I brought my GSD to a youth soccer game this weekend. A woman was sitting next to me and started telling me about her young Austrailian Shepherd, and how that week he had had his first success in keeping a 300+lb. ram in line. She said that she has always loved GSDs, and would like to have one, but she needed a shepherd dog, so got an Austrailian Shepherd instead.
OK, I'm new to this working dog stuff. But German Shepherd Dog does have the word shepherd in it and I pointed that out to her and told her GSDs were originally bred and used as herding dogs. But that got me to wondering. When I look at working dog web sites the emphasis seems to be on shutzhund, agility, protection, that kind of thing. I don't see too much about herding. Are working line GSDs still considered suitable to be shepherd dogs?
The GSD does what is called boundry style hearding. Very much different from the gathering style that the Borders Collies and Aussies use.
Use the search mode and look up HGH, Boundry style herding, Continental style herding. The AKC site also has explinations of the different styles.Ed also has a video of GSD style herding.
Ellen's site (listed in Bob's post) is a great herding resource. Ed has several tapes showing Shepherds doing herding competitions.
As with any other working activity, you will need to get dogs that come from lines where they are actively worked on that task. That is, don't expect the results of that "Herding Instinct Test" to really mean anything.
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GSD as a sheep herding dog
#113991 - 09/17/2006 10:55 PM 
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