Skye slowly moved toward the mother sheep, which is called a ewe. The ewe’s lambs, a bit confused took some time to catch on but ended up going in the direction that their mother went. In this case, Skye, as directed by me, moved the ewe and lambs, just days old, into a small field for their first-day of sunshine and grass. Lambs will eat solids very early in their lives and being outside is very healthy for them. A well-experienced dog like Skye knows how to be patient with mother ewes and awkward baby lambs. On our homestead, our Border Collies will work with mother ducks and mother chickens, called hens, as well. Herding dogs like Border Collies and Kelpies and Aussies and Cattle Dogs all can work with mothers and young and its a great tool on a grass-based farm if they do. These dogs have been breed for centuries to work with livestock in large and small numbers and with livestock young and old.
A few days later Skye and her goose control teammate for the day, Blade, arrived at a clients property in Massachusetts, with Caleb as the handler. The client had an extra concern, a family of geese had moved into a pond by an entrance to the property. The property is a privet retreat were guests walk through the gate where the family had set up raising their young. It is a lovely small pond with flowers on the banks and clear mountain water. The pond is also a great place to raise young geese as there is beautiful green grass. The problem was, the male goose, the dad, as most are, was protective of his family and had started chasing the guests.
Caleb and Skye and Blade watched the geese behavior for a few minutes. Then Caleb set out, directed, Blade to the opposite side of the pond from where the geese were on the grass. And then Caleb set out Skye around the pond to herd the geese family, mom and dad and the goslings. Geese parents will head toward water when they perceive danger. Predators can be a fox, or coyote someones stray dog or a hawk or an osprey. I recently saw two ospreys sitting in a tree over a Connecticut pond waiting for a mother goose on a small island to move her baby geese from were they had been hiding under her.
As Skye approached the geese family very slowly using her Border Collie stalking style, also known as herding, the geese hesitated. They did not want to walk away from the safety of the pond. But since Blade was swimming across the small pond at them, the mom and dad geese turned and walked with their young away from the pond and away from our client’s walkway entrance. Skye herded the geese family far over the lawn going slow enough to maintain a distance not to frighten the mom and dad geese and the goslings. But she herded just fast enough, with enough space, to move the geese family to a wooded pond in the back of the property. There the geese family could live away from all the human traffic and get the safety of that pond from wild predators. Caleb’s visit was the 5th visit to this pond to try to move the geese family. And this was the first successful herding. Geese family herding is a delicate job that takes time and patience. We wait a few weeks for baby geese to grow into goslings to herd geese families. Young geese grow up fast. Herd-Chasing flocks of geese that readily fly off when they see the Border Collies is much easier.
Caleb got Skye and Blade back in the vehicle for the ride home to nearby New York. The geese family may decide to come back to that entrance pond. But with our agreement with our clients, we are in place to do the same job again, if need be. With nature, animals, you never know, that is what is so appealing about it. Caleb drove home and arrived in time for evening chores. He and I checked our ewes and lambs and the one remaining ewe who had not given birth yet. It would be any day now. That meant waking up several times in the night to check on her. That’s life on a farm. It’s a lot of work and takes a lot of care. You have to enjoy hard work and love working with animals to do well.