and pounced at another one, left that one when told to, did that again, then let me catch her. I was glad she didn't hurt anything, she just wanted them to move. I was really glad she was willing to listen to me when she was so wound up. 

She can be a bit naughty at times and chase when she's called, that will need some real work to be steady. She will sit or down in the yard when she's pretty excited, even when she doesn't want to be caught, so that's good. She does need some training though.


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## airotciv (Mar 6, 2005)

Sorry, LOL. I have had many great herding dogs and then there was Daisy, a great herding dog. But she could be naughty, she was trained to hand and voice commands as all the others are. Then there were times she would just run and chase the flocks, the other dogs have no clue what to do. After scholding her, she would just look at me, with that look I couldn't help myself. She never hurt any of them, just had her moments.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I've found that Tango will pretty much do what she's told to do, she loves to learn and to work, but she will find things to do that I never told her NOT to do.... ooops! lol She's a lot of fun. 

She is learning to catch balls and frisbees though, never had a dog that wanted to do those things, she loves it.


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