Lucas narrowly beat out Ellie for best Rookie Canaan Dog at the 2015 instinct test.
Ellie showed good tending abilities at the 2015 instinct test, with just a touch of "evil"!
5/11/13 lesson:
Real lessons are started.
Ziva is learning some impulse control: no bolting into the round pen, no body slamming the stock, etc!!
Ziva gets back out on stock after a long hiatus:
Click here (warning - lots of barking!)
Ziva at the herding instinct test at the CDCA 2011 National Specialty
9.5 month old Ziva took 1st place in the experienced category at the herding instinct test on Boer goats. The evaluator's comments summed Ziva up perfectly:
VERY PUSHY, VERY INTERESTED
VERY PUSHY, VERY INTERESTED
Click on this Link to see: 8.5 month old Ziva Herding
Question: Please help this non herding person understand this video. To me it just looks like a dog chasing sheep? Rather agressively, I might add. I would not allow any dog to do that to my sheep.
Joan Capaiu Greene, past Herding Chair CDCA: Thank you for asking! That's a great question. This 8.5 mo old puppy is handled by a professional stockdog trainer, using 'school sheep' who are used to beginner sheepdogs. Puppy's behaving *exactly* as we want to see, the same as every good stockdog does at this stage of their careers. If her owner can consistently get her to classes once or twice a week, within a year she'll probably be a grand young worker.
Things to look for which show the pup's actually HERDING, not just chasing sheep: Ziva is moving the woolies consistently toward the handler and keeping them bunched there - if some run off, she moves them back toward the rest of the group. When the handler moves, the puppy moves the sheep towards her. All this is done without any real commands, cues or signals from the trainer - it's virtually all instinct at this point. Another clue that this is herding vs hunting behavior: she is *not* biting off hunks of wool, which a lot of youngsters and untrained adults do at this point in training. That too is impressive.
This video is just about a picture-perfect early training session for a young sheepdog. Once she's trained she will normally work a good distance from the sheep most of the time. It takes a LOT of time and work to get stockdogs to perform as calmly as we see in herding trials and the movies, just as it takes a lot of time and effort to teach agility dogs, police dogs, hunting dogs, search and rescue dogs, service dogs .. you name it. Believe me, stockdog owners and breeders who have seen this pup's herding videos are excited over how well the fabulous Miss Ziva is doing at this point. ♥
By the way, those sheep are probably around 80-100 lb and the pup is a mere 45 lb or thereabouts. They're all adults with heavy coats, used to young untrained dogs AND well protected by that shepherd. She owns the sheep and there's no way that pup's going to hurt HER woolies.
Joan Capaiu Greene, past Herding Chair CDCA: Thank you for asking! That's a great question. This 8.5 mo old puppy is handled by a professional stockdog trainer, using 'school sheep' who are used to beginner sheepdogs. Puppy's behaving *exactly* as we want to see, the same as every good stockdog does at this stage of their careers. If her owner can consistently get her to classes once or twice a week, within a year she'll probably be a grand young worker.
Things to look for which show the pup's actually HERDING, not just chasing sheep: Ziva is moving the woolies consistently toward the handler and keeping them bunched there - if some run off, she moves them back toward the rest of the group. When the handler moves, the puppy moves the sheep towards her. All this is done without any real commands, cues or signals from the trainer - it's virtually all instinct at this point. Another clue that this is herding vs hunting behavior: she is *not* biting off hunks of wool, which a lot of youngsters and untrained adults do at this point in training. That too is impressive.
This video is just about a picture-perfect early training session for a young sheepdog. Once she's trained she will normally work a good distance from the sheep most of the time. It takes a LOT of time and work to get stockdogs to perform as calmly as we see in herding trials and the movies, just as it takes a lot of time and effort to teach agility dogs, police dogs, hunting dogs, search and rescue dogs, service dogs .. you name it. Believe me, stockdog owners and breeders who have seen this pup's herding videos are excited over how well the fabulous Miss Ziva is doing at this point. ♥
By the way, those sheep are probably around 80-100 lb and the pup is a mere 45 lb or thereabouts. They're all adults with heavy coats, used to young untrained dogs AND well protected by that shepherd. She owns the sheep and there's no way that pup's going to hurt HER woolies.
Herding Instinct Test 11/23/10 in Benson AZ.
(click to enlarge)
7 Canaan Dogs gather for herding in Florence AZ 3/2010.
Left to right: Oz, Eileen, Joan, Mary Russell, Risa, Shani, Taavi, Maccabee, Nathan, Carrie, Della and Fran Evans