Saturday, October 02, 2010

Sheep herding trials

I noticed in the paper the other day an ad for a sheep herding trials featuring German Shepherds. Since I 've never seen a trial like this in person, and the only televised ones I've seen involved border collies (think Babe) I got up, finished my chores and headed over to Rushville to see how these things went.

 The judge was from Bavaria.  I learned that the type of herding they do there is different from the small herd stuff they do in this country. It was all very interesting and quiet beautiful.
The highlight of the morning was when the 3rd contestant walked down to the sheep pen, walked around it looking at the sheep. She then walked over to the judge, said something and pointed. I heard the judge say, "Well, that IS why we check them".  The judge beckoned the farm owner who walked into the pen and promptly picked up 2 new born lambs!! It was perfect!!

If you are interested in this type of large herd sheep herding, check out this site: http://www.german-shepherdherding.com/sheepherding.htm

2 comments:

Kether said...

This reminded me of a story Dave tells about his family back in Transylvania... apparently they were sheep herding folk back in the old country--but then again, so was everyone in the village. All the villages sheep were together in one flock. One time his Poppy was telling him a story that involved in the sheep and Dave asked how they knew whose was whose in that big group of sheep and his Poppy said, indignantly, "You know your own sheep!"
It cracks both of us up.
specially because Dave says it in his Poppy's accent.

Diane said...

This is my sort of event!