Grandinite

. . . is that they still obey their masters. Everybody and their border collie has linked to a blog post at Eject! Eject! Eject! entitled “tribes”. You may as well join the herd, turn up Who Let The Dogs Out and read it. It is a good read, but I wonder how many sheep out there now think they are sheepdogs.

It’s too bad the best part was written by someone else, so the author really is riding on some coattails here. Go and read that version to get the meat of the matter.

Here’s a comment from that old post:

As the author of two best selling dog training books and the owner of a very successful dog training company for seven years, please allow me to add the following:

While I’ve never worked sheepdogs outside of the obedience and agility context, it is my understanding the sheepdogs live with the herd, and actually see themselves as one of the herd– which spikes their native dog-ish territorial instinct when the herd is threatened.

They are not despised by the herd.

Now, these are the sheepdog/livestock protection dogs I speak of.

The sheepdog/herding dogs have a different job: To herd the flock from one stable to another.

There has to be another option outside of being a sheep, wolf or sheepdog. I doubt that very many people see themselves as sheep. It is always the ‘other’ who is the sheep. Only cowards would call themselves sheep. Read THIS piece of citizen journalism and tell me your general impression of the sheepdogs. Sheep respond when barked at, but sheepdogs just bark what they’re told.

If I were to play an animistic character in someone’s ‘us vs. them’ potty-mouthed feel-good-ego-stroking parable, I’d be a sniper-rifle toting, supersonic peregrine falcon with laser eyeballs, japanese-sword talons and a bearskin cap. You could eat as many sheepdogs, sheep, wolves and trout as you wanted with that sort of getup.