Collies Race Clock With Flock Dogs’ Maneuvers On Display In National Sheepdog Finals

Roddy MacDiarmid recalled the time he was teaching a border collie a whistle command for maneuvering sheep that the dog already knew by spoken command.

“I was four to five days practicin’, and he was gettin’ it,” said McDiarmid, who traveled from Scotland to judge the National Sheepdog Finals being held this week in an alfalfa field at the Kerr Ranch 15 miles south of Klamath Falls.

Then one morning, the dog instantly responded to the whistle command on the first try.

“That dog went into the kennel (the night before) and thought about it,” said McDiarmid. “It’s been proved the collie dog is the cleverest dog in the world.”

Using whistles, words and hand signals from hundreds of yards away, handlers stand with a shepherd’s crook in their hand and help their dogs race against the clock as they maneuver sheep through gates and into a pen.

“They’re the athlete, and you’re the co-mind,” said Sally Lacy, who came from New Hampshire to compete with her dog, Bob. “Your mind can help them in certain situations, and they learn to trust you.”

This is the first time the national finals has been held on the West Coast. Fifty dogs will compete in the finals today. To attract the competition to Oregon, local border collie handlers formed the Klamath Basin Stock Dog Association to play host for the event.

Originally bred in the border country between Scotland and England, the dogs are usually black and white, but some have some brown on them. They range from 30 to 70 pounds and can have long or short hair.

“There’s so much variety because they’re not bred for their looks,” said Geri Byrne of Tulelake, Calif. “They’re bred for their brains.”

The dogs creep toward the sheep.

“We’ve taken this willingness to creep forward onto stock and put different commands to it, and turned it into something that’s invaluable to the farmer,” said Alasdair MacRae, a native Scot who trains border collies in Virginia.

Each dog and handler starts by walking past the judges’ table to a post. On command, the dog is sent to gather four sheep, which are placed in the field 400 yards away. Sometimes the sheep are hard to spot, even in a green field.

The dog’s run to the sheep is called the outrun. The moment the dog and sheep make contact is the lift.

In the qualifying rounds, the dog fetches or herds the sheep through two sets of gates, around the handler, then through another set of gates, before returning to the handler and a place called the shedding ring.

There the handler can leave his post and join the dog to break off two sheep. The regrouped sheep are then guided into a corral. The sheep are released from the pen to be guided into a second shedding ring, where the dog and handler split off one sheep from the group of four.

Handler and dog have 15 minutes for the maneuver. They earn up to 100 points.

During the finals, dogs must work with two groups of sheep over a longer course. Handler and dog work up to 800 yards apart.

The handler guides the dog with commands such as “Come by,” which tells the dog to move clockwise around the sheep. “Away to me” means circle the stock counterclockwise. “Steady” means slow down.

“They’re such driven workaholics,” said Lacy.

“They will die out there if you don’t watch them,” said competitor Jan Jason of Coalinga, Calif. “They will run until they drop.”